I copied this direct from my journal, so sorry to those of you who've read this word for word before!

The morning of our 1 year anniversary, we left Milwaukee to go spend the weekend in Chicago, because I'd never been there. I could already tell it was going to be a good day, I just had a feeling. Before we left, I gave him his anniversary present... a small scrapbook type thing that I made for him, with pictures and movie stubs and just little stuff I'd collected from our 1st year of dating. He loved it! I was so glad... I was afraid he'd think it was dorky, or that it wouldn't be "enough". But he said it was perfect He told me I couldn't have my anniversary present yet, but that we'd be picking it up on the way.

We headed out of town, but took a different route. He stopped in front of a flower shop, and ran inside to bring me back out a dozen roses He said there was one for every wonderful month we've had together. He kept wanting me to look at the roses and pick out which one was my favourite. I got some ideas of which ones I liked best, but I said I wanted to wait until we got to the hotel and I could unwrap them. Holding onto them in the car was hard enough with them wrapped up. We got to Chicago and I went to put the flowers in the water right away, and unwrapped the bottom so I could make sure all the stems got into the water. I counted them to make sure they were all in the water... and only got 11. So I tried again... and this time I found a 12th (smaller) stem way up high in the paper. We sat back and talked for a while, and Al was looking at the flowers, when he said - "Wait a minute... I only see 11". Sure enough, we counted, and there were 2 of each colour, but only 1 red one. The 12th stem I'd found was from some of the greenery that came with it. He apologized and apologized and said he'd get me a 12th rose some time that night. I said it was okay, I didn't mind, I thought they were beautiful and didn't care if there were 11 or 12. But he promised he'd find me another rose.

We went to go see the Blue Man Group (very cool) and when we got back to the hotel, it was probably about 9:00, and I really wanted something to eat and to drink. We were going to walk across the street to the sub/donut place we'd gotten dinner from, but we were just laying on the bed for a while before we decided to go. He asked me if there was anything he could do to make this night more perfect for me. I said no and asked if I could do anything for him, but he brought it back to me and asked me several times if there was anything he could do. I could tell he wasn't going to let me not give an answer, so I said jokingly "Well, if you could pull out my grandmothers engagement ring...", knowing full well that we weren't going to pick it up until my Mom's birthday next month.

He got out of bed, and said "That's a tall order... but I can give you your 12th rose.". He reached behind the TV shelf, and pulled out a ceramic red rose in a vase. I thought it was sweet, and figured he must have snuck off and got it at some point during the night from the gift shop or something, but couldn't think of any significant lengths of time that I wasn't with him. For the split second of time while I was thinking this, he was walking back to where I was sitting on the bed, and he got down on one knee. He opened the top of the rose (it had a hinged top that I didn't see), and inside was my grandmother's engagement ring. He asked if I would marry him, and I nodded and squeaked yes (I started crying as soon as he got down on one knee). We hugged and hugged for the longest time, and finally I stopped crying long enough to actually say "Yes" and have him put the ring on my finger.