Onto the detail post. I bought into Ryan's "not this weekend" claim because, knowing him, I knew that he wouldn't want his mom all up in our business. And that was his original plan, to wait and surprise me at Penn, but I kept whining about being impatient so much that he moved it forward to the weekend.

I wasn't suspicious at all on Saturday. We went to dinner and Dave & Busters with his mom and little brother. All was normal.

On Sunday Ryan talked to his mom on the phone to organize meeting up at the aquarium. I wouldn't have overheard anything, except she was on the phone in a noisy place and kept telling Ryan to speak up and twice repeat the phrase he'd been trying to whisper, "If you get there early, hang it up."

So I knew something was to be hung at the aquarium. As I cannot keep a secret from Ryan, I told him that I overheard something that I probably shouldn't have. He shrugged and didn't tell me anything else.

When we arrived at the aquarium, his brother was holding a poster tube, then his mom mysteriously disappeared with the tube for 10 minutes without telling us where she was going. It seemed quite silly to be involved in the charade, but I played along. After 10 minutes, still with poster tube in hand, she went up to the information desk in the lobby (30 feet from where we were waiting). Then an aquarium employee took the tube and scurried off upstairs.

His mom finally met up with us and said, "Peter really wants to see the sharks first, so let's go to the shark tunnel." She led us to the tunnel, rushing us past all the other exhibits as if the hippos weren't worth 10 seconds of our time. As we got closer to the tunnel, she said, "Peter's afraid of sharks, so we're going to let Ryan and Cat go through first to prove that the sharks won't eat you." So we went up to the tunnel but it was jam-packed with people. I saw the tube-toting aquarium employee off to the side at the entrance to the tunnel. Time seemed to be at a standstill because the line was literally at a standstill.

Eventually we made it just into the opening of the tunnel and the employee "subtlely" nodded at Ryan. He got down on one knee and the employee pulled out a poster that said, "Marry me, Catharine" with pictures of us on it (I'll post a pic later). Ryan pulled out the ring box, opened it, and said, "Cat, I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

I was very embarrassed because of all the people around us, so I quickly said "yes, yes, get up!" and put the ring on. And then there was a little bit of applause from the crowd, then Ryan's mom rushed up to take a picture. I guess I felt especially silly because while a proposal in the middle of a not-crowded tunnel would have been ideal, we were barely through the entrance to the tunnel because that's where the employee stood beforehand. In addition, there were people to all sides of us so we didn't even have the "romantic" view of the tank. But my Ryan tried, and it's not his fault that his mom isn't as sneaky as he is.

She overheard all the women saying, "awww, how sweet," and all the men saying, "in the shark tank, how appropriate! har har har!"

Anyway, the aquarium in general was his choice of spot because 1) I'm gonna be a marine biologist, and 2) it's actually one of the sites we're thinking about having our reception at. We haven't looked into pricing yet, but it would be really distinctive.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I've been showing off my ring at school today. On one hand, I want to show it off, but on the other hand, I don't want to appear a gloating biyatch. The stones are a decent size, but not ostentatiously large- it's their high level of sparklyness that gives the illusion that they're even bigger. I'm trying to get good value in terms of $ per seconds viewed by looking at it constantly :)