Mekuna

In the beginning...

It was Saturday morning when I woke up with a bit of a cold coming on and Max asked if I still wanted to go to the Japanese Garden (he had asked earlier in the week and we had decided on Saturday to go).  I said 'sure, I'll pop a Sudafed and suck it up'. Then Max gave me a note. The note read in summary 'lets play a game and asked me to take him to a spot where we sat on a sheet spinning poke stops (Pokemon Go) and he got his first kiss from his true love'. I knew this was referring to our first real date on Mt. Tabor.

Mt Tabor - we went up to the spot where we had been sitting drinking champagne the night of our first date and spun the poke stop as we had before. After a kiss, he pulled out of his pocket another note.  It read in summary 'let's get a bite to eat and take me to the place where I got my first note'. This was referring to Matador on Burnside.  Max surprised me at the airport with a dozen roses after a vacation I had been on 2 1/2 weeks after we started dating. That night we left the airport and went to Matador to grab a bite to eat and he gave me a wooden box with a note inside. The note said 'that he was so excited to have me back in Portland and that he made this box (ok, that he decorated it - it had felt on the top and bottom and I just thought oh sweet man he just glued some felt on it but it was still super sweet) and that he thought the box would be a fun way to store any future notes he should give me.  

Matador - we were seated and ordered margaritas and when they brought out the margaritas the server tried to give me his mango blended margarita with a sugar rim and I was like noooo, mine is the classic on the rocks with salt. (No point to that side note other than I find it funny). Then I went to open my menu and Max had snuck in another note without me seeing it (he's pretty damn proud of that one).  The note said 'to take him to the place where his favorite flower was 'you're the one''.  This was the Portland Rose Garden.  We had gone to the rose garden in September and after walking around for a while he asked which was my favorite one. So we kept looking at all the roses when he found his favorite rose first which was a smaller rose on a bush with bent petals forming a V shape. Then we went to look at the name of the rose and it was 'You're the One'. This created a slightly awkward but funny moment between us. (And if anyone is wondering, no Max did not research this out ahead of time and literally had no idea what the name of the rose was until we both looked at it.)

Rose Garden - we found a parking spot outside the park and walked into the garden. No roses were in bloom as it was the end of January but it still oddly had a strong rose smell. We went to find Max's favorite rose and then he gave me another note. It said 'to take him up the hill to the spot where our first photo as a couple was made'. This referred to the Japanese Garden. On the same day that Max found his favorite rose we also visited the Japanese Garden. While walking around the garden, Max stopped for a second on a small rock bridge. I grabbed my camera and asked him to come close to me so I could take our first photo together.  He seemed a little flustered after I took the photo and then we went over and sat in a tiny covered area and he told me that I took our first photo in his favorite spot.  I did not know this when I chose to take the photo. I just thought it was a really cool area.  I later found out that day that it was not just his favorite spot in the Japanese Garden but his favorite spot in the world.  Later he told me that he had planned to take me to the garden and that spot because that is where he wanted to tell me he loved me for the first time but he was so overcome with emotion that I randomly took our first photo there he didn't. 

Japanese Garden - we went up the hill and started walking around. There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground and half the koi pond was frozen from the earlier crazy winter. We walked around and made our way to the stone bridge. When we got there, I took another photo of us which has become our thing whenever we go.  Then Max handed me another note. We went back to the little shelter to get out of the way of other people and the note said 'Metapod, I love you, Love Kakuna' (yes, we have cheesy Pokemon nicknames for each other).  At this point I thought it was just a fun date to go around the city and end up at the garden which had been our initial plan.  But then Max pulled out another note.

The last note (sort of as I still get them) - It said something like ' everything thing, every kiss, every note has led up to this. Take a gander at your man and give him a big kiss because today is the day you will become a mrs and no longer a ms'. There was a lot more really sweet stuff that I read but I sort of forgot what it said in the moment and at the end it mentioned the book ends differently than it looks.

The book - the book is a book Max gave me on our 2 month anniversary called Shawneen and the Gander. I had the book growing up (no clue how my family found it) and he (and I) couldn't remember if I still had my copy so he gave me one.  Max then opens his camera bag and pulls out the book. He turns it to the back cover, grabs a pocket knife out of his coat and proceeds to start cutting into the back cover of the book.  Then he opens the back cover and pulls out a note.  I just looked at him and asked him if that was seriously in there in the whole time and he said it was as he had created a fake back cover matching the color paper from the book. The note said about 'how much fun we had been having and that there is more behind the picture than what it seems'.  He then reached into his backpack and pulled out the first photo of us in a frame (he had given me one on our first month anniversary and he had made one for himself that he put on his desk next to his computer).

The photo - I looked at the photo and turned it over as the note had said something about behind it. I started to open the back of the frame and looked at Max to see if I was doing the right thing. He just nodded. So I opened the back of the frame and inside was another note. I asked him if this was also in there in the entire time since he gave it to me and he said it was.  The note said how happy he was to have met me and how much fun we've already been having'. It didn't give me any other clues so this is when Max reached into his backpack and pulled out

The box - this is the box he gave me when I got back from a vacation at Matador. He opened the box which had all the notes he had written/given me and pulled them out. A little side note on the box is that there was a little shelf on the inside but I didn't think anything of it as many decorative boxes have little pointless shelves. He then grabbed his pocket knife again and started cutting into the shelf. He then ripped the top part of the shelf off and revealed that it was a fake shelf he had create with a little cardboard.  Inside the shelf was another note folded up.

The real last note which was really the first note (but again not really as he still writes/gives me them :)) - This note said 'shawneen, how excited he was to have met me and how much fun and adventures we will have been on since he wrote this'. He wrote he loved me and then before I could finish reading the rest, Max handed me a pen.  I then read the second paragraph which asked me to do a favor - arrange all the notes he had given me in chronological order (he always put the date and time in the upper right corner) and then write down the first letter of each note below.  So Max added the three new notes in the proper order and we proceeded to go through each one so that I could write down the letters and here is what it spelled out ----->

shawneen gonzalez will you marry me

Max reached into his backpack one more time and pulled out a little box.  He opened the box with a ring in it, got down on a knee and asked me the same. And if you didn't already know I obviously said yes as quickly as I could and then sealed it with a kiss. We then went back to the stone bridge and took our first photo as an engaged couple.

The view from the Japanese Garden was amazing this day!