:)

I GOT ENGAGED!

May 24, 2010 - After driving home from Iowa City the day before, and arranging with our work that we'd take off Monday to recoup, my boyfriend suggested that we go for a walk the next morning in the nearby park where we have walked several times. The place is beautiful, in the middle of a bustling suburb there are multiple paths, both paved and gravel, surrounded by trees and birds... and those little floating cottony things everywhere (that part kind of reminded me of Avatar)

I should back up, this day was HOT! I mean really REALLY hot! So before going on any walk I insisted that we get ice cream. We began a search:
Ben & Jerry's - CLOSED

Dairy Queen - CLOSED
Wendy's - OPEN, ok sold. We went in and I got a cookie dough twisted frosty and he got a strawberry shake.

We started our walk and these white cottony things were flying everywhere, that and the fact that my ice cream was quickly turning to liquid made me think we needed to sit down in the shade.

We walked up to one of those park shelter's (for my own memory, and for the stories that I plan to tell my future kids, I want to take pictures of this place), right away we noticed that birds were flying everywhere so I nixed the whole sitting under the roof part. Next we sat on a picnic table just outside of the shelter but still close to the birds, and right adjacent to the dumpsters.

I think something inside me knew I wanted to make this nice moment special so I moved us over to a nearby tree which offered us plenty of shade. We sat down and enjoyed our ice cream (finally!). Nearby there were some remote control airplanes flying overhead - which when you first hear them sound a lot like cows mooing - so we sat and watched those for a second.

Time came to get going with our walk so I picked up the cups from our ice cream and threw them away. When I returned to the tree, he rose from sitting on the grass to on one knee and asked me if I would marry him. I was shocked but of course I knew my answer had to be "YES!" I looked at him and the ring for a few seconds and then said that he needed to put the ring on my finger (I insisted, rather).

LOOK AT THAT ROCK! He picked it out himself!!! It's just so pretty I can't stop staring at it! Or taking pictures of it!