Mike & I – Taken the day before Easter, 2010.

I’ve never been a follower of any particular religion. I was baptized as a baby, but that’s as far as I got. With that said, Easter has never been much of a big deal for me.

Sure, when I was a wee lil’ whippersnapper, I took much delight in hunting for my basket full of pastel-wrapped goodies & rainbow-colored jelly beans… What kid didn’t? But once I learned that the whole “Easter bunny” thing was a big sham, the holiday just kind of lost its appeal. It went downhill even more once I hit my teenage years & went vegetarian. Easter ham? No thanks!

It wasn’t until two years ago, in 2010, that Easter once again meant something to me. But it had nothing to do with God, or the Easter bunny… or ham.

Mike & I go to his mother’s house every Easter to enjoy a late-morning homemade breakfast. That Easter morning started off as per usual: Mike was up & showered by 9; I was still in bed, catching as many z’s as he’d allow.

The night before, Mike had mentioned something along the lines of “Maybe if you’re lucky, the Easter bunny will leave you some treats in the morning”. I didn’t think anything of it until he came to wake me up the next day, telling me I had some egg hunting to do. Huh?

So I decided to play along and went downstairs to begin the hunt. He handed me a plastic egg that housed a little slip of paper with a clue on it. (I honestly don’t remember what it said – I have all of the clues saved, but no idea what order they were in. Sorry, Mike.) Each clue led me to a specific object or location in the house, where another plastic egg was hidden. I found eggs in sugar jars… on dusty treadmills… in my old Nintendo system… until finally I reached the last clue & found a basket hanging from the showerhead.

I brought the basket into the kitchen to check out what the “Easter bunny” left me. It was full of vegan chocolate bars & a tin of custom-blended Adagio tea. Mike told me to open the tea & give it a sniff. I immediately spotted the tiny slip of paper inside before I even got the clear lid off. My heart kind of skipped a beat when I thought of what might be on that paper… So I opened the lid, pulled out the “last clue” & read it: “Better turn around now. Michael has something very important he wants to ask you…“

Awwwwwww…

I turned around and Mike was on his knee, holding a diamond ring. I was speechless. He is (well, was) the most unromantic person I have ever known, so I couldn’t believe what was happening… He asked me to marry him, and being my classy self, I blurted out “Are you fucking serious?!”. Yeah, I’m not proud of that part. Haha. I was laughing/shaking and finally managed to say “Yes“.

We were married on October 2nd of that same year, in a small family reception at the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, New York.

Now here we are, two Easters later, patiently awaiting the arrival of our 2 little rosebuds.

(Oh, Mike recently wrote his own version of this on his blog too!)