Denise was born and raised in Toronto. She is the eldest of five children and proud to be a member of a large Chinese -Trinidadian family. When she graduated from high school, Denise moved to Kingston in order to complete an undergraduate degree in sociology at Queen's University. After four years of living in a small town, she missed the big city life and moved back to Toronto, where she pursued a master's degree in sociology at York University. As she was finishing her thesis, Denise obtained a job with the federal government and moved to Ottawa.
Colin was born in Toronto but raised in Mississauga. He is the second of four children. He went to the University of Toronto and completed a degree in computer engineering. As it turned out, one of his classmates was Erich, a cousin of Denise's on the Lee-Kwen side of the family. (But Erich did not introduce the two of them together.) As it also turned out, Colin worked with Reg, another one of Denise's cousins, after graduating from university. (But Reg also did not introduce the two of them together!) Colin works for a telecommunications software company in downtown Toronto and currently lives in Mississauga.
Denise and Colin met on a double blind date in 2003. He was trying to fix his friend, Minora up with a co-worker. Minora brought Denise along to introduce her to Colin. The four of them had dinner. After that day, Colin and Denise kept in touch by email and agreed to meet again soon for drinks.
It was another month before they met again. They went on a couple of dates and soon after, they were dating. Living situations and careers made the journey interesting, but finally, we are here!
A short while before our trip to Alaska, Denise and I had strolled into Birks for some casual browsing. Little did she know that I had already began putting deposits on various loose diamonds and started to think about a custom setting. Anyway, I became fixed on this beautiful (read: butt ugly) ring for the high price of $975 (no zeroes are missing here, hehe). For a while, '975' became our inside joke of what I would buy for her one day.
Fast forward to August 29, 2007: Our northbound Alaskan cruise had come to an end in Whittier, and we drove to Denali National Park for some casual hiking the next day.When we arrived at the park and visited the Visitor Center to ask the Rangers for suggested hiking routes, we became tentative, as there are not marked trails at our intended destination within the park (Fish Creek). In the back of my mind, I became worried that I would not be able to find a scenic and private area to propose at and would have to stick to marked trails adjacent to the Visitor Center.
Well, the day was upon us now, and we had a light but healthy breakfast of bananas, VitaSoy and were off to the Wilderness Access Center to wait for our bus that would take us to the interior. Up to this point we were still discussing about possible alternative destinations to go hiking at. I was nervous. As luck would have it, we were fortunate to have a very passionate bus driver who was knowledgeable about the park, providing us with excellent commentary about the wildlife and hiking ideas. The next few hours on the bus was filled with pleasant distractions of moose, caribou and bear sightings and some infrequent rest stops.
We were close to our destination, Fish Creek, and would be making our final 15minute rest stop at Toklat. Once again, this news made me slightly nervous again, as we would be pulling into an area with little privacy. Up to this point, the terrain did not appeal to me as a proposal location. I guess in the back of my mind, I had always imagined to propose with Mt. McKinley (aka. Denali) as a backdrop; as I found out visibility of its summit was hard to come by, as it is the highest peak in North America and introduced a highly unpredictable weather system of its own. (Aside: our weather experience spanned all the seasons and included heavy thundershowers and hail!).
Our arrival at Fish Creek came with little fanfare; while three quarters of Mt. McKinley was visible, the summit was not visible. Fish Creek was the turnaround point for our bus, and while this area was scenic, Denise and I were not prepared for hiking too deep into the park (no compass).
Denise and I had decided that it was best for us to return to Toklat and begin our hike there. On our return to Toklat, I had time to ask Wendy, our bus driver for scenic hiking locations that were not too difficult and she suggested the braided river beds; the river beds follow closely to the road and would allow us to hitch hike back to the park entrance after our hike. So off we went at approximately 1pm. The next hour or so was almost a complete waste of time, as we were still within visual range of the Toklat rest stop. We had a very tough time finding stepping stones to cross the meandering rivers/streams and finally came upon one that we could not cross. I was starting to get disappointed... would this rocky river bed be the dream location? Certainly didn't seem like it. Again, I was given another chance as Denise had spotted some hikers heading up a mountain directly behind the rest stop. This had to be it.
After taking sometime to hike back to Toklat rest stop, we embarked on our hike up the mountain and I held onto the hope that this would be a suitable location. On our way up, we came across some individual hikers who were on their way down. I had struck up a casual discussion with some of them as to how the view was
up there. To my delight, there were dall sheep around the next bend! Invigorated, Denise and I made our way up as quickly and cautiously as we could.
At this point, I started scoping locations for proposing with the help of my unknowing assistant. The higher and closer up to the sheep we got I noticed the view was getting worse, so I had a little more time to drum up some courage and wait for the right moment on our descent. Right up to the very end, I kept my little surprise from Denise as I tricked her to pose for another picture using a tripod (so my hands were free, wink, wink). Denise was incredibly surprised. Needless to say, the answer was a "Yes!".
All the way down the mountain I had a glowing sense of accomplishment and there were a few instances where Denise was so shocked about some of the facts that I revealed related to my planning for this moment that she even tripped on the rocky terrain! I really caught her off guard. Good Job, Colin!
