**To give slight background to this story, Kevin and I had a “discussion” a few weeks ago about when an appropriate time would be to get married. (I thought anytime; he alluded to years by saying it would be a “very long time.”) It has been a rather sore subject since so we haven’t really talked more about it, lucky for Kevin because that gave him a clean and clear plate to work his little surprise on. I suspected and hoped for absolutely nothing.**

I flew to Chicago from Columbus on Thursday and Kevin picked me up at the airport. We spent the weekend terrorizing the town (in a manner of speaking), shopping, eating, visiting the Shedd aquarium, eating some more, and going to see the Broadway show, Wicked (phenomenal show, by the way!).

Still suspecting nothing, we went out Saturday night to the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the Hancock Building. The view, of course, was spectacular, the food was delicious, and our waiter was rude, but we overcame him to still have a great evening. Afterwards, Kevin suggested we go over to Millennium Park since we hadn’t stopped by there all weekend yet.

The wind had died down slightly, but it was still really cold out so we bundled up in hats, scarves, and mittens and took a stroll around the park. We watched the ice skating and I tried to take some pictures of us in the Cloud Gate. I attempted to get him to do some 60’s dancing with me to the music of the skating rink, but he claimed that he left his dancing shoes at home.

We were standing there in the park right beside Cloud Gate, when he started talking about how he had been thinking about something and that I was right. Being the terribly rude person I am, I interrupted him just then with something on my camera. (I am so clueless…seriously.) The conversation got sidetracked and then I remembered that he had started saying something so I said, “Wait, what were you saying earlier?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You were saying something about how I’m right! I want to hear it!” I said.

So he started talking again about how I’m right (I especially love that part of the story) and since we know that we’re going to get married, why should we wait? To try to describe how clueless I was, picture me hearing this and still not thinking that he was in the midst of proposing. I don’t know at what point he got down on his knee, but suddenly, there he was in the middle of the park, holding a ring and asking me to marry him.

Sounds romantic right? Until I start talking. “Are you kidding?” He says that my eyes got really big and my mouth dropped. In his words, the look on my face was “priceless.” He said he wasn’t kidding. As though I still didn’t get it, I proceeded with, “Are you joking?” He said, “No, I’m not. Will you?” I covered up my mouth (it was still hanging open) with my mittened hands and nodded my head as tears rolled down my cheeks.

So there it is, we’re getting married!!! Everyone is saying that they figured he would propose this weekend and I’m realizing that I was the only one who didn’t have a clue.

Mom told me that they announced it today in church. I guess Dad was preaching this morning and Mom thought he would announce it at the beginning, but he didn’t. After he was done preaching, he had a closing prayer and Mom thought he wasn’t going to announce it after all. After the prayer though, he looked at Mom in one of the pews and said, “Carolyn, do you have an announcement?” She said, “Go ahead.” But Dad got all choked up and couldn’t say it so he made Mom announce it.

My ring is with Kevin in Iowa. It was too big so he took it back to get resized. I have a picture to try to remember it until it gets back to me.

In keeping with Kevin admitting that I’m right (He’s going to forever regret that.), I have a survey for you. Kevin and I are having an argument about which way the toilet paper rolls off of the holder. We’re both adamant in our idea. We might need some extra pre-marital counseling for this. So please help a girl out… (to be fair to Kevin, I cannot say which one I’m a fan of) Here’s a poll. Should the toilet paper roll out from over the top or under the bottom?