Our Engagement Story

As told by the accounts of Justin.

A while back I fell in love with this girl. Her name happened to be Ashley. She also happened to be beautiful, smart, endearing, and has a wonderful family, and as it just so happens we agree on everything.

So I woke up one morning, hungry, and Ashley says, "Let's go to breakfast."

At this moment in time, it's Saturday, January 26th and we have nothing planned, so I'm assuming this breakfast could be the best party of my day. Well... it wasn't.
We had a wonderful breakfast at our favorite spot, Wilma's Patio on Balboa Island in Newport Beach Ca. I had the Monte Cristo sandwich, yum, she had the lox and bagels and we both had coffee and OJ. Our tummy's were filled and we decided to walk it off around the island, to the beach, and took the little ferry across Newport Harbor to the peninsula. Ashley says, "Let's rent a boat and drive it around the harbor."

I thought for a second and said, "No, let's go home and go tomorrow."

"It's supposed to rain tomorrow." She says.

"Well let's go home real quick, grab some wine, and coats and come back."

"Yay!!" She proclaims.

We go home, grab some wine, plastic champagne cups, and my camera, then head out the door.
The boat is in the water. It's a 12ft, outboard with nothing special to get excited about, although there was a blue canopy. We floated around the harbor, with a map that we were given. The lady we rented from circled the areas we could go and not go, and she pointed out John Wayne's house at our request.

Earlier when we told Ashley's dad our plans, he says, "Get a picture of John Wayne's house." If you know him, you can easily hear him say this with quite a bit excitement, and of course we have it planned out.

We putt around the Harbor looking at all the rediculous homes, pick out the ones we want to buy with our Monopoly money and 2 lottery tickets. The boat only goes 6 mph and we're cruising. We wave to families on huge yachts, students learning to sail, and we saw a sea lion sun bathing on someone's sailboat.

We approach John Wayne's house. It looks lie someone's having a party and is setting up tents.
I tell Ashley to get to the bow of the boat and I'll take her picture with JW's house in the background for her dad.

She's happy and moves to the front.

I snap a picture and tell her that something was wrong with my camera and to stay there for a second. I reach into the camera bag and I say, "Wait. What's this?"

Ashley concerned for the camera, "I don't know."

I show it to her. It's a little white box. Inside this box is significant because our lives are about to change forever.

I walk it over to her at the front of our little boat and I start to cry. I get down on my knee and show her the contents of the box.

Already crying, she says something great, that we can't remember of course.
I tell her some great things that make the moment even more perfect, but of course overwhelmed by the moment we can't remember what was said.

I took the ring out of the box. I put it on her finger... like Cinderella, it was a perfect fit.
The one thing we did remember her saying was, "Yes!" right after I asked her to be my wife.
After kissing and hugging and crying, we take the wine and the plastic champagne cups, and make a toast. We kissed again and now I'm officially engaged to the future Mrs. Stiles.

I woke up without knowing that January 26th, 2008 was going to be so special, and after hiding the ring in the closet, trying to find the best moment to pop the question, I found the best moment, spontaneously, and so far has been the best day of my life.

Thank you Ashley, for loving me back, and making an ordinary day, extraordinary with me.
So let's plan a wedding.