How I got engaged...

to eveyone that we have not told yet, alison faith gelb and i are engaged. and to everyone who wanted to know the story here is a detailed account. [to everyone who really couldnt care to hear, dont read further.]

After spending rosh hashana with ali's family, I hijacked her and flew to vegas instead of sf where she thought we were having a quiet dinner at jackson filmore.

Ali started seeing weird lights in the desert and realized it was vegas. She started yelling in the back. Dave and I shut the pilot doors.

I told ali we were going for a fun vegas night because the past wk was hard for her moving to sf. She didn't think we were getting engaged. She said her nails weren't done and since I didn't care she thought it was going to be mexico over her bday.

We checked into the wynn (where we had our first date weekend despite judy's warnings). The front desk lady nearly blew yelling out 'congratulations. Isn't this ur anniversary?'

We went to our fabulous phat fairway villa where she proceeded to lay down and get sick to the point I couldn't get her up. She felt flu-ish like she had three heads. I started getting nervous that the whole plan was going south.

Finally got her up and out at 9:50 to catch the last seating at alex, a beautiful french restaurant where we were seated in a banquette. the staff was all set to give her the ring with desert with a dramatic lifting of a covered plate.

It was tough keeping all this secret from ali, especially with the waiter giving me knowing looks. I secretly gave the ring to the hostess, telling ali I was asking for aspirins.

I had an amazing 6 course meal (hers and mine) and then realized she was too sick and passed out for me to propose. At one point Ali woke up to say 'I'm glad were not getting engaged tonight!'

I stopped the desert ring in its trax realizing I needed a different plan having the waiter sneak me the ring back with the check.

Luckily, the chocolate desert brought her back. We stopped in the vip salon for tea and fruits, and with her forming whole sentences I realized she could now coherently accept a proposal.

(Ali points out that I never actually proposed but that's a small detail.)

I pulled out the ring and showed it to her and said, 'I've wanted to give you this for a while. Its been burning a hole in my pocket.' Ali got excited and I believe I put it on her finger but she's not sure. Then I said, 'I've searched for you, I've worked for you, I've grown for you.'

Then ali said, 'you have to propose to me.' At which time another couple came by and were first to congratulate us.

With ali feeling much better, we decided to go gambling, well I gambled and at one point almost hit a hard six for an $11k payout but happily ended almost even.

we made it home by 2am so ali could get up for her 7am conference call.

Since it was too late to cal everyone, we decided to post a picture of her hand with the ring on my blog and facebook to quickly tell the world.

I know ali plans to talk with each of you but we wanted to give you the whole story right away.

And of course ali's phone died this morning so she's having to wait till this afternoon to start dialing everyone.

We're landing in sf this afternoon. Ali wants me to add that (of course) she wants the ring size double checked and really needs her nails done and we haven't eaten all day.