Here's the story you have all been waiting for (and it's the long version!):
I'd been expecting a proposal for a few months already. We had looked at rings several months ago, and I told you about our discussion after the Bahamas trip. He told me at one point that there was some hold up with the ring -- getting the right one, his Dad was supposed to be helping, etc. He asked me a couple times again what I wanted. But I was still waiting and waiting.
The day we were leaving for Israel, I was in a really bad mood. I had applied for a new apartment -- a coop -- and they were giving me the runaround in terms of the application (when to interview, which I was supposed to have done the day before but then never got a time to show up, when I'd be able to move in, etc, etc). That entire apartment search had been pretty stressful, too, considering I was looking for a place big enough for both of us, but we weren't engaged yet! And then he wasn't packed yet, and my apartment was a mess, and work was stressing me out. So I got all upset at S, and starting telling him "why can't you just get your act together, you can't even get it together enough to propose yet!" Meanwhile, he was probably laughing at me in his head the whole time, because he was sitting there with a ring in his pocket!!
Later, he tells me he was so stressed out going through security. He had the ring in his jacket pocket and didn't want to take off the jacket! He wore the jacket for the entire plane ride, I even asked him once if he was hot but he told me he felt a chill from the window (he took my non-reclining seat, such a gentleman!). In the hotel room, I asked him if he had anything he wanted to put in the safe. Nope!
Monday was our first full day in Israel. We didn't have any plans, but had discussed a bunch of random things to do -- places neither of us had ever been (or hadn't been in a really long time). He said he'd heard about this garden near the K'nesset, could we go there? I said sure, maybe we'd go to the Supreme Court building after, I'd been there in February and thought he'd love it. I asked him why he was bringing his jacket (it was around 85 degrees in Jerusalem) and he said that we might not come back to the hotel before dinner and it gets really chilly in Jerusalem at night (which it really does), so I said he was right and brought mine, too! Stupid me, now I'm carrying around my jacket all day. Didn't think twice about it.
So we get to the Rose Gardens. But there aren't any roses! They'd all been cut back for the summer. We are just walking around, and spy a Japanese garden below us that's pretty -- but can't figure out how to get there. We actually ended up climbing over all these rocks (which was not the right way, there was a path that we found to get out). So we walk over to this beautiful goldfish pond with a bench and he tells me to sit down, which I do. Then I discover there's some graffiti on the bench and point it out -- it's mostly in Hebrew, and we don't know what it says. Except for two words in English. "Broken Hearted." He makes me get up -- bad omen, he says. Oops.
Now we are walking around again. But find another nice spot near a weeping willow tree (my favorite) and the big goldfish pond. Here he says he wants to tell me something, and says some wonderful things about me and then gets down on one knee, and asks if I'll spend the rest of my life with him!! And finally takes that diamond ring out of his jacket pocket, of course.
And I said Yes!
But it's only 2am in the USA. So we don't call our parents or friends. We took some self-portraits (there was no one around to take any for us), and went to the Zoo! What else COULD we do? When it was finally late enough for people here to be awake, we went somewhere where I knew I could have wifi (to send free texts), and I started texting people. And posted on Facebook. It was then fabulous to have a week together in Israel, we had an amazing trip before we had to return to reality -- and wedding planning. :-)
