I'm Engaged!

Wow, what a weekend. It was a whirlwind, and the happiest one that I've ever had. It included our bicycles, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, dinner at our favorite restaurant (Cork & Cleaver Social Kitchen), champagne, Tremont Scoops for a good cause, a limo ride, a fantastic first experience at Ken Stewart's Grille, brunch at Flour, good friends, and...an engagement!

What started out as an innocent (to me) evening bike ride at the zoo for their new Wild Ride at the Zoo events...

...seeing the animals from the view on our bikes (I'm clueless)...

...watching the nocturnal animals be more playful (still no idea what's about to happen)...

...having some silly fun with selfies (he had almost popped the question on a bench by the flamingos, but we had moved on before the moment felt right)...

...turned into a proposal from "R" on a picnic bench by the creek (finally!).

The zoo is the site of what I like to call our "first Cleveland date." When we met, I was still living in Upstate NY. He visited me first, but during my first weekend trip to Cleveland, "R" took me to the zoo. It's always been a special place for us, and we visit often thanks to a membership that my mom renews each year.

We were actually sitting at the picnic table, me in front of him between his knees, discussing our first date. I like to do that. Pretty much every time we're there (according to "R"). But, this time we were talking about it in more detail, since we are about to celebrate our seven year anniversary this week!

We were reminiscing about that first visit together, and how quickly time has gone by. I like the part of our first date story where we stood by the porcupine exhibit in the Rainforest, and "R" said to me, "Did you know porcupines mate for life?" and gave my hand a little squeeze. At this point in the story on Friday night, he slipped the ring in front of me and said, "That sounds nice. Will you spend the rest of your life with me?" Pretty sure that I said yes at some point, but there was a whole lot of surprise happening and it took me a minute to focus on what was actually going on. "R" claims it felt like an eternity before I said anything. Ha, made him sweat!

We called and texted family and friends right away, and then immediately headed to Cork & Cleaver for a celebratory dinner. I couldn't image going anywhere else, and they truly helped to make our evening very special.

The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind, but I'll share more of that later. Thank you to everyone that wished us well and helped us celebrate this weekend through texts, phone calls, tweets, Facebook comments, and Instagram likes. The social media world that we live in certainly helped me feel loved this weekend. You guys are the best! Now, I'm just going to go figure out what being a fiance feels like...