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Friday, October 14, 2005

Proposal #1 - Saturday, March 17, 2001

Being that yesterday was our wedding anniversary, I thought I'd share a little trip down memory lane. Below is the e-mail I sent to friends and family announcing our engagement. It tells the story of how Uwe proposed to me (and I have a few photos from that day).
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Subject: It's Official! We're Engaged!!!

Saturday morning I was driving to Birds (a restaurant in Hollywood) to meet my friend Ann (a good friend of mine who I kept in touch with since High School) for Saturday brunch. I was minutes from the restaurant and suddenly the mobile phone rang and it was Uwe on the other end saying "Rose, come home. Just come home." As funny as it sounds, my first thought was our dog got out and got hit by a car. So I said "What happened?" Uwe's response was "just trust me and come home." So I made a quick u-turn and rushed home.

As I pulled up to the house I saw red heart stickers that ran up the wooden gate that leads to the front door of the house, and a note was nailed there with my name on it. I opened the note and it said "I wanted to ask you for one thing and one thing only. Follow your heart."

I followed the trail of red heart stickers that lead from the gate, to the front entrance, to the front door, through the living room, through the bedroom, onto the bed, then onto our bedroom balcony, and then through our sitting room and then outside, down the stairs into the backyard. Every few feet there were sweet notes and poems and even a message on his computer. Each one had a special meaning for each location. I want to share one with you:

At first I fell in love
with the brightness of your eyes
with your laugh
with your joy in life

Now I love your weeping too
and your fear of life
and the helplessness
in your eyes

But I will help with your fear
for my joy in life
is still the brightness of your eyes.

After reading that I burst out into tears. Uwe had thought of everything! Even the packet of tissues by the note saying "by the way...take a few you might need them." And at another location, a bottle of water telling me I had a ways more to walk. And the music was timed perfectly to go off once I stepped out onto the balcony.
At the bottom of the stairs leading to the backyard the red heart stickers stopped and in their place were huge red hearts painted onto the concrete patio with arrows directing me where to go. The arrows lead to the garden beside the side our house where I saw Uwe and a small table with a white tablecloth. On the table were lit candles that formed the shape of a heart, and 2 champagne glasses. Surrounding the table were 2 chairs, a bird bath Uwe had filled with water and floating flowers, and 2 paintings (one that I had done of our garden, and the other an oil painting Uwe had painted for me called "2 people, 1 heart." Uwe had me sit in one of the chairs and then dropped down on one knee and proposed. It was the perfect setting and so intimate and so "us". I couldn't have asked for a more romantic, creative proposal. I saw in Uwe's teary eyes just how much he loved me and at that moment I knew we would spend the rest of our lives together and said yes. (Later Uwe said my lip was quivering... haha.)

Afterwards we had brunch at the restaurant we had our first date at (Cha Cha Cha, a Caribbean restaurant in the Valley) and were both grinning from ear to ear.

It's a very precious time for us both and we wanted to share our engagement and happiness with all of our friends and family (I've attached a few photos of that day. I hope they leave you smiling at Uwe's sweetness.) We are planning to have our wedding in October of this year and will keep you posted. We also have a website that a dear friend of ours,Wolfgang is putting together with pictures of us and any updates. (I don't want to give you the address now, since it has a ghastly picture of me in Hawaii after I just woke up from a long car ride.) I will forward the address once the site has been updated and is finished.

Oh that's one other thing...Uwe wanted to propose in the morning but he knew that I would never agree to having my picture taken in my bathrobe so conspired with my friend Ann who called me a few days earlier to meet for brunch. They had it all planned out. I'd get dressed and ready for brunch and after I left, that would give Uwe about 30 minutes to prepare everything. I'm still so touched that Uwe was so considerate and all the effort he put into making it one of the most memorable days of my life.

And thank you Ann for your Academy award winning performance and totally throwing me off the trail and for being such a good friend! Also, thank you Wolfgang for your friendship and for donating your creative juices to putting together a website for us!

Aufwiedersehen!

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