Erin Miller

I have been meaning to write a blog post for a while. I was planing to post an update about the Christmas trip to Mexico, but that post has been overtaken by recent events, at least for now. I will say that neither Christmas in Mexico, nor a guitar player singing “Feliz Navidad” are overrated.

Last night, Dan proposed to me in front of the Capitol.

I worked kind of late on Friday, a usual thing for me since there is just always lots to finish up at the end of the week. I walked home and arrived around 8:30. I was greeted by a very excited puppy dog who was contentedly munching on a bone. Dan had fed and walked the pup and told me to get ready for dinner because we had reservations at one of our favorite places in the city, Bistro Cacao, where we last ate on our four year dating anniversary. I got ready quickly and we headed out to dinner. As per usual, the food and drinks were amazing. When we left the restaurant, Dan told me to follow him, in the opposite direction of our place, and let’s not forget that it was pretty cold here last night. We passed a bar on the corner where I thought we might be heading. Then we passed another restaurant/bar that we had talked about trying sometime (called The Monocle, which we like mostly for its name). It was the last business in sight. We kept walking and headed towards the Senate office buildings. By now, I had a sense that something was up. After a few more blocks, Dan looks up and says, “I got a bit turned around” — classic. We walked another block and I pointed out the Capitol. Dan said, “great” and we headed right for it. As we walked up along it’s right side, I told myself to try to remember this moment and I remember clearly looking up at the Statue of Freedom. Dan put the to-go box down on a pile of snow and rummaged through his coat pocket. He pulled out a box and then threw his ski jacket down on the snow. He got down on one knee, and said something like, “Well, I followed you out to this city, so I figured it made sense to do this here, in the center of it. Erin Ashley Miller, will you marry me.” By then, I was laughing, and I said yes. He said, “well, then let me put this on.” After a bit of hesitation as I tried to remember which hand these things go on, he slipped it on to my ring finger. We kissed for a bit in front of the Capitol and started walking towards home, though, by then, I was no longer cold.

The ring is beautiful. I keep looking at my hand as I do different things and thinking about how great it looks. It looks awesome holding a wine glass, it looks awesome resting on my shoulder, it looks awesome getting cereal out of the box, and it looks awesome typing up this blog post. It is, unfortunately, slightly too big, so we will have to get it re-sized, but I am not willing to part with it for a couple of days just yet.

I woke up this morning and realized that aside from feeling the ring on my finger, nothing really felt too different — kind of like after you have a birthday and someone asks if you feel any older — “no, I feel pretty much like I did yesterday.” I explained this to one of my best friends, and she said, “yeah, you should know that’s pretty much how it feels when you get married too.” And, well, I suppose that’s perfect.

Check out Dan’s post and see more pictures.