ENGAGEMENT STORY....

Many of you asked to hear our engagement story! Here it is! It's long...but good! :)

Casey and his family invited me to go on a weekend trip with them to New York (you should know...NYC is one of my most favorite places EVER). He had told me a while back that he would plan a date or something for us to do while we are there so that we can have a little bit of our own time in NYC.

Literally...the day before I left...a few friends asked if he might propose to me. To which I told them...."I would LOVE it if he did it there....but he won't... he is ALL about the element of surprise he would know that I though it might happen there!" So...I really didn't even expect it!

He and his family flew up there on Thursday...but I couldn't get out of town because of work until FRIDAY....so they had been up there planning and scheming!!

I had a bad cold right before I left and brought tons of medicine for myself. So I was just feeling OKAY.... Friday night we all went to the Yankee's game...which was great! Case and I are both big baseball fans! We woke up Saturday morning and me, his mom, and sister decided to go to Chinatown and let the boys go do whatever they wanted. You have to know...that I LOVE Chinatown and I LOVE to haggle with all of the people there! I don't know why...but it's such a rush for me! We get on the subway and start walking around.....I immediately had to go to the gross Starbucks there and got so sick!!!! UGH! I even went on to a Burger King down there too....and they had someone standing guard there in front of the bathrooms. You have to be a customer to use their's and they really enforced it! I cut in line...bought fries...and ran to the bathroom! I ended up calling my mom and telling her that I could not possibly be her daughter b/c I got sick in Chinatown and could not get all of my shopping done! :)

We went back to the hotel so that I could rest. I felt good once we were all ready to go to the Lion King musical...it was so good!!!

Later...I went back to rest a little bit before we got all dressed up and ready for our date that he had apparently REALLY planned! ( I honestly thought we would just go with the flow and do whatever came to mind...Casey is not known to be a huge planner!) So we get in the cab and he says that he wants to go hang out at a couple of places before we get to dinner...he tells the cab driver to take us to St. Patrick's Cathedral. I had never been inside before and it was absolutely GORGEOUS. We sat down at one of the pews and Casey turned to me and told me he wanted to read something to me, then pulled out a pink Bible from the pew and began to read Proverbs 30 (this was the moment when things were starting to come together for me and I started to figure out what was happening!) He then led me out into the middle of the aisle of the cathedral to a big Alpha and Omega symbol in the floor and proposed to me! (I know that he said so many sweet words....but i cannot remember ANYTHING!) He gave me the Bible afterwards and it had my married name already printed on the front of it! After the proposal, we went up to the altar to pray together and then went to the back and lit a candle together! It was all REALLY sweet! Next we went on to take a carriage ride around Central Park before our dinner reservations..all the while I am trying to call and call my family and NOBODY will answer their phones, which is SO typical! We finally made it to the restaurant, he had chosen to take me to Tavern on the Green which I love! We are led to our table where, I had no idea that MY family and his family were waiting for us! Not only was it special that my family was there....but it was even more special because my dad would never go with my mom to NYC...and since it was our engagement he was so excited to go! It was absolutely the best engagement ever!

Plus...his dad was in the back of the cathedral the whole time taking pictures!!!! So...I had something to look at and remember! (it was really dark in the cathedral...so the pictures are a little fuzzy!)