What has happened since my last post? Part 2...

The weekend after meeting Melissa my roommate was moving out. He got a job down south somewhere and let me know that he was leaving at the end of September. Dave (the roommate) packed up all of his stuff and wished me luck with Melissa and I wished him luck with the new job... he was pretty cool overall. It was kind of weird to be in the condo alone again though. The place is far too big for just me and I didn't really feel like looking for another roommate, so I just decided to put the place back on the market (crappy, crappy market).

I was also seeing Melissa pretty much every day at that point. Mostly she would come over to see me but I also took the trip a few times to see her at her apartment in Vicksburg. Her mom and step-dad  decided to come visit her at the beginning of October so they could take both of us out to lunch. They showed up on Saturday afternoon and we all rode down to Shipshewana, Indiana in Melissa's van (well its a Saturn VUE... technically a SUV heh). Shipshewana was actually pretty cool. I had never been there before. It is a small Amish town that has a lot of small shops with antiques, baked goods, furniture, etc. The food there was amazing. We ate at this huge house in the middle of town that offered "family style" dining, which is where they bring out plates full of chicken, potatoes, beans, etc that you split with the 4 people at your table and you can get unlimited refills on everything. I ate sooo much chicken as did Mel, her step-dad... but it was so freggin good. Yeah, I would go back there. Her parents and I got along really well too.

After eating and shopping we headed back to Portage and her family headed back to near Alma, which is where Melissa is originally from. It was after they left that we started having some serious discussions about our futures and even talked openly about getting engaged sometime soon and what the future held for us related to our goals within our careers, finances, families, and everything. It was all so fast but we both felt totally comfortable with it. We have some kind of bond where we literally feel like we've known each other for years, it is hard to explain so I won't do it here! :-)

Melissa really wanted to plan our first weekend trip together and loves going to the UP. I have never been there before so it sounded like a good opportunity to try something new (and to see if we could withstand 800 miles in a car without killing each other!). We both took off Friday and Monday of the following weekend and headed up north. We visited her mom and step-dad again and I also got to meet her dad and step-mom as well as her brother. We stayed the night at her dad's place in Alma on Friday night and headed up to the UP early Saturday morning. Meeting her whole family was interesting. Overall, I felt pretty comfortable around them and it was cool to see her hometown.

So in the morning we reached the Mackinac Bridge, which I had never seen in person before. We stopped off at a park and took some pictures here:

 

I also taped the 5 minute drive across the bridge. Why not right? Once we got to the UP we headed up to Tahquamenon Falls and to the Shipwreck Museum. The museum was ok, we actually didn't end up going into it but checked out the lighthouse and Lake Superior

Then we got to the falls (amazing, by the way) and took some more pictures and talked some more about our futures. Things were getting very serious. I swear if I had a ring then I would have proposed at the falls... I do kind of regret that but its ok.

We then headed to Sault Ste Marie where our hotel was at and went out for a good dinner at an Irish pub there. Then afterwards we went to the casino where I played like 20 minutes of blackjack at the $3 table (yes, $3 blackjack tables... unheard of at the other casinos I have been to) where I turned $60 into $120. Then on the way out I threw $5 into a 25 cent slot machine fully anticipating to lose the money immediately. I have never won anything in a slot machine... in fact, I hate them with a passion. But I felt lucky because it had been an amazing couple weeks and a great trip so far. My luck played out and on my second to last pull I won $63! Bonus! I came in with $60 and turned it into over $180. That covered most of the trip outside of the hotel costs :-)

The next morning we saw the locks and called up my mom. Melissa and my mom get along great on the phone. After waiting there for a while, 3 boats showed up at the same time to go through the locks. It was pretty interesting to watch.

Then we headed back to the lower peninsula to go to Traverse City for the night. Our hotel there was pretty amazing... it even had a Jacuzzi and overlooked the bay.

We visited her grandparents and some more of her family there in Traverse City that night, also good people. Then the next morning we went to the Grand Traverse Mall to go shopping and I also wanted to get some kind of ideas from her on what ring she may want. Yes, really... I told you it was serious. When we were there she found some ones she liked. I then "asked" her to go to Target because she loves that store (along with like every other girl ever... what is it about women and Target?). So she went there and I got the ring she liked the most and also headed to JC Penny to buy a few shirts, which really was to just get a few bags and have a good way to hide my ring purchase, which was fairly obvious really. We had lunch at the food court in the mall. I wasn't very hungry so I just got a couple things from Taco Bell and she got some Chinese food (yuck!). You know how Taco Bell has witty one-liners on their hot sauce packets like "Pick Me!" or "Heads" and "Tails"? Well one of my packets was this:

So I gave it to her as a joke and told her to read it... to which she replied "You're kidding?!?" and I said "Yes, yes I am kidding. But just you wait." Yes, I can be pretty cheesy... yet another slick move by me :-)

After eating lunch we were done with the mall and wanted to go wine tasting because it sounds like a grand ol' time for elitists like us! We tried some wine at the Chateau Traverse or whatever its called and bought a variety pack and headed back home to Portage.

Later that night as we were getting ready for bed I gave her the ring along with another hot sauce packet with the same message and asked her to marry me. I know it was cheesy, but she said yes.

More to come still...