The Shore Life: The Shore Life is Now the Engaged Life!

Derek and I are now engaged!!! And yes, I am on cloud 9!
As a Birthday and graduation present, I took Derek up to Boston this past weekend to see the Boston Red Sox! As you all know, Derek is a huge fan of the Sox (hence our Dog's name, Trot, after Trot Nixon), so I made sure to get some of the best seats.... 5th row behind the Sox dugout. This was supposed to be a surprise trip, but I blew it one night while washing dishes after keeping it a secret for over 3 months! I was so upset, but seeing how excited and happy Derek was, it made me even more thrilled about the trip.

Our trip was supposed to begin with a small drive down to Myrtle Beach on Thursday night (June 18) to catch our flights on Spirit Air up to Boston. Unfortunately, on Monday of that week, we found out that Spirit Air was on strike and our flights were canceled. So.... ROAD TRIP! We were very lucky in that Trevor and Meredith, our very good friends, were going up to Boston the very same weekend. So we all rented a van and drove up together. Because the drive was over 14 hours, we decided to leave a day early, on Wednesday, and stop Wednesday night at a hotel to finish up the trip Thursday morning. As were were packing up the van Thursday morning, Derek realizes he can't find his wallet. We all searched the hotel, the van, the hotel again.. and nothing. So I immediately started digging through all our bags, pulling almost every item out of the bag and laying it down on the asphalt parking lot. And nothing... and I really mean nothing... no wallet and no ring box. I think everyone knows I was hoping for this weekend to be THE WEEKEND. But after digging through everything and seeing Derek pull everything out of his pockets, I completely wrote the idea out of my head. (yes we finally found the wallet in my computer bag).

So we arrived in Boston Thursday late afternoon and checked into our hotel (Trev and Mer stayed at a different hotel), watched the final Celtics game (boo they lost) and called it a night. Friday was the day for touring, eating and THE GAME! After walking a few miles in the heat, I insisted on taking a bike taxi to the game and it turned out to be so much fun!

Once we got to the stadium we decided to go to a highly recommended bar, The Bleacher Bar. This bar was awesome! Its literally in the green monster, center field and has windows so you can see all the players warming up (plus we saw, Jimmy Clausen, the #1 draft pick for the Panthers)! If you are ever in Boston, go to The Bleacher Bar!

After a few beers, we made our way into the stadium and down to our amazing seats!
We watched a few ESPN interviews and the anticipated meeting of David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. Derek fully believed Manny would solely get cheers, but to his dismay, he actually got a lot of boos. We still love you Manny!

ESPN Interview- Live

We had so much fun at the game. I had my very first Fenway frank, saw my very first home-run live, and saw Rihanna a few rows over; and Derek was thrilled the Sox finished the game with a WIN!

Us at the beginning of the game

Big Papi and Manny

My First Fenway Frank- Delicious!

Rihanna

All the players in the dug out

9th inning

Saturday started off a bit slow (since we celebrated after the game) and began with a trip to the Sam Adams Brewery. When we arrived, we of course, missed the tour and found out that the next tour wasnt until 2:30pm. We were hoping to go to Saturday's game, since we had so much fun on Friday, so opted to not stay for the tour, but to head back to the stadium and scout tickets. The game was super hot, but again, a lot of fun. After the game, we made our way to the North end of Boston to go to our favorite restaurant, Pomodoro, an extremely small Italian restaurant that tickled our fancy several years ago. The food there is something you dream about, just so delicious. The restaurant gave us free calamari and tiramisu cake... so we left unbelievably stuffed! Derek claimed he needed to "walk it off" after we ate, which was more than fine with me.

Not knowing where we were going or where we were headed, we came up to a beautiful dock that over looked yachts, the ocean and the city lights. It was very dark and quite, with no one around and several open benches.

We took some photos of the view and Derek brought me over to the bench to sit down with his arm around me. He spoke about how much fun he/we've had and how much he loved me and all the lovey dovey stuff (sorry, you guys don't get all that info) and asked me what would make this weekend perfect for me. I turned to him with a super sarcastic look on my face and said "get engaged!". Derek pulled his arm from around me and reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring box. I really wasn't even looking. I had turned my head the other way to look at the ocean again (becuase I was a bit peeved that he even asked me that question).

When I turned back he had opened the ring box and again said "This weekend has been amazing, and I couldn't think of a better place to ask you to marry me.... so will you marry me?". I lost it and started crying immediately and was in complete and udder shock! "Definitely, YES!" was my answer!!!! He had placed the box in my hand, but I couldn't really see the ring becuase my darn tears were in the way and I only had one hand to wipe them with. After several moments of "how did you..? I'm so confused..." I realized that ring still wasn't on my finger!!!! So I said "you have to put the ring on" and Derek's response "is that what I'm supposed to do"... I love it! So classic D-Rock.

He took the ring from the box and placed it on my finger and my heart just melted and the tears kept flowing. Many hugs and kisses later, we made our phone calls to Derek's Family and my family. It was all very overwhelming and exciting and just went by so fast.

And like me, you are probably asking, so where did he hide the ring when we were searching through everything Thursday morning? Well, he actually didn't even have it, nor was he even planning on proposing becuase the ring he ordered hadn't even come in yet.... so he thought. As we were driving Thursday morning the ring came in and Heather (my best friend that works at Reeds Jewelers) sent Derek a text while we were all in the car together and told him to call her in private AS SOON AS HE COULD. So Derek texted Trevor, who was driving, "he dud, we need to pull over becuase the ring came in and I need to call Heather". So Trevor pulled over at a McDonalds, and while I was inside using the restroom and ordering a snack, Derek called Heather and they worked out all the details and had the ring shipped to our hotel. Because Derek ran out of "private" time, Heather called our hotel and informed them to not call our room about the package, to not open the package and to just leave it behind the desk for Derek to pick up whenever he could (which turned out to be Saturday morning when he went downstairs to get breakfast).
It turns out he had the ring in his pocket the entire day... while we were at the brewery, at the game and at the restaurant! I had no clue!

So my surprise for Derek turned out to be a big surprise for me.
I can honestly say I have found the love of my life and can't wait to marry such an amazing man.