Such is Life!

Howie and I were both working on our Master's degrees before we were engaged. I was getting mine at UT and Howie was attending Arizona State University (ASU) in Phoenix. We moved Howie out to Phoenix in the hottest part of the year. I have never before felt like I was actually standing and walking around in an oven. It was very surreal. After boarding the plane at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, I cried as the plane left the ground, knowing that Howie and I would spend the next year or so apart as we both finished up our Master's degrees at our respective universities. On one of my trips to visit Howie, I was surprised by a proposal.

(Our first home in Phoenix, Arizona. Howie looks angry in this picture, but it was just the sun in his eyes )

Howie took me to a beautiful restaurant called "Such is Life". We had planned on becoming engaged, but the time and place of the proposal was to be determined by Howie. I was convinced that it would be on this trip, but as the time grew nearer to my departure, I was increasingly convinced that this was not going to be it. At the restaurant I, as my Scarlett O'Hara self, was bitterly complaining about how hard it was to be apart and to not know when we were finally going to have an official engagement. Suddenly as the violins serenaded us at our table, and I pouted with tears streaming down my face, I looked up to see a little black box with my engagement ring. The rest is history. Howie had wanted to make sure that his proposal was a definite surprise. Although I don't like to admit that I was so pouty, I am glad that our engagement was a surprise.