The Engagement Story....FINALLY!

Well, after a week since our engagement, I finally found the time to post a story about the events leading to our official engagement last Sunday.

Everything started on Valentine's Day where our special day started off late since we decided to sleep in that morning. I wanted to stay fresh for the long day ahead ourselves. After some late morning vegging, Josh drove me to the Blue Line and parked the car so we can take it into the Downtown. He told me that all of the places in the Loop that we were heading to were important places and moments in our relationship so far. Well, I was quite hungry by the time we made it to our first stop, but he teased me by saying that we had to still take the Red Line to our final destination for lunch.

My 1st and 2nd stop for lunch ended up being at Wow Bow for lunch and Ethel's Chocolate for dessert. Wow Bow is one of our favorite chains in the Downtown where they make the awesome veggie baos and steamed dumplings. Josh and I LOOOOOOOVE our chocolate. Ethel's is one of the first chocolate places that he took me to when I visited Chicago for the 1st time on New Year's Weekend 2007. I feel in love with the chocolate treats and fell in love with him too at the same time. We had some yummy chocolate truffles before making our way to our 3rd destination.

After another train ride and a short cold stroll on Michigan Avenue, we arrived at our next destination - another secret one for me. It ended up being at the Museum of Contemporary Art. We walked around the museum and looked at all of the exhibits. I did not complain while I was there, but I can be completely honest that I was not impressed with what I saw. In fact, some of the portraits creeped me completely out and made very uncomfortable. Josh was disappointed with the art quality too.

After the museum, we made our way to stopping at a Starbucks before making way to the Nordstroms Mall on Michigan Avenue. We did some shopping and browsing since our dinner reservations were not for another 30 minutes. We sampled some chocolate and olive oil (but not together). I also looked some jewelry (or I call DROOL-ery - no explanation needed!) at some of the top boutiques.

When we were through with the browsing, we made our way to our 4th destination - BIN 36. I was not surprised at this choice. It's one of our favorite places where we get our wine and cheese fix. He also took me there for our 1st Valentine's Day weekend in 2007.

Once we finished with dinner at Bin36, we started to our 5th and final surprise destination. After another Blue Line train ride and a short cold walk, we arrived at Hot Chocolate. It is another destination has an important part of our history together.

Sometime between Bin36 and Hot Chocolate, our conversation turned to getting married. This has been a topic that been brought up for awhile, but has picked up speed the last few months. We continued the conversation once we got home and started getting very serious.

The next morning we agreed to go ring shopping after having brunch with friends. The ring search was a lot of fun and the most relaxing experience I have ever had. After we picked out the ring setting and diamond, we had to wait about 4 hours for the diamond to be mounted in the setting, which gave us some time to call family and spread the happy news.



Right now, we still not have a date set for the wedding. We are still working out the preliminary details, which involves a lot of wedding research. This will be very interesting with law school coming up too.

Josh, I am happy to have you in my life and looking forward to our future together. ILYMTICS!