For those of you who know me well, you know that I was going crazy waiting for Ben to propose! Anyways, I should have trusted Ben that he had something planned. (And it was good!) It was my first day of work at my new teaching job. Ben told me that we should go out to dinner that night to celebrate. He said it would be fun to get dressed up and go out. Of course, I agreed. So that evening after work, I got ready and met Ben at his apartment. I was a little early, so he made me pick some things at the store on my way there. As I was driving to his apartment, I was starting to get a little annoyed because he told me he was still at work which meant we would probably be late for our reservations. Finally I get to his apartment, and he told me to wait downstairs because he would be pulling in a few minutes, and then we would go to the restaurant. I never actually saw him pull in, but the lot is big, so I just assumed he parked somewhere else. When he came up to my car he told me that he messed something up with our reservations so we had to go somewhere else. So, we went up to his apartment to drop off my things.
When we walked into his apartment, I knew that tonight was the night! The first thing I saw was flowers and candles everywhere. However, when I looked to my left, there was a man and woman cooking in the kitchen. Needless to say, I was a little confused and surprised. Ben introduced the man to me as Julio, and he was the chef at a restaurant called Azure in Philadelphia. The reasons this was so incredible and amazing are that one, Azure is my favorite restaurant of all time, and two, and more importantly, is that it had closed three months earlier! Ben had somehow tracked down the chef, Julio, who used to work there, and had him come to his apartment to make me the meal we always used to eat!! It was incredible. The food tasted better than in the restaurant. We ate and listened to some sweet reggaeton (Latin music) and I was just wondering when he was going to ask!
After dinner, and after Julio and his wife had left, Ben suggested we go for a walk. I figured this was finally it! As we walked out of his apartment, there was a car waiting for us! Someone from his work was going to take us to the next place. I had no clue where we were going. Ben said we were going to get some dessert. Well, where did we end up? At an elementary school where we had our first kiss in high school! And that's where he proposed! It was fantastic!
As if that wasn't enough, we ended up going back to Ben's parents' house where my family and his family were waiting with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. It was truly perfect.
So that's it. He really went above and beyond, and he was definitely worth the wait!
Mr. Barnes put some of our photos of the engagement night onto his website, here is the link if anyone is interested. http://web.me.com/dadidoc/Ben_Cindy/Engagement.html