On October 12th 2006 I was out walking Hazel & Oscar (our pups) and it suddenly hit me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Heather and wanted to ask her to marry me. For some reason an idea for the proposal popped into my head right away, flying in a hot air balloon and looking down and seeing somewhere "Heather, Will You Marry Me?". The original idea was a bit elaborate though. We were to be in the balloon and on a field somewhere that the balloon flew over the proposal would be on the ground 100 yards long by 50 yards high!! After trying to find a field painter that I could rent (I even called the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) I realized that it would not be so easy. Next, buy a lot of king size bedsheets and paint a letter on each one and have them all sewn up together. Called a couple of flag making companies and they laughed at me. At this point I had everyone at work coming up with ideas for me and then the idea of getting a huge ream of fabric 50 yards long and 8 feet high came about! That was it. Of course all of the painting of each letter would have been daunting but it would be great. The fabric was ordered, I was going to hit home depot and get 15 gallons of paint and begin. However, first I had to reserve the balloon. I contacted Big Red Balloon and asked if there was a field that they always flew over and told them of my proposal idea, to which they responded "Dude, you do know this is a balloon right?" Man I'm an idiot. Of course they never know where they are going because of the wind, the flights were different everytime. So they said to me "Why don't you just have a huge banner made and we'll hold it up after you take off?" Genius!! To try and throw her off I told Heather that I couldn't hold it in anymore and for our one year anniversary I wanted to take her ring shopping. She was so happy and couldn't wait until March 16th!! However, the day before the balloon flight I was getting ready to set up some science experiments for her 1st grade class and 2 minutes before the kids came in I got the call...The balloon flight was cancelled due to weather, I wanted to die. Funny thing was that now I really did have to take her ring shopping like I told her even though I had one!! Then the next weekend came and Heather was making alternate plans with her friends and we were going to spend the day together and then she was going to take off. I was totally furious but obviously I couldn't say "I'm proposing to you and then you're just going to bail??!!" She couldn't figure out my mood at all and I couldn't talk to her about it. Then the big morning finally came and with no cancellation. Up at 5:00 and I told her we were driving very far and that's why we had to get up early. 5 miles later we pull into the parking lot and there is the trailer that says BIG RED BALLOON and she was estatic since she always wanted to go up in a balloon. Then it happened, not exactly as I had planned, but it happened. I had planned that we would be 100 feet in the air, they would take the banner out, and I would get down on one knee and say the proposal I'd been practicing all week. What really happened...We got 5 feet up, they ran out with the banner, started screaming Heather, I had to dig the ring out from my backpack, got down on one knee and had my proposal deafened out by the flame jets of the balloon! It was still amazing though and we had an incredible day. Check it out on YouTube "Louis and Heather Balloon" search should do it

I wrote my beloved a poem detailing how we met, got together, and some of our many adventures (and misadventures) exploring the city of Chicago. She came out of her bedroom to find a dozen roses on our coffee table and the first clue to a scavenger hunt. Each clue led to a picture hidden someplace meaningful in our apartment. Each picture had a piece of the poem on the back and related to stage of the relationship described by the poem. Also, each picture had a themed puzzle (e.g. anagram, word search, etc) in between it and the poem piece that led to the next clue. The final clue simply said "A circle has no beginning or end. To find your circle, remember this." which lead her back to the roses where I proposed in verse with the ring. She cried both at the beginning and end of the poem and immediately said yes. Then we broke out the champagne!