#1 Love Story, Our Valentines Day Couple!

It was our first Holiday season at our new condo and I really got into Christmas (decorating, music, everything!) We spend both Christmas eve and Christmas Day with our families which we love doing but we decided to do our own little Christmas together at our place on 12/23/11. We had decided to do a fondue dinner so it would be mess free and we love fonduing! So the night started out some wine (of course) and Adam had bought a beautiful huge red rose center piece. We decided to do our stockings (in mine was the movie Bridesmaids) then have our dinner and then do our presents. Adam came up from downstairs with 6 ornaments boxes and said that he had some help with making my present this year....

He put them all out in front of me and he anxiously kept checking the bottom to make sure they were in the right order. He started then by saying the ornaments represent a timeline of our life together (we had been together for almost 6 years then.) He opened the first one and on it was hand painted a picture of our WIU mascot and underneath said "our beginning" (where we met).

The next one was a painting of our dog Jax and said "our pug." With each ornament too he had told a story and explanation of the meaning of it, like how Jax was our first big responsibility and so on.

The third ornament had a hand painting of the Chicago skyline on it and said "our move" It was after we had graduated and got jobs in the city (actually right across the Chicago River from each other).

The fourth ornament said "our home" on the bottom and had a painting of our condo building we had bought that last year.

He sort of ended at that and said this is about where we are at now, then opened the fifth one that said "Our Future" with a question mark; this is when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!

After hugging and crying and enjoying the moment he opened the sixth box with the final ornament that said on one side "Adam proposed..." and on the other side it had a picture of the ring and said "December 23, 2011 Erika said yes!

It was truly the best thing ever and could not have been any better! I had started crying when I opened the Jax one (I'm a little obsessed with him.) He had another present for me under the tree which I opened later and it was a pair of ugg boots which he explained was in case I get "cold feet" He had also planned for my sister and her boyfriend and two of our good friends to come over and celebrate after the proposal too! The next day on Christmas eve was so fun to celebrate with family! He had bought my Dad the Father of the Bride dvd too which he loved! I had also actually made him put all the ornaments in the box and re-propose about 45 minutes after the original because it was so great!