To begin to tell the story of our engagement, we must go back to the evening of June 6th, 2011.

Somewhere between San Jose and San Francisco, a commuter train is making every local stop. It’s painfully tedious for the impatient. Inside this train, it’s standing room only. It’s full of mostly San Francisco Giants fans heading into the city for a baseball game that begins around 7pm. We sit across from each other. Great seats, on a crowded train, is a consolation prize for missing the express that would have arrived about 45 mins earlier. Michelle, full of excitement, is ready for her first ever Giants game. Jonathan, on the otherhand, anxiously keeps track of time for two main reasons: to arrive in time to see the first pitch and understanding that Michelle has a curfew.

We had the opportunity to work with each other for the past year as we served officers of a Filipino-American student organization at San Jose State University. The day before, in the very last event as officers of the organization, Michelle mentioned that she had never been to a game at AT&T Park. Jonathan saw this as an opportunity to take her out on a date, so he purchased tickets because they were cheap since it was a Monday night game.*

*For many years, we have debated over whether or not we classified this as our first date. Mainly due to Jonathan’s inability to establish up front that he was taking Michelle out on an official “date.” Despite this lack of communication, we do celebrate June 6th as our anniversary of when we started dating. Also, the tickets were not in-fact “cheap,” especially for someone with a part-time, minimum wage job.

We finally arrive to the ballpark with the game already started. It’s the bottom of the second inning and pitcher Tim Lincecum had just recorded his 1000th career strikeout. Everything in this ballpark was a new experience for Michelle. Despite going to Giants games since he was an infant, this was also something brand new for Jonathan. Michelle’s curiosity kept the conversation going until the game reached the ninth inning. The game was tied and headed to extra innings. Worried about getting Michelle home in time, Jonathan suggested that we leave for the next train home. She replied, “No, let’s stay and see what happens…”

Fast forward over 11 years later, it’s two days before Christmas. We’re back in the Bay Area for the holidays. We’re waiting outside the ballpark for a private, behind-the-scenes tour. Our friend, JP, was able to get us and our families extra spots for this exclusive tour because his sister was running the event for work. At least, this is what Michelle was told.

Jonathan had been working for weeks to plan the engagement. Michelle always wanted a private engagement when the time came, so the first step was to get us in the ballpark alone. JP, pretending to get a phone call with his sister, said that he first needed Michelle and Jonathan to go with him to meet his sister inside the ballpark to get the rest of our family “signed in for the tour”. Next, the tour guides escorted us inside the park, to the section where the tour would begin and left the two of us to wait. “Wasn’t it around these seats where we had our first date?,” Michelle had noticed.

“Yeah, I think it was some where down there,” Jonathan replied while sitting down at the exact seats: Section 106, row 6, seats 8 and 9.

For a few minutes, the ballpark was quiet, we had the whole stadium to ourselves. When suddenly over the park’s speaker system two songs play in succession: Journey’s “Lights” and Tony Bennett’s “I Left my Heart in San Francisco.” These songs are mainstays during Giants games, and were chosen by Jonathan to set the expectation of music, but not to be too obvious that it would ruin the surprise.

The next song was the cue for Jonathan to get down on one knee to ask Michelle to marry him. “Dreaming of You” by Selena is a song that Michelle has said reminds her of the beginnings of our relationship. There we were, at the exact spot where our journey began, making a promise to continue that journey in marriage.

After all of these years, and the love that has grown between — it never felt like that night ended.