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!

Enjoy Valentine's Day

We are showing a lot of love for each other and sushi. We had a 6-course dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant where he took me on our official first date on New Year Eve 2006. The food was good, but we could not finish it all. Some of it ended up coming home with us instead.

I did manage a great run before we met up at home for dinner.

Please keep the victims and student at Northern Illinois University in your prayers. Such a tragic day!

To my Valentine...

Thank you for being so sweet to me. Thank you for this wonderful weekend that you planned out for me even thought some parts of it did not work out. I love that you are such a good listener. Thank you for being so strong even though you do not think so. Thank you for having faith in me especially in my running. Thank you for motivating me to work hard in my job search even though I am sometimes up until 2:30 a.m. filling out applications or sending out resumes. Thank you for knowing how to make me laugh and smile. Thank you for being there for me when I needed you. Thank you for letting me cry at 12:30 a.m. on a worknight when you had to be up at 4:30 after I read Mouse's blog regarding her mom, which made me think about my own dad's passing. Thank you for helping me to explore new foods and experiences while I have been in Chicago. Thank you for being so understanding and loving towards me. Thank you for telling me that I am beautiful even when I am wearing no makeup and my hair looks like Frankenstein's Bride in the AM. Thank you for our deep conversations and how we communicate so far away either by phone, e-mail, and IM. Thank you for those cute picture messages that you send me especially when I am having a very rough day at work or home. Thank you for allowing each other to open up and say things about each other that could never be blogged about. Thank you for accepting our "minor" differences especially when it comes to politics and religion. Thank you for accepting for who I am and loving me for it. Thank you for making me feel so very special even though at time I do not feel worthy of it because of what I have been through. Thank you for making feel very fortunate to have you with me during a very difficult time in my life. Thank you for being yourself around me. Thank you being you. I love you, Josh. (Editor's Note: The pic at the top of the post was taken at Bin36 when Josh and I were eating cheese and drinking our first glass of wine.)

My weekend with Josh...

I am finally home and able to relax. It was very busy weekend. Today was even more busier. I will go into what happened today later in this blog entry. Saturday Well, the weekend started on Saturday morning at 1:30 am. I could not sleep at all due to lack of food in my system and the excitement of seeing Josh again. (Note: This was SECOND time that this happened. First time was NYE!) I even texted my sweetie to see if he was up like me. Well, he was, but advised me to get back to sleep, which I was able to until my alarm went off at 6 am. At 6 a.m.I was able to spring - off the couch where I was sleeping - hit my alarm clock before hitting the shower. I was dressed, ate, and ready to head to the airport by 7 am. I was starting to count down the hours and minutes before I was seeing him again. It had been SO long (okay...only 39 days). I arrived at the airport by 7:30. I was immediate flabbergasted with HUGE line to the Northwest Airlines ticket counter. HELL I have an e-ticket. It should go VERY quickly. NOT! (Too many people going to Cancun...wow!) Well, it did end up going that way, but took about 20 minutes to do so. I was able to get to my gate within 30 minutes of departure. Once I was on the plane, it was very nice flight and quick one too. The gal next to me was heading to a gymnastic meet in Chicago and even asked me about my P.F. Chang's shirt that I was wearing that day. She asked if I ran the half-marathon in Arizona. (Well, I was wearing the Finishers shirt. Hmmmm.) But I ended up on the plane for another 20 minutes because the plane that was at our gate was broken and needed to be transported away. It was not SO bad because Josh was running late with the car he was driving in the middle of Saturday AM traffic to O'Hare. Well, I FINALLY get off the damn plane. YAYYY! I hurry to the baggage claim so I can get my last suitcase before meeting Josh outside. Well, he ended up parking the car and meeting at the baggage claim, which was good because I was still waiting after 10 minutes for my bags. UGHHH! But I am SO happy to see him, which made the late arrival and bags go away. After I get my baggage, we head to the car that he was driving and head back to his place to drop off the bag before eating lunch. I was SO hungry from being up early and waiting SO long for my bags. We ended up going to a very nice Thai restaurant down the street. I had Pad Thai for the first time, which was very good. I was a little nervous at first, but it was very good. After lunch, we head back to his place for a mid-afternoon siesta, which I really needed before we went out for the evening activities. The evening activities started out with a taxi to Michigan Avenue since it was getting very cold and windy outside. We walked along Michigan Avenue and stopped at the American Doll Store. We made a very special purchase there for my daughter for her upcoming birthday in April. I know that she will LOVE it. After a little bit more walking around, we ended going inside to get warmed up at the mall near Nordstrom's. Well, once inside, I was in HEAVEN because I saw a place that TOTALLY caught my eye. Josh can vouch that for me. My breath was taken away when I saw....Ethel's Chocolate Lounge. I swear I heard choirs of angels singing. (No..that was just the mall music that I was hearing.) We ended up sitting down for a while and had HEAVENLY cup of hot cocoa....along with a sample of one of the chocolate pieces. YUMMMMY! Then we continued to walk around the mall to keep warm before going back outside. Due to very cold wind and temps, Josh and I decided to head towards our final destination a little bit early, Bin36. I was SO much in awe that it was SO close to the House of Blues. SO COOL! We had some good cheese from the cheese bar along a glass of wine to go along with it. Our dinner reservation was not until 9:15 pm and we were there at.....7:30. Ooops! Well, we ended up staying there for the entire time until dinner. For dinner, we were seated a very nice booth towards the back of restaurant. I ended up with some very yummy scallops and shared some of Josh's salad with another glass of wine. After dinner, we took a taxi and made a very earnest attempt to go to the Signature Room for drinks and desserts. Ummm...Houston, we have a problem! The line for the Signature Room was VERY long. We were very tired from the long day, even with the short nap so opted to go home early. It was already 11:15 and it was time to end the wonderful evening. Sunday Our day started at 8:30. We started the day very lazy because I did not have to be at the testing until 11:15. But we were out on the road by 10:30. Since the traffic was going SO well, we even had time to stop at the Mitsuwa Market in Arlington Heights, which was 5 minutes away from the Elk Grove Village High School where I was doing my police testing. It was truly an amazing place. Josh picked up a few supplies and some tasty yummies for dinner. After we left, he dropped off at the high school and wished me lots of luck. I walked into the high school and found where they were holding the check-in for the testing. When I showed them my Driver's License from Minnesota, they immediately asked if I DROVE. HELL NO! I politely replied that I flew in the previous day. They made a photo-copy of my license because they were not able to pull in information from their system....and because I was from out of town (and state!) I signed my waiver and then headed into the auditorium for the orientation before the testing. During the orientation, they present themselves as being very professional and picky of who they were looking for to join their police department, but they were looking something that I had - integrity and honesty. After the orientation, we led into the school cafeteria for the written exam, which consisted of a memory test, reading comprehension, personality interest exam, and another psychological exam. Once I was finished with that portion, it was time for the hard part and to the most disappointing part of the exam - the physical agility exam. The first test was very easy - sit and reach. Passed it with FLYING colors. But next (and LAST) one was to be end for me. I was talking to people in the line about what I had gone through in Minnesota to get my Police Officer certification and they were shocked (mostly because I had to PAY for my schooling and to get into the academy!) Then it was time to do the sit-ups. The first 30 seconds were very easy, but looking back I think I did not pace myself very well and went TOO fast. The last 20 seconds were WORST nightmare EVER. My stomach and back muscle gave out on the LAST TWO sit-ups. I was SO damn close to go onto the run, but NO, I FAILED....literately. It was the end of the line for me, but tried SO hard to not get upset about it. I know that I can try again with another agency. But in the state of Illinois, I am on a time countdown to my 35th birthday - only over 2 1/2 years away - not much time at all for me. I need to work VERY hard to get on a good suburban agency. I know that I have a better shot here than back in Minnesota where the competition is very tough. I called Josh right away to pick me up...WAY ahead of schedule. It took him a little bit of time to pick up, but I was entertained by the TV playing Discovery Channel. I watched two shows of Mythbusters where I LOVED watching them blowing up shit for science. Gotta LOVE that! Right before Josh picked me up, the underpants that was wearing was starting to get VERY uncomfortable. I went to the bathroom to change out of it...THANK GOD! Then I did some networking with a few of the other people who tested. They gave me another source of job positions to help me out. THANK YOU!! Then Josh arrived to pick me up. Yayyy! Once I got in the car, I needed a HUGE hug, which I got from him. Then we drove off to get something to eat because I was VERY hungry. After some driving we ended up at one of his favorite Polish restaurants, The Red Apple. It was a very YUMMY place with everything that I LOVE, especially the pierogies! YUMMMMMMY! I was in Polish heaven. Thank you! It took my mind off of the stuff I was feeling for a little bit. After dinner, we headed back to his place where we relaxed, checked out blogs, and then slowly fell asleep at 9 pm - very early. We were pretty tired. Monday Well, our day started early at 8:30 with being very lazy until 11:30 when started our 2.5 mile walk around the Rogers Park neighborhood. We looked at the neighborhood especially in the West Roger Park area. We then walked on Devon Street in the Indian neighborhood. I loved the smells of the yummy Indian food and some of the shops along the street. A lot to taken in. We had lunch at Tiffin. Josh and I HIGHLY recommend this restaurant if anyone's looking for some good South Indian food in Chicago. Very yummy! After lunch, we took the bus back to the train back his place. Later in the evening, we sat on the couch watching "Van Wilder" along with three episodes from Season 4 of "Scrubs". He cooked me some dinner in between the movie and "Scrubs". Ladies, I am a very lucky lady because he knows how to cook. ;) After dinner and "Scrubs", we retired early because I had my early flight to catch and 5:30 am would come very quickly, but still had time to talk like always. Tuesday Well, I thought (and secretly hoped) that my flight would be delayed. Ah...no! We were up at 5:30 and were out the door by 6:30. The wind was HORRIBLE! My lungs did not like it at all. Too cold! Then we had a SAINT come by...in the form of a taxi. Hallelujah! The drivers took us to the Blue line, which took us to O'Hare. My flight was still on time. Oh well! :( Well, it was not easy to say "Goodbye". It was hard...believe me. I know that we will see each other again in 24 days. This time will be HERE in Minnesota before heading back to Chicago again. Being at home was not easy today either. After taking a Supershuttle home, I opened my apartment to find it looking like WWIII inside. I was SO mad! But I did not sit there and wallow in my pity. I ended up cleaning for 2 hours right before going to work. Once I got to work, I was once not able to relax at all. I was going NOT stop for 8 hours. It SUCKED! Hopefully tommorow will be a better day. Of course, it's Valentine's Day. I will do this tommorow afternoon, but I submit a dare to EVERY blogger to submit a public message about someone that they adore or love. Hell, it's a day of love! Everyone has been TAGGED!