He put a ring on it! (Our weekend in Chicago)

As almost everyone knows, Joe and I went to Chicago this past weekend to celebrate our anniversary (a month early). We were really excited to have a weekend to get away together before I leave for camp and since we haven't gotten to go on a vacation together in a long time.

We left at six in the morning on Saturday (yikes!) so that we could make it there by early afternoon and spend the day going to the aquarium, dinner and to a play. We had a nice drive and got there right on schedule. We were staying with my wonderful cousin, Kaila, she helped us navigate mass transit to make it downtown.

We were dressed up all nice for dinner and the play, but obviously I wasn't wearing my peach dress because it caught on fire. We were the fanciest people on the train and throughout the evening, several homeless people asked Joe for money because I guess they thought we looked wealthy. That really happened.

(Joe is not in this picture because he wouldn't let me ask someone to take one of us.)

Anyway, we got to the aquarium and found out that there would be a two hour wait! We were hot in our dressy clothes and didn't have time to wait in line if we were going to make it to our play that night, so we decided to find something else to do... a water taxi!

(Us in line waiting for our water taxi)

We were really excited to ride the water taxi because it was a beautiful, sunny day and a boat ride sounded like a lot of fun! The taxi went to Navy Pier, which is a place were planning on going, anyway. While on the water taxi, we saw the Ferris Wheel in the distance and I suggested we go on it since I couldn't go on the swings in a dress. Joe (overly) enthusiastically agreed that the Ferris Wheel sounded like fun.

As we were buying our tickets for the Ferris Wheel, I mentioned something about how it was kind of boring, but Joe, once again overly-enthusiastically, assured me that it would be really fun since it was such a pretty view. I agreed and we bought our tickets.

While we waited in line, Joe was acting pretty... weird. He was very happy, first of all. He kept smiling at me weirdly. Secondly, he kept squeezing my hand like he was nervous/excited. Sketch. At this point, I had my suspicions that something was coming so I was pretty excited myself.

We got on the Ferris Wheel and the view was very pretty. I suggested we take a picture of us with the pretty view behind us. This picture was taken literally a minute before Joe proposed. I love this picture because look how happy he looks! :)

So anyway, we're on the Ferris Wheel, I'm suspicious, we're taking pictures and nothing else is happening! We've gotten to the very top and are just starting the descent and I'm starting to think that maybe I was wrong when Joe says, "Hey Brittany..." and gets down on one knee! EEEEEEEE! He goes to pull something (a RING) out of his pocket and can't get it out. He looks embarrassed and panic-stricken and it's the cutest thing in the world because obviously I know what is happening since he's on one knee. He finally gets it out and asks me to marry him and I say YES (of course)!

We are both glowing because WE ARE FINALLY GETTING MARRIED when we get off the Ferris Wheel when a little girl with braces who was probably around 13 comes up, glowing as well, and tells us, "Congratulations!!!" She was in the car behind us so she saw it happen. :) We were really happy that we had one witness to be excited with us.

After that, we walked to dinner while I called and texted all my friends and family. Dinner was amazing and our waiter was great! He even put candles in our desert to celebrate our engagement.

We were glowing all evening and honestly, I still am. I just can't believe it's finally happening and I get to marry my best friend at last! We are so, so excited and so blessed. More on this later.

We ended up missing our play because mass transit takes forever, so we changed our plans and walked around Michigan Avenue, went to the beach briefly (see picture above), then finally back to Navy Pier to hang out at the beer garden and wait for the fireworks. There was live music and the fireworks were awesome - what a perfect way to end the night, right?

When we got back to Kaila's apartment, she had candles and champagne waiting to celebrate with us! It was so sweet and it was great to be able to celebrate with someone who wasn't a stranger.

The next day, we finally did get to go to aquarium.

(This is the appropriately named "Man with Fish.")

We waited in line for an hour and a half, but it wasn't too bad and the aquarium was really cool. After that, we got hotdogs (Joe got Chicago-style, I got a turkey dog) and then walked to Millennium Park. It was sooooo hot and humid that day, so we were dying by the time we got there. We made a pit stop in what we thought was Millennium Park and took this cute picture in front of the fountains, showing off my new bling:

At the real Millennium Park, we took a necessary tourist picture with the bean and then played in the spitting fountains, which felt wonderful since we were so hot and sweaty.

Then we headed home.

Overall, we had a wonderful weekend together and it was a great way to not only celebrate our anniversary, but our engagement, too!

I feel so blessed to be marrying Joe. We have been together for so long and I know that God put us together for a lot of reasons, which I will not go into on here. It has been a long wait, but we have prayed that God would work everything out in his timing and that we would have patience in waiting. We have struggled to be patient, but have always known that when the time was right, God would work everything out for us. God's timing is so much more perfect than ours ever could have been! I will be moving back to St. Louis in December to student teach... what more perfect time is there for me to get married and move in with Joe? Also, a short engagement is perfect for my hyper-planning, type-A personality. If I weren't diving right into planning, I would be going crazy! God knows us so well and I am so thankful that we waited for his timing instead of moving forward with ours in any aspect. He is providing magnificently already for the wedding in the form of support, offers of help, finances, etc. God is SO GOOD!

I leave you with a few more pictures of my ring because I am obsessed with it:

Thank you for reading! :)