Chris surprises Lea all the time with sweet gestures and small gifts, so Lea wasn’t shocked when Chris took her out for a romantic dinner that overlooked the Pacific Ocean after Lea had finished her stressful CPA exam.

Afterwards as they walked toward a look-out point at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, Chris brought along a shoebox and said, “I have a special present for you.”

Chris a Marine Biologist, avid free diver and spearfisherman told Lea that he wanted to show her one of his new dive spots.  Lea thought she was getting a new pair of running shoes.

Chris opened the box and started handing her mementos from all the experiences they had shared in the past year, tickets from their first “official date” to the Long Beach Grand Prix, boarding passes from their first trip to Hawaii, and the pamphlet and tickets from “Wicked” during  a Valentine’s Day trip to San Francisco.

Lea felt so touched that Chris had thought to keep these mementos from their life together that she asked if she could possibly, you know, just maybe use them for her scrapbooking.

Then there was one more thing…

Chris gave Lea a Beanie Baby, the Hope Bear, he had bought the bear during a particularly rough time in his life when both his beloved dog and aunt had died.

“I told her that the reason I had chosen that bear was because I had hoped that she would consider marrying me, I dropped on one knee and opened the ring box.  She screamed out in surprise “oh honey” and put the ring on.  She was so excited that she had forgotten that I was asking her to marry me so I asked her again and she said, Yes!”

“From what I can remember, he told me the story about the bear and then towards the end, he kneeled down and said something like “I’m HOPING that you will….blah, blah, blah. That’s all I heard because he took out the ring box and opened it and I don’t know exactly what happened from there.  I can tell you what was in my head and Chris can tell you what actually happened!

In my head I was thinking, “Oh my god, Oh my god, what is happening!?!  This is it, I can’t believe this is actually happening right now!!!  Ahhhh, I’m so excited!  Look at that beautiful ring. Oh my…”

Lea’s advice to guys:  Say your speech first then take out the ring so that you don’t have to compete for her attention with the ring you’re holding.

It was really sweet to witness the two of them back at Palos Verdes, Malaga Cove and Point Vicente Park and photograph them as they relived the emotions of that night.

Enjoy the photos guys and I’ll see you two in sixty-one days!

After chatting with Chris a bit about his proposal to Lea he sent me an email last night with this to say about the dive he had just returned from:  ”I ended up shooting a mid 40 lb white seabass where I proposed to Lea .  That’s one of the reasons I chose that spot to ask her to marry me.”

So awesome!

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