First Star Trek Convention '17
June 5th I received a text from my boyfriend:
“So...this is just a possibility to think about. Instead of going to the Denver Comic Book Convention at the end of the month, how would you like to go on a real trip and go to the big Star Trek Convention in August in Las Vegas???”
As I read the message I thought, “Something to think about? Of course I want to go!” but then I thought about how school is starting and how it takes me 5 years to prepare for anything. I wasn't sure if I could do it for about .01 seconds. Then Jason explained that “this could possibly be the greatest people watching experience of your life” -- I was sold!
I sat at Starbucks thinking why he want to take me to Star Trek convention. Shortly -- okay it wasn't that shortly, less than a week after receiving the invitation to Las Vegas I wrote this in my journal, “Got this crazy feeling that Jason will ask to marry me when we go to Las Vegas and it is 3:40 in the morning on Friday June 9th.” HE didn’t even know he was going to do it then. However between then and when we actually went to Las Vegas the idea and excitement dissipated; I had convinced myself and other people I'd shared the idea with agreed that I shouldn't get my hopes up and I should just plan on going and having fun.. Hopes up? I don't need no stinkin’ hope-- I'm going to the greatest people watching experience in my life! Not only would this be in an entirely new environment, cultural differences would abound. If I was doing an experiment, this would be an entirely new sample set than the one I see everyday- visitors of Starbucks. Days past, life happened and with my “stellar memory” I almost forgot about this wonderful suspicion until Friday.
If was the Friday before we would be leaving and there was a family gathering of my step mom's family in Castle Rock. My cousin had very recently gotten engaged and everyone was sharing their engagement stories. Jason and I-- not so much. None of the stories were traditional or at least they weren’t like what I thought engagements were supposed to be.like - - at a restaurant, dressed nice, nice ring….. oh and I forgot to say planned. Grandpa Batt proposed sort of nonchalantly on my way to their typical date night. My dad and my brother-in-law both proposed with a beer bottle opener or a beer tab? Some sort of memory token of their night. I may not remember correctly but I think Aunt Renee and Uncle Ron had a somewhat traditional proposal and my cousin Richelle was proposed to in Hawaii on the beach. After the conversation topic came to a close The most recent engagement Adam and Randi happened during a hike...with a backpack. I felt the necessity to apologize to Jason for being put in a weird, or what I thought might have been a weird position. However it turns out that the information Jason learned at the family gathering ended up being very beneficial.
We were supposed to go to a nice restaurant the first night we were there but events didn't go as planned. I was so excited to see how Jason adapted to my disability -- although I think of jumping on his back might have been a good idea now, it didn't dawn on me then and I'm kind of glad it didn't - - It might have but I had on a dress and I am afraid I would have broken his back. I cried and felt bad and told him to go without me but he wouldn’t and we had dinner elsewhere.
The trip was packed with seeing amazing people in awesome costumes, listening to “behind the scenes” information about what it took to make Star Trek what it has been and what it is today (seeing the Enterprise in the making was awesome), and as I was warned there were a couple people in random costumes. It was our last night there and Jason wanted to go change out of our costumes before dinner. Keeping my high school title of “Most Spirited,” I suggested that we go in our Star Trek costumes. Riding a special, hidden elevator to the 50th floor was not bad, but the family who was dressed very nicely who got on the secret elevator with us must have thought that we were lost because of a clothing.
The restaurant was a busy place and the delay of being served cut into our plans. Jason got up and reached into his backpack on the back of my wheelchair. He got on one knee (I thought he was falling between my wheelchair, the empty chair, and the glass window) and proposed. But wait, there’s more! Jason put the ring over my purity/reminder ring and it fit-- OVER my purity ring! What? It is a Starfleet Academy ring!!! Jason is a jokester and I always have ask if he is serious and this was no different-- I asked if he was serious and he assured me that he was!
