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Stigy is Born

Steph's Version

My first memory of Higy is grade 9 math class. It definitely wasn't love at first sight. He was the skinny kid in the Leafs' jersey who was way too easy to poke fun at. Since we all know how sucky the mighty blue and white have been over the last 10 years or so. Never in a million years would the grade 9 version of me ever even think I would be marrying him. Well I guess that changed... :)

Over the next few years, we slowly started to become friends and by grade 12, we fell hard for each other and a sport that has taken over both our lives. Since our first date (skating at Conestoga college, playing at Toys R Us and bowling) there is no one else I can say I have more fun with. Even though our nearly 10 year life together has had its share of ups and downs (going through University for our various degrees, Ultimate and living in different cities) I wouldn't trade a minute of it for anything!

I look forward to spending the rest of my life with Mr. Higy Higerson and I hope you can join us this August!

Higy's Version

Once upon a time there was this mean girl that *tried* to make fun of the Maple Leafs in grade nine. Normally this is easy, but she liked Detroit so I simply ignored her (I mean Detroit! Seriously?). Two years later we went snowboarding at Chicopee. Then we watched John Q and she asked me out. That movie was alright I guess.

She moved to London while I lived in Ottawa for a few years. We still took snowboarding trips and visited each other whenever we could. I knew there was something special between us. I decided to move to London. Shortly after that she moved to Kitchener. I stayed in London.

But now we are engaged! And that brings us up to now (the pre-wife/pre-husband phase). You are now a full fledged expert on our past, and present. And I hope that you are inspired to come celebrate our past, present and future with us!

Our Cuban Engagement

Steph's Version

So it started as literally the worse day of our trip in Cuba last April. I woke up with the Cuban stomach bug that everyone gets when they go. It managed to finally get me on day 5 of our trip. We left the resort that day for an excursion that included riding on a catamaran and snorkeling at a couple different locations. To go along with the awfulness of the day, the sunny catamaran trip quickly took a turn as soon as we left the port. The weather turned wet, rainy and cold fast. Combine that with a bad tummy ache, I was not a happy camper.

After snorkeling at the first location, I got out of the water and back into the catamaran freezing with zero desire to go snorkeling at the next place. But once we got there, I thought to myself "you came all this way to snorkel, you've got to go in". So in I went. At this point, I was basically swimming around to keep warm and wasn't paying attention to the ocean life swirling around me. Higy on the other hand was enthusiastically pointing out all the fish and coral he could. He had been doing that all morning and I really didn't care anymore.

We had been out for a while when Higy was trying to point something out to me. To me, it look like he was just pointing at the sand and I couldn't see anything. Grumpy and frustrated, I stuck my head out of the water, pulled the snorkel out of my mouth and said, "I don't see anything! You need to give me a hint, this is dumb". "Look again" he replied. So I stuck my head back under the water and there Higy was, holding up a ring.
The first thought that flashed through my head was "Oh my gosh! He found a ring! Someone must be freaking out because they lost their ring!" So I stuck my head out of the water and was about to ask, "Did you find a ring?" but before I could, he said,
"Will you marry me?"
Shocked and stunned, all I could say was "Seriously?!"
"Seriously".

And I think we all know what I said :)

Higy's Version

Steph and I were planning a trip to Cuba while our good friends Greg and Mandy were independently planning a similar trip at around the same time of year. We decided to head to the same resort although with offsetting trip (They went 3 days ahead of us and subsequently left 3 days after us....Or something like that). I had recently purchased a ring but foolishly it didn't fit any of my fingers. I thought Steph might like something like that so I decided to bring it with me. Actually, I brought a fake ring and left the real one at home but don't tell anyone.

We had a grand old time with Greg and Mandy. They left for reality the same day Steph and I went on a snorkeling excursion. I had packed the ring safely in my backpack but did not know exactly what the day would bring. Once we boarded the ship - sorry, the yacht - sorry, the catamaran, they told us we would hit two snorkeling spots and, if the sea was calm enough, an extremely nice, secluded white sand beach. They told us it was, "The nicest beach in Cuba." I was thinking to myself, "Perfect. Girls love that sorta stuff."

While Steph wasn't looking I put the ring into the very secure Velcro pocket on my bathing suit and figured it would be safe (I mean, NASA did invent Velcro and they seem to know what they're doing). We snorkeled around, saw some fish, some corral. It was good. As we were travelling to the second snorkel location, we were informed by the skipper that the seas were too rough to travel to the beach. Oh well. We jumped in the water at the second snorkel location.

The seas were rough that day my friend. We snorkeled away from the boat and I had the grandest of ideas - I could give her the ring while we were snorkeling. There's no way she would expect that. So I dove down and grabbed a shell to put in my pocket (in order to get the ring out without her seeing). I found a nice rock/coral outcropping away from people, dove down and looked in a hole in the rock. Pretending to see something exciting I pointed and motioned for Steph to dive and take a look. We both surfaced poked out head out of the water and I excitedly asked, "Did you see it?"
"No, what is it?" she responded.
"Look again! It's in the rock!" I answered before taking a breath and diving down second time. I found the hole and with the dexterity of an Italian pickpocket, "pulled" the ring out of the hole of the rock and held it up for Steph to see as I ascended.
We poked our heads out of the water and I asked, "Will you marry me?" I decided on the short and sweet approach as opposed to a long drawn-out speech for two reasons:

1. Surprise Factor (I wanted to ask before Steph could figure out what was going on). and
2. We were literally swimming for our lives. If we had stopped swimming, there is a very good chance that we would have drowned. I mean we were in the fricken Ocean.