The Engagement

As requested by Not the Queen (aka my sister) she asked me to blog about my engagement. I suppose it’s a natural progression from how we met, to the engagement, to well, the wedding (eventually).

So as promised, here’s the story of the engagement.

I first need to preface this story with everyone and their dog knew Corey was going to propose to me in Disneyworld, except myself and my sister (thank you mom and dad for letting me get to tell her!). I mean everyone, my parents, Corey’s parents, his sister & brother, his step siblings and their spouses, the girls he works with, even our travel agent. I’m still miffed that our travel agent knew… But such is life.

Anyway, back to the story.

About a year and a half ago, Corey and I began planning our latest trip to Disneyworld. We started planning shortly after our first trip since we had an amazing time! This trip, we decided to invite people along thinking it would increase the fun (yes and no). So after all the planning and cajoling, we managed to get my parents and Corey’s parents, sister and brother, to agree to go with us. All the rest of our invitees backed out of the vacation for a variety of reasons.

We planned, schemed, worried, fretted, reserved, argued, revised, and finally made it there all in one piece! Few… So we played in the park the day we arrived having as much fun as you can with pouring Florida rain, dashing from store to store, ride to ride, hoping you don’t drown on the way. And no I’m not talking about the daily summer showers where after 10 minutes of rain it’s dry and warm again, I’m talking about the daily summer showers where it just continues to pour non-stop. Welcome to Disneyworld…

We made the best of what we had. That evening, Corey and I had dinner reservations at Ohana at the Polynesian resort (the resort we had stayed at the first time we went to Disneyworld). The food was tasty. It was almost like a buffet. They start you out with salad, then deliver bowls of sweet “buffalo” wings, pot stickers, veggies of some variety, and noodles. The wait staff then brings around with, what I can only describe as, meat shish kabobs and portions you off some of the pork, beef, chicken and shrimp. It’s all you can eat and the food was terrific. They even brought each table a set of dipping sauces that were scrumptious. After dinner, they served a bread pudding with “burnt” banana caramel sauce. Ohhhhhhhh, so heavenly. I stuffed myself silly, but the food was mmmmmmm, mmmmmmmmm, good.

We finished up dinner with time to spare. Every night the magic kingdom has a fire works show. You can see the show from the 3 lagoon hotels (the Contemporary, the Polynesian, and the Grand Floridian). The beaches in front of the Hotel are the perfect place for viewing the fireworks. They even pump the music through the outdoor speakers in time to the fireworks so you can get the whole effect. So we wondered around the property. I thought it would have been a good idea to view the fireworks from our hotel (the Grand Floridian) thinking we could take my parents, but Corey convinced me that we should stay at the Polynesian with a little trouble (hey, I had no idea what was going on). We started out at the dock, and then decided to wander to the beach since the dock was crowded and it had stopped raining for a few moments. We wandered through the beach area, but there were no seats available, so Corey “suggested” we wonder further along the property. We hadn’t done a whole lot of wandering of the property last time we were there since there were obviously more important things to do like go on all the rides. So we wandered past the beach to a place they have called Sunset Point. Sunset point is this little point on the beach where there’s a circular cut of land that kind of juts out into the water, ringed by palm trees. So we wandered our way out there just in time for the fireworks to start. There’s this great view where the castle is framed by 2 palm trees and you get a fantastic view of all the fireworks.

So we were standing there, watching the fireworks (mind you, we had the point to ourselves) and Corey starts poking me in the back (not unusual) halfway through the show. I turned around to poke him back and he disappeared. As I turned around to find him, there he was, down on one knee, fireworks all around, holding out the ring box (thankfully not upside down. He was a little worried about that) and then he asked me. It was so sweet and uber romantic. Obviously I said yes.