By GABRIELLE NOMURA
gnomura@bellevuereporter.com

Julie Gadomskaya had no idea her life was about to change.

The Auburn resident was expecting a fun date on her birthday, Dec. 18, when her boyfriend, Eugene Polupan, took her to Bellevue’s Snowflake Lane.

“He treats me like a princess,” Gadomskaya said. “He cares for others like I’ve never seen in anyone.”

In reality, Polupan had far more in store than a birthday surprise.

On the morning of her birthday, a stressful string of events certainly had not set the scene, or even hinted, at the romantic events that were waiting for Gadomskaya that night.

She burned a hole in her brand-new shirt while ironing. Polupan locked his keys in the car, where a very important, sparkly gift for Gadomskaya lay inside. Thank goodness he kept an extra set of keys in case of emergencies.

But Gadomskaya’s birthday started to look up, as Polupan promised her three gifts he would give her that day: “something purple, something green and something fuzzy.

”The purple something came first, when he came to her house to pick her up, a violet-colored balloon and orchid for her in his hands.

Next, came the “something green” at the Garden d’Lights event in Bellevue Botanical Garden with the couple walking among the trees and bushes lit up by half a million twinkling lights in ornate displays.

Later on, after the garden, sipping on hot chocolate and then ice skating downtown, Polupan took her to the final part of the date – the annual Bellevue holiday tradition, Snowflake Lane.

Standing in front of Palomino restaurant, at the corner of Bellevue Way Northeast and Northeast Sixth Street, the two waited for the festivities to begin complete with snow whizzing down from the tops of the buildings and young people in solider costumes marching through the downtown streets.

They couldn’t look more in love, holding gloved hands in the cold: his rugged, scruffy beard brushing against her rosy cheek.

As the big clock outside Palomino turned from 6:59 p.m. to 7 p.m., the show began – downtown Bellevue was transformed into a winter wonderland.

A young woman dressed up as a Snow Queen for the parade, walked along the crowded sidewalk waving and smiling at children bundled up in coats, holding their parents’ hands.

When the couple caught her eye, she stopped in front of them.

“Are you Julie?” she asked, holding up a wrapped gift with a bow on top.

Gadomskaya thought the big birthday surprise was waiting for her inside the gift, not in a small box in Polupan’s pocket.

Later, she would hear all the details of how Polupan had arranged this with the Bellevue Collection, Snowflake Lane’s organizers. Later, she would learn that as she opened the gift from the Snow Queen, a photographer and staff writer for The Bellevue Reporter were incognito, watching the couple’s every move, in anticipation of the real surprise Polupan had in store. He had arranged for them to come, too, to document what he was about to do.

Inside the gift box wasn’t a birthday present – it was a letter from Polupan.

“Basically, it said that for the past seven or eight months we’ve been together, I’ve had the time of my life,” said Polupan, who’s been with Gadomskaya for less than a year, but has known her since the two were in diapers.

He was neighbors with her grandmother in the early ’90s, and the two played together as toddlers. Years later, they reunited at a church party. She was working late, and didn’t make it to the party until after he had already left. One of their mutual friends saw Gadomskaya and called Polupan on his cell phone, telling him the pretty girl he had hoped to run into had arrived.

After hanging up, Polupan pulled a U-turn on the highway.

Eight months later, he got down on one knee at Snowflake Lane – where he asked his girlfriend to become his wife. And she said yes.

“We definitely picked the right place to stand,” said one of the many applauding, cheering bystanders as the couple kissed – Polupan with tears in his eyes.

At the end of the day, after giving her something purple and something green, Polupan kept his promise of the final gift.

“Do you have a warm fuzzy feeling?” he said, as the future husband and wife walked arm-and-arm, up the street to Earl’s restaurant, where their family and friends would see the sparkly, princess-cut diamond on Gadomskaya’s  finger for the first time. “This is fuzzy.”

Gabrielle Nomura can be reached at 425-453-4602.