Mike first met Liz on the Sunday afternoon of August 16, 2015 at the Connecticut Street entrance of the Washington National Zoo. They had connected first over OkCupid, an online dating website. Liz had signed up before moving back to DC from Ithaca, NY where she was completing graduate school. Mike had started searching after graduating graduate school and starting his new job. Liz suggested that they meet for the first time at the Washington Zoo, which was within walking distance of the student center where she would be living and teaching. Mike drove down into the city to the zoo that day, “Not really knowing who I would be meeting or how my life would change as a result.”
It was a blazingly hot late summer day, and they were sweating and Liz tore open a blister on her foot from all the walking, which needed to be bandaged while they were at the zoo. But despite those less-than-ideal conditions, they hit it off and had a wonderful time together. Although they had chatted online, it sealed their common interests — in video games, animals (Liz’s profile photo had her with a baby camel), travel (both are globetrotters) — and complementary personalities. One of the first questions Liz asked was what Mike’s Big 5 and Meyer’s Brigg personality results might be… Mike took it in stride, and Liz apologized for bringing up a paper.
A zoo really is a great place to meet someone for the first time, as the animals provide a natural starting point for conversation. Any lulls in conversation were easily amended by taking a moment to comment on the animals. This is especially true for animal lovers. At the end of a two hour first date, they made plans to see each other again — and from that point forward, they barely went a week without one another.
Liz says that Mike sealed the deal when, on their second date, he insisted on meeting her dog, Sidney. Mike thinks he knew he was in love when they started planning travel together. It didn’t take long for them to both know they had found a lifelong love.
Fast forward two and a half years, and the proposal brought them full circle to the National Zoo. The Zoo holds an event called ZooLights every year in December, a nighttime festival where the whole place is decorated with colorful lights to celebrate the holidays. They had gone to ZooLights the previous year and Mike didn’t think it would be too hard to get Liz to go again. But every time he suggested it, Liz would come up with a reason they couldn’t go. Finally we agreed that we would go on a Friday night right before Christmas and Mike knew that this had to be the right moment. It was now or never.
They ate dinner at a Belgian Restaurant called St. Arnold’s Mussel Bar located just up the road from the zoo. The zoo doesn’t have any animals out for this event due to the winter season and the nighttime conditions, but the lights themselves are colorful and dazzling. There were a lot of people at the zoo too, including many families with their small children. Liz was completely clueless as Mike kept making offhanded remarks about their first trip to the zoo as they continued walking up towards the front entrance, where their first date began. When we finally did reach the front entrance, Liz pulled Mike off to the side to get a few selfies. She was amazed at how Mike, generally uneager to take photos, was grinning from ear to ear in which shot! Then, before they could go any further, Mike drew Liz off to the side so and in his quiet but eloquent way, asked her to marry him.
To say Liz was completely and utterly stunned by the proposal might be an understatement. She was not expecting it at all and spent the next few minutes in a daze, needing to sit down on one of the park benches to gather her breath. It was a surprise well executed. Of course, with Liz, she is hard to keep down and soon they were celebrating by calling family and friends to let them know the good news.
