I knew Sonny was going to talk to my parents and ask for their blessing on Saturday May 29, so the proposal could come any time after that. As we left my sister's place that day, Sonny made some comments about expecting it "in the next week or two". He made it sound like he needed the time to get his great plan organized. I thought he was trying to throw me off because he had already told me about a special date planned for Tuesday night. It was the day before a full moon and he said it was a special surprise and asked me if I had a nice dinner dress to wear. I thought I had him figured out and the proposal would be on Tuesday.

Sunday May 30 was supposed to be a day spent with Sonny's mom and brother. His brother couldn't make it, but we still planned to get together with his mom and go geocaching. I wasn't thinking anything about a proposal happening. In the morning, as I drove to Sonny's house, the tire blew on my borrowed car. Sonny came to help and then we called triple-A. This delayed our morning start. Then when we finally got back to his house and called his mom, she said that she had made plans and couldn't go with us. Sonny acted really disappointed, but I found out later that this was all part of his plan.

We talked about possibly changing plans and going for a bike ride instead of geocaching. Sonny acted like he was seriously considering that, but then he said, "No, let's just go geocaching as we planned, even though mom can't go". The whole day seemed unplanned, like we were making it up as we went along, so that just added to my oblivion to the unfolding plan. I had no idea about the precise time schedule Sonny was following.

As we drove down into San Diego, Sonny gave me the 5 geocache sites that he had printed off the web-site. I plugged the coordinates into the GPS and we talked about the ones we might try to do. We stopped at REI to do some shopping and walked around the store a bit. Sonny acted casual and nonchalant the whole day, so I had no suspicions.

As we got near to Point Loma, Sonny mentioned that he thought the oranges that we were bringing to his mom (from the ranch) would get too hot in the back of the car, so we should drop them by his mom's place, even though she wasn't there. I found out later this was a stall tactic. Then he told me about this great photography spot that he had found and said he would like to show it to me. We found the place and took some pictures of us together using the tripod. It really was a beautiful view of San Diego bay, but this was another stall tactic.

Back in the car, I started looking at the cache sites. There were several in Old Town and I thought it would be fun to go there first and also get some lunch. But Sonny said he wasn't really hungry yet since we had a late breakfast and that he kind of wanted to go out to Cabrillo and look for the one out there. I was OK with that plan, and still had no idea what was going on.

We drove down to the end of Point Loma, to Cabrillo National Monument and the GPS device led us down toward the tide pools. We parked in a nearby lot and started walking down the cliffs. Sonny found the cache in some bushes and gave it to me to open. It was a typical-looking cache container, a Rubbermaid container painted green like camouflage. Inside, I found hundreds of small plastic and metal gold colored rings and a little index card that said, "choose one". I didn't immediately "get it", though I thought the cache was a little strange. I commented on the lack of a log book and the fact that it only had one type of treasure in it. Sonny was acting very nonchalant and just said I should pick out a ring, so I picked out a little purple one.

He kept asking if that was really the one I wanted and then he finally pointed to a "code" phrase on the container that made me realize that he had planted the cache. It finally dawned on me what was happening, and I said, "Is there a REAL RING in here??" Right away I started digging in the rings trying to find it. At one point I said to him, "Give me your hat!" so I could dump out the rings and do a better search.

I finally found the real ring (a gorgeous diamond solitaire), and then Sonny got down on his knee and told me he loved me and asked me to marry him. He also said the words that he had put on the card with the first bouquet of flowers he sent me for Valentines Day: "I'm so glad I met you. Some events are life changing. Be Mine." Of course I said YES, and proceeded to give him a big kiss. Then he told me that the man with the telephoto camera was in on the scheme and was taking pictures of us! He waved everybody over (including Linda and Larry who had been the lookouts and had radioed to Gary, the photographer, that we were on the way) and then I began to hear about the planning and scheming that had been going on for weeks and months.

The day was absolutely beautiful, clear, sunny, warm, and he couldn't have picked a more beautiful spot, on the cliffs overlooking the beach. The geocaching aspect was so meaningful since that was how we met. And even though I knew a proposal was coming soon, he completely took me by surprise on this particular day.