ENGAGED!!!!!

G and I are engaged!!!!!

This past weekend was one of the happiest of my entire life! On Friday, we celebrated his birthday in a casual way. I made a cake, we went to see a movie, and we hung out with his friend F who had come into town for the weekend. Despite how busy he's been lately with this summer class he's taking, G casually mentioned that we should go to the zoo this weekend. Now, going to a zoo is one of my favorite things in the world. I have never been to the North Carolina Zoo, and we had been talking about heading over there for weeks.

We got up pretty early on Saturday (for me anyway, haha) and headed out. We were dressed casually like it was just any normal day. It took us about an hour to get to Asheboro, NC, and the car ride was, as always with us, fun simply because we were together. I was so excited just to be at the zoo!! The North Carolina Zoo has two major sections, an Africa section and then on the other side, a North America section. We parked in Africa and started off our zoo adventure looking at giraffes, zebras, and elephants. Even though it was hot, we had such an amazing day. Just to give an example of how sweet G is to me, I was sweating from the heat and often, he would lightly blow on my skin to cool me off. It's the little things like that that matter so much to me. He never fails to show me that he's thinking about my comfort and my happiness.

The Africa side was 2 miles of pathways, and it took us about two hours to see everything on that side. We ate lunch in the park and then took the tram to the other side of the zoo. I was taking pictures all day and we were holding hands, laughing together and having a fabulous time. Then, for a moment on the North America side of the zoo, by the Bobcat, we were completely alone under the trees. We had stopped and put our waters down so that we could hug and kiss, and we both said that we would love each other forever. G left our embrace and suddenly he was down on one knee. I didn't realize what was happening at first, but then it became clear when I saw the ring in his hands and he looked up at me and asked, "Will you marry me?" Of course, I said yes, tears flowing down my face as he placed the most beautiful diamond ring on my finger.

We stood there in our little private corner for about 30 minutes, laughing and hugging and loving each other completely. I was so surprised!! I knew this was the man I wanted to marry, but I had no idea he had already bought a ring and was going to propose! It makes me so happy to know that we got engaged on the afternoon of such a perfect and happy day spent together at the zoo. By the time we headed home, we were both exhausted from a more than 5 mile hike through all the areas of the park, but nothing could dampen our excitement and our happiness. That night we went to Mimi's to toast our future over a glass of champagne, and you can use your imagination to figure out what happened after we got home. It was the best day of my life. And it's only the beginning.