Surprise, surprise!

Ah, my first blog post. It seems there are a lot of firsts and change is in the air! I mean, I go home for my baby brother's college graduation (I still can't believe it, I feel like I just graduated), I donate 11 inches of my hair to Locks of Love, I go to NYC and come back engaged! A co-worker joked, "you should cut more hair off, who knows what you could get?"
I'm thinking... shaved head = Lamborghini?

There are a few cute things that I can add to the story...

Before going to NYC, that Friday night we saw Spider Man 3. In the movie, Peter is going to propose to Mary Jane, things go awry and he feels he's not ready (sorry to ruin that for anyone!). Afterward, Ian and I sat down and I shared that I felt that I may not be ready. I can't imagine how Ian must have been feeling right then with his NYC plan about to unfold! I knew that it would be awhile before Ian could afford a ring and was beginning to think we'd be one of those couples that date forever and never get married.

Going to NYC, I hadn't been in contact with Thalia much. She seemed to be very busy with work (Ian talked to her more than I did!). When I arrived she explained that she had a big order in and may need to go to work. She was on the phone a lot and when her phone rang while she was in the shower I checked who was calling. Thank god that call really was from Dean and DeLuca and not one of the occasions Ian was calling! Their cover would have been blown!

We went to D&D a couple of times and Thal showed me this cute over the shoulder picnic basket she got her mom. When I started looking for a price she said, "I can find that out for you in the back". On a later visit we went to the back office to meet her friends. I found out that Thal hadn't taken Monday off! I was shocked! She knew I was going to be there but she and her friends managed to distract me with plans of going out that evening....

We went shopping at H&M I wondered why Thal was getting antsy, I mean, she loves to shop! There isn't an H&M in Dallas and I was getting my fix...but I thought nothing of it and hurried so we could get some grub. We ate at this fabulous Venezuelan restaurant called Caracas Arepa Bar where I was so hot in my long sleeve shirt I decided to change into one of my new H&M shirts (Thal strongly encouraged this and I'm glad she did the color made for a great photo later!). After eating we headed to Central Park.

When we got off the subway, Thal began deleting photos from her camera. Again, someone else might have thought this odd, but I was just happy to see some of her birthday photos. Coming up to the park, I noticed that it looked empty and thought we'd missed the festival. Not a big deal I thought, Thal wanted to show me a spot she'd had a picnic. As we walked in Thal took me down to the pond and started pointing out buildings. So I start looking around the park, taking in the vibrant greens and beautiful mist the recent rain had left. When I'd turned around noticed a guy staring right at me, standing in a suit and leaning on an umbrella with picnic spread out behind him and a strangely familiar picnic basket...

I didn't believe my eyes, I turned and asked Thalia "Is that Ian?" She said something like "I don't know, why don't you go check it out?" I started walking toward him and immediately started crying... I knew what was coming and was saying yes and gesturing for him to get up... I was overwhelmed.

All the while Thal was snapping photos and waiting to describe all the goodies she'd packed for us. After explaining all the delicious treats she had picked (I think we liked the chocolate covered pretzel balls best!) she left us to bask in the glow of the moment.

A surprise picnic proposal in Central Park... unbelieveable... I am such a lucky girl!