our story starts here | part ii

it was wednesday, june 13th at this point. it was late in the afternoon on our third day of our trip. we had been sitting by the water for almost an hour. alex asked me if we would take a dip in the lake tomorrow (remember how i said the water is only 53 degrees?). i checked the weather, and saw that thursday would be much cooler than it was then, even as late in the afternoon as it was. i told him that tomorrow looked dodgy. "now is the best time. let's do it." we put our swimsuits on. we laid a blanket down to sit on after our dip, and alex set up the camera. we took our dip - a donnelly dip, as i like to call it - and then alex directed me to stand on the blanket. he said he wanted to make sure the camera was recording. his voice was shaking, but i couldn't tell if it was from coldness or nervousness. i watched him bend down to grab something small out of the fanny pack, and immediately knew what was happening. the next few minutes weren't my most graceful, but they were definitely the most excited. alex got down on one knee, but couldn't even get a word in over me cry-laugh-screams. finally he just stood up and we hugged and cried and kissed he asked me if i would marry him, and if i wanted to try on the ring already. 

after about five minutes of hug-crying, we settled on the blanket and absorbed the pure joy of the moment.

we got engaged! to be married!

we sat for about an hour. what struck me as alex revealed the details of the last five months was that he just kept saying how relieved he was to not have to lie to me anymore. he said it was so hard for him to keep this from me, even though it was to give me the happiest surprise of my life. he spoke about how truly hard and painful it was for him to not be able to talk to me about this weighty journey that he had to make alone, up until that moment, and i never would have thought about the difficulty of that until he spoke about it. 

we decided to take 24 hours to not tell anyone, but to just be in it. it was the best decision. it allows you to just sit with the joy. to hold it and nurture it before you share it. it's a secret that you get to share for just a little while, and that feels so intimate and special. there is just this bubble that surrounds you in that day, and then you get to burst out of it when you tell everyone you love so dearly. another aspect of this proposal that i savored and held onto was that he proposed in a spot we were staying. we didn't have to leave the site of that happiness for two days. we marked the spot with a giant rock shaped like a heart, and we got to sit in that same spot for hours on end, talking about our relationship. that was pretty remarkable. 

after about two hours of just enjoying the sweet newness that engagement brought to our relationship with each other, we heated up our leftover paella from the first night and sat on the beach, eating it out of the pot and drinking the rosé my mom had packed us. once the sun started to set, we walked to the boathouse because we hadn't been inside yet. we took some pictures, then headed back to our beach to watch as the sun descended below the horizon. door county sunsets are some of the most magical in the whole world, and the two we got to see on rock island were no exceptions. 

on our first full morning on the island, we woke up slowly and made a skillet with eggs and chicken sausage. then we caught the noon ferry back to washington island. we wanted to check out schoolhouse beach, which is famous for its incredibly smooth rocky shore (one of five beaches like it in the world). we put our toes in the lake, then headed for coffee and a snack. our last errand with the car was to go back to mann's food store for groceries for dinner, so we did that then quickly got back to the ferry. i was absolutely overjoyed to be back on rock island - we were only away on washington island for an hour, and my yearning for our little beach was real. once we got back we changed into shorts and decided to hike to the lighthouse.

we weren't planning on taking the tour, but the tour was free and it was a chance to take our shoes off so we decided to do it. the tour was honestly phenomenal. the cool thing about the potawatomi lighthouse versus other lighthouses is that if you're a member of this organization called friends of rock island, you can actually apply to live in the lighthouse for a week during the summer and take care of it and give tours. the lighthouse doesn't actually serve any real function anymore (the coastguard has a high-tech lighthouse tower right next to it now), but what a cool opportunity - especially for families. the family that gave us our tour was so sweet, and we wanted to ask them more about their experience as a family at the lighthouse than anything else. 

we trekked back to camp so that we could buy firewood, because the state park only sells firewood in a 60-minute span in the late afternoon. alex went for a quick swim, then we made our fire and cooked. we spent our last night in beach chairs right by the shore, eating rice bowls and drinking prosecco. it was a very chilly evening, and we sat around the fire trying to get warm before we went to bed. the light from sunset lasts for about two hours, and we waited until the last of the pink faded to go to sleep. i didn't want to sleep because i didn't want the day to end. i wasn't ready to leave the island.

we planned to take the noon ferry back to washington island. we woke and decided to just pack everything but the beach chairs, as we figured we would just sit at the beach until it was time to go. but the sky looked ominous and it was pretty cold. it took us a little over an hour to get everything ready, and we decided to just get on the first ferry at 10 since we were ready to go. the second we got in the car after crossing the passage, it started to rain. it was much easier to leave the island thanks to mother nature's little push. we zoomed from that ferry to the washington island ferry, and then headed toward egg harbor. 

alex planned this trip at this time because my parents were in town for a conference. i knew i would see them because we had made plans to stop at their hotel that afternoon. i hadn't said a single thing to them, and alex never told them when exactly he would be proposing, so they were thrilled when i showed them the ring. we sat in the hot tub for a little bit, then showered and got ready for dinner. alex said we had some time to kill, so we went shopping at my favorite store in egg harbor. then we headed to the hotel we were staying at for the evening. alex surprised me by booking a room at the white gull inn in fish creek (my favorite out of all the villages). it is a tradition to eat brunch there, but we've never stayed at the inn. we had a room on the second floor above the restaurant, with a porch that overlooked the street. after we checked in we walked to the market to buy a bottle of wine. 

when we got back to the room, alex said he had to go get something from the car. when he returned, he came back with his parents! i was so shocked and so happy that we got to share this moment with both of our parents. we walked out to the porch, and i see none other than my parents strolling up with my brother and sister-in-law! i screamed from the porch and ran downstairs to greet them. alex had wrangled everyone together, for us - for me. we split the bottle of wine and relaxed on the porch for about an hour, then walked to dinner down the street at the whistling swan. we had never eaten there, and dinner was absolutely amazing. what was even more amazing was everyone seated around the table. there is truly no better blessing than celebrating a milestone with your family. we clinked glasses, and as alex likes to say, it was a 10 out of 10 moment. 

the engagement celebration didn't stop there. we still had all of saturday and sunday morning to enjoy. on saturday we had brunch at the white gull inn, and then we explored a wine shop and a gallery. the gallery was in an old shipping barn, and there is a strong history of painting on the barn. we paid $10 to commemorate our engagement on the side of the barn, next to thousands of other people's memories. we drove back to the hotel and we sat outside for a while, then got a little snack at the hotel restaurant. we relaxed a bit more, then got ready for dinner at lure, a seafood restaurant in sister bay. it was another exceptional meal. that evening, we finally got to go to the festival that kicks off the start of the summer season: the fyr bal festival in ephraim. basically they light a bunch of giant bonfires along the shore. it's a pagan festival to burn the "winter witch," and signal that summer has officially begun. it's pretty accurate, given that we heard there was still ice out on the bay two weeks ago. we walked from fire to fire, then we sat down on a blanket to watch the fireworks. the next morning we had breakfast early at the cookery, another one of our favorites, then it was time to head home. 

alex and i are still feeling and processing what engagement feels like, and how different it truly is from just being in a relationship. it feels good to have titles other than boyfriend and girlfriend, but it's weird to know that a wedding is now concretely in our future. it's exciting for sure, but it was something so abstract just a few weeks ago. we'll definitely be writing more on that. all i know is, looking down at my hand and seeing that ring fills me with that same joy that i felt on the beach that wednesday, the 13th. 

i can't thank alex enough for knowing me so well, and planning the most perfect week of my life. i can't thank our family enough for coming such a far distance to celebrate with us. my heart was more full than it has ever been. i don't want to negate the hard work alex and i have put into ourselves and our relationship over the past five years, but this new beginning is certainly brimming with possibilities and i am so excited for our future together as husband and wife (still so weird!).