May 7, 2016…
9:30am I was just waking up when he called. I remember
thinking “why is he calling me this early?” We had plans that day to go to
visit his family and do some shopping on the way. But he told me that I needed
to wear something dressy-casual and comfortable shoes for walking. I said “OK,”
hung up the phone and proceeded to freak out!
At 11am Mike picked me up and we drove into downtown Philadelphia. I
thought to myself, “hmm yeah I don’t think we’re going to New Jersey”. I had a
TON of questions of course, but I kept my mouth shut and decided to enjoy the
adventure. And what an adventure it was! He had the whole day planned!
This picture was from outside of the
Independence Hall visitor’s center… we decided it was a very appropriate sign
to take a picture with! Mike then posted it on facebook for everyone to see….
There were several facebook posts throughout the day so to a degree everyone
else was in suspense too!
Our first stop was to pick up tickets for Independence
Hall (I hadn’t gotten to go there yet and he and I both love history), then after
we got some lunch at a café nearby we had a nice little tour of Independence
Hall and took lots of pictures.
The next surprise was that he took me on a carriage ride
around the old part of the city. This was something I’d always wanted to do and
it was fun and rather romantic.
Next we spent some time going through the Constitutional
museum, followed by a walk through the "Love Park".
Later we had dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant. After we were
done eating he slipped away to the restroom for a bit and was gone for awhile
which of course only peaked my curiosity even more! He came back, looked at me
and laughed saying something like “you’re so cute, you have no idea what’s
going on do you?” And of course I didn’t, but I just laughed. He told me we had
to wait a bit because it wasn’t time to go, so we just sat there and talked for
awhile longer. Such suspense!!!!
After a little stop at his car to get
something (which was a large-sized bag – more curiosity!) he took me up to the
top of the Liberty Place – a skyscraper with an observation area and beautiful
views of the city.
Little did I know we had stalkers taking our picture.... a friend of Mike's got there ahead of us and captured the moment!
After a little while he had me sit down and out of the
bag brought a scrapbook that he’d put together for me! He’s never done something like this before, but he did an amazing job! It was about our story, how we met and our first
few months of dating. He had saved little things from our dates and left places
for me to fill in with some of my own pictures and my side of the story. It was
SO incredibly special and I loved it!
At the end of the book he had the ring box which he took out, said something like “well Amelia, being boyfriend and girlfriend has been great, but it’s time for a change.” He made me stand up, got down on one knee and asked his sweetheart and best friend to marry him!
Of course I said YES! (duh!)
It was an absolutely amazing day! He completely
overwhelmed me by his thoughtfulness and creativity and made it a super special and memorable day! Here's a couple of shots from our engagement photo shoot!
