NowMissyL

~ How We Met~ By: Missy Kappes Andy and I met on the night that I went with his roommate to go to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I remember bending over to pet one of the cats and the first thing I saw out of the corner of my eye was Andy, who was very shy at the time. Our friend introduced us and I kind of cornered him in his studio. We sat and talked for awhile while my friends and I waited until it was time to go to the show. Then I left and he stayed at his apartment, Rocky Horror not being his type of scene. We'd hang out for awhile a few times after that until I finally gave him my number and waited for him to call me. Our first date was Starbucks. On our second date (which has significance later in our story) was a hike through Crosby Park. ~ The Proposal ~ June 11, 2010 By: Andy Livingston It was a stormy Friday two days after Missy got back from Washington. She went to the dentist, and I went to my car to make a phone call. I enlisted the help of my mother in placing signs along the Mississippi, in the park where Missy and I had our second date, Hidden Falls / Crosby Nature Farm Park. During the two and a half weeks Missy was visiting her parents in Washington, I worked on and recorded a song which I had started over a year ago for her. It was from this song that I took the lyrics and wrote them in sidewalk chalk on a series of blackboard signs. I had met with my mother the Wednesday of that week just hours before Missy got back, and only a bit after I got the ring. We walked through the park and decided where signs should go, and I wrote on them right there in the park. Here are the signs: We've come a long way from the days Of walking along the river On the beach In the sand Too afraid to hold your hand Marry me? I brought her there in an hour-long break in the storm. Timing couldn't have been more tight, as my mother was leaving the park seconds before we arrived. I didn't want to have to stall, as Missy was already getting impatient. I didn't know how to explain that we needed to be in that park at that time. I just said I wanted to go to the park. She wanted to go to the zoo, or go home to get different shoes for walking in the dirt, but we didn't have enough time. I brought her down along the beach when she started noticing the signs. There was some group grilling lunch at the picnic shelter, so Missy thought the signs were somehow associated with them. As we went along, the signs got more specific, and Missy started to wonder, but still didn't think anything was going to happen that day. She got to the second to the last sign, "Too afraid to hold your hand", when Missy mentioned that I was afraid to hold her hand when walking through the park together for the first time. We got to the last sign, I tried to kneel, but Missy just about bowled me over hugging me. It took her a bit to realize that I probably wanted an answer, so she said yes.