Marianne and I are Engaged!

  Well, most of the people who actually care received this in email, but I figured I would post it here anyway.

As of Saturday, Marianne and I are engaged!!! I was going to write up a long email explaining our Incredible weekend, but Marianne has already done that much better than I ever could. So, I'm going to cheat and send everyone what she wrote! :) I have put up pictures of our weekend trip to Maine at:

http://groups.msn.com/MichaelSJonesPhotoAlbum/ourmainetrip.msnw

and I have put pictures of where I proposed here:

http://groups.msn.com/MichaelSJonesPhotoAlbum/theengagement.msnw

I hope you enjoy the pictures!!

Love,
Mike

PS. Here is the story...

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Hello All:

What a weekend I had.....and all in a gloriously wonderful way....brace yourself, this is a long e-mail!

Keeping in mind that Mike and I's first dating anniversary was on Saturday, September 9th.

Since Mike had come up and spent the long labor day weekend with Lauren and I and is coming back up next weekend for her birthday, I had planned to do laundry, cleaning and getting together with close friends. In any event, that all changed on Thursday night....

It was @ 8:30pm and I was laying in bed with Lauren (putting her to sleep) and she was happily trying to teach me how to do duck sounds when I heard "HELLOOOOOOOOOO" echoing through the hallway. Mike had surprised me by flying up from Maryland to spend the weekend with me for our anniversary! I was in shock! He simply said, "You don't think I'd make you spend our anniversary alone, did you?" He whips a brochure out of his pocket saying pack your bags, we're leaving tomorrow for Maine. I of course came right back with "I can't, I have to work, etc." In any event, the planning for this event had been going on since June so my boss knew about it, both sets of parents, etc......as usual, I was the only clueless one!

In any event, Lauren went off to school and then to her dad's on Friday and Mike and I left in the morning for Maine. We stayed in an adorable cabin right near the entrance to Acadia National Park....his mom and step-dad had scoped it out for Mike in advance (thanks Brenda & Larry)! We spent Friday and Saturday cruising through Mountains, beaches, etc......way too beautiful to describe via e-mail!

The pinnacle of the weekend came on Saturday afternoon (our anniversary). We had climbed up to an area where you could see ocean, mountains and beach all around you. It was BEAUTIFUL! The sun was shining bright and Mike then proceeded to say "There's only one thing that could make this weekend better"....he then got down on one knee and proposed to me! Needless to say, you all need to start calling me Mrs. Jones:) Of course, I said, yes! He presented me with a GORGEOUS three stone leo diamond ring (past, present & future). We enjoyed our happy occasion for the rest of the weekend with lots of sight-seeing and smiling :) The more I talk to "the parents", the more I hear just how much planning went into making this weekend perfect.....and PERFECT, it was :)

Lauren took the news better than expected and proceeded to take out an old ring of my and "marry" Striker (our beagle). Whatever gets her through the news :) I overheard her explaining to the dogs this morning that her dad would still be there dad but that Mike was going to be their step-dad.

Gotta run and get some work done (if I can pry my eyes away from my rocks as I type today, that is:)