dum dum de dum....

Big news! A few weeks ago (yes, I know, I haven't posted in a while but life has been such a whirlwind...) Mark proposed!

Apparently he had some plans up his sleeve for a little while, and managed to keep it secret.
I'm even more impressed that he told my sister, and that SHE was able to keep it a secret. (sorry Lindi, I know how you get when you're excited about something!)

Of course, being the wonderful guy he is, he had everything planned out, and even managed to remain calm and collected even though I kept throwing a wrench into the "schedule"! (little did I know that he had my family in on it. )

To make a long story short (because if I told the entire thing, it really WOULD be a long story), he got my sister to call me and ask if she could take the boys to her house for a movie, which left me thinking, "yay, an evening alone with Mark!"

He took me out for dinner to a little Vietnamese place that we really like. Afterwards, he took me to the park where we went for a walk on our first date. It's a gorgeous park, and overlooks all of Hamilton. (the view isn't ideal, we were looking out at the "beautiful" steel mills on the water.haha)

We were looking out over a kids' soccer game, and Mark was standing behind me rubbing my neck. (it's always sore from the way I have to carve my stamps).

It started to rain a little, so I thought we should probably head back. The rain lately hasn't been "little". When it rains, it pours, and pours, and hails, and then pours some more!
So it was safe to say that we needed to back to the car. Mark said "before we do though, I have a

surprise for you..."

I turned around, and he was down on one knee, with a little box that was sparkling, and said "will you marry me?"
Of course I said yes (or screamed it?)

I had about a minute to admire the ring before we had to run to the car! Then we sat in the car for a bit, all excited, me asking him how he had planned this all etc, and how long he'd had the ring...and then he said "we have to go to your sisters house now, because your family is all there waiting for us".

He had gone there before hand to show them the ring, before he picked me up for dinner:)