Best Christmas Gift Ever!

Once upon a time... life started to feel like a fairy tale.

On Friday, December 25, 2009, my best friend, my love, my one and only asked me to marry him. I, of course, said yes!

The first thing people have asked me lately is to tell the story of the proposal. I'm sorry to disappoint, but I don't have a huge story to tell. But that's perfect for me :). But here's the info I have - which, I suppose - could be considered a story:

Apparently, Jim had known since Thanksgiving that he was going to ask me to marry him. My family was all up here for that holiday, but he said he couldn't get my parents alone to ask them. He did ask my brothers, though... they had a whole guys-moment-thing going on. I suppose they both gave him the thumbs up and he continued to plan.

At Christmas time, he finally got a chance to talk to my parents - or more specifically, my mom. It seems like I was hovering a bit, because (again) he couldn't get them both at the same time. So he talked to mom and she talked to dad - is what I heard. But I suppose it all worked out for the best!

On Christmas day, we did our normal gift opening and then my grandmother (dad's mom) came over for a yummy lunch. After she left, I figured we would be settling in for a quiet afternoon before the Titan's game that night. But Jim pulled me into the room he was staying in and told me to cover my eyes. When he told me to open them, he was in front of me on one knee.

He simply said, "Will you marry me?" I don't remember if I said yes right away, but there was no hesitation in my head. I'm pretty sure Jim was expecting tears, but I was too excited and happy - more smiley than weepy!

He said that he didn't want to make a big production out of proposing to me - because I'm not a fan of being the center of attention and all that. It worked a lot better for me to be just the two of us. Nice and easy! See how well he knows?!

The ring is from his family and is gorgeous. Much more than I would have ever wished for. I am going to have to get it resized, but it's pretty darn near perfect! Apparently it was hidden in our kitchen since Thanksgiving. Shows how observant I am!

A lot of people have asked if I knew it was coming - the official answer is no. But there were hints... and I kinda thought it might be coming. One being that Jim was way too excited about Christmas - like every once in a while doing the "it's almost Christmas!!!" That's not so normal for him. And there were other little things, but I'm gonna go with "no, I had no idea!"

I know that the next questions people have are all about the wedding. And I would just like to say here that no plans have been set yet. As in.... I dunno what date, I dunno where, I dunno how.... nothin. But we're open to suggestions!

Guess that's all I have for now. This has all been the best Christmas gift I've ever gotten (and will ever get, I'm sure). It's still sinking in, but I'm getting more excited the more I realize - even if my "to do" list just grew a lot.

Backtracking to Thanksgiving

Before I get too deep into the Christmas season, I feel like I need to just give the Thanksgiving rundown. This is mostly because we had such a fun time and I'm fairly likely to forget what all we did and where we went. So, this is backtracking a bit, but I thought I would share anyway.

My family all came up for the Thanksgiving holidays. As in, my mom, dad, both of my brothers and their wives. It was quite the crew! Luckily, they weren't all staying with me! I don't have that kinda space :). Helloooo studio! Anyway, they found a great hotel in Chelsea that was a great location and was right next to trains as well. I was impressed :).

They came into town on Tuesday night (the 24th, I believe). Jim and I met them at the airtrain and took them straight to the hotel. I was already wiped out cause I had worked that night - so we just left them there. On Wednesday morning, they all took a stroll through Greenwich Village down to Houston. We met them at Katz Deli - one of our favorite places to get a great sandwich! Then we walked down around Chinatown, but it started raining... so we did a little shopping and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.

Wednesday night we went up to see the parade balloons being blown up. It's such a cool thing to do! I had seen it before, but the fam needed the experience. It was misting quite a bit by then, so we really didn't stay long. We then headed back down to the Theatre District because we were seeing Jersey Boys later. We stopped at Rosie O'Gradys for some warm-me-up foods and headed on to the theatre.

I have to say that Jersey boys was amazing! The music was just spot on and my entire family was pretty much singing along. I'm glad we got to see it! I have to agree with whoever said it wasn't exactly a musical so much as a musical timeline. But it was still wonderful and I'll recommend it on to others.

After the show, we went down a few blocks to Times Square to take a few pictures and things. We decided to go somewhere for dessert - and conveniently there was a place called Roxie's that was perfect! I think some people were itching for some "NY Cheesecake." I know that wasn't me! Anyway, we took lots of pictures and walked ourselves back down to the hotel. Had to get to bed early to be ready for the parade in the morning! :)

On Thursday morning, we were out and about early. We went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I believe we ended up standing around 40th on 6th ave. It was a great spot, really... I think we got really lucky! They had lots of stuff blocked off, so we had to do some maneuvering. But the parade was wonderful and the weather was pretty mild. I'm happy to report that we stayed for the whole thing - even though there was mumbling to the contrary.

Afterward, I had made reservations to have Thanksgiving Dinner at one of the restaurants in Grand Central Station. It's the one in the actual concourse that looks out onto the station- Metrazur. The food was fantastic (a lot better than I was expecting), so I think everyone was satisfied. The only thing missing was leftovers for later!

After dinner, we headed out to Queens so I could show everyone our apartment. We have tons of video games (thanks to boyfriend extraordinaire), so we set up rockband and some wii bowling and everyone went to town. That was a nice, quiet evening. By that point, I think everyone was starting to feel a bit of the tiredness of walking around the city for a few days.

On Friday, everyone sort of split up to do their own thing. Dad and Blake went to the Guggenheim, Grant and Megan went to Battery Park, Mom and Moriah went shopping in the scary Macy's :). Jim and I met up with the later and walked down to SoHo with them - specifically to go to the MoMa Store.

We all met back up in Little Italy to get a late lunch. Jim's mom actually came down from RI to have lunch with us. That was a good time and our parents got to get to know each other. After eating, I took both of our moms to see about getting some fakie purses - I may have shocked my mom though :). It's kind of a crazy area and lots of crazy people to deal with.

Mom and I took Jim and his mom to Penn Station because they were headed back to RI for a memorial service. Then I met up with my brothers, etc to go see Ragtime that night. It was pretty good! I didn't realize it was still in the first stages of being on Broadway and all that, but it kind of makes sense. It was well done (except for a few things), but it's a fairly depressing story. We stopped at a brewery on the way home and had a nice evening of chatting and such :).

On Saturday morning, Grant and Megan left early. They had the early flight that day. Everyone else did a little shopping and Dad went to the Met. We met up for lunch (minus dad) in Hell's Kitchen and went back to a place we had been to before and loved - Five Napkin Burger. Yum! We wandered around a bit more before we had to go to the airport.

It was so nice to have them all around for the holiday! We had such a good time. I wish they could come up more often! Alas. At least I'm headed down to see them at Christmas time. I was going to add pictures to this post, but it's definitely long enough without it. I have pics all over my facebook stuff, so check around to find them. There are definitely some fun ones :).

Anyway, here's to a great Thanksgiving and looking forward to Christmas!