We were trying to come up with things to do around the holiday season. I decided to get tickets for Christmas at the Zoo because I was the only person who had ever been, and the last time I went was when I was very little with my babysitter. Because the tickets came with general admission to the zoo, we decided to go a little early to see the few exhibits that were open for the season. IT. WAS. SO. COLD. Most of the campus is outdoors and we were FREEZING. We stopped for food and waited for it to get dark to see the lights. We stopped by the Holiday Town exhibit and walked around to look at the different displays, and I felt like I was getting dragged around everywhere. I kept thinking to myself, "Everybody really wants to see these lights!!!" Nathan wanted to see a big tree that we'd passed earlier in the day and to our dismay, it wasn't lit. Our friends and Nathan were trying to decide where to go next, and I just couldn't bare the cold anymore. "Hey, guys... I'm miserable, can we go home?" Nathan looked at me like I had two heads. Hindsight 20/20, he was trying to find the perfect place to propose!!! As we walked back in the opposite direction, our friends would point out different lights. "Hey, what about this peacock over here?" "Hey, this is really cute, let's check it out!" Ultimately, Nathan stopped me in front of a little Christmas Tree, off on its own and private, made a comment about how my nails "looked nice", and proposed. After that, I felt pretty warm.. but everybody was cold and ready to go home, too.

I had planned to propose during the winter lights at the zoo with a friend of ours filming as my accomplice. The initial thought was to go a little later in the day so the lights would be on full display, but we ended up calling an audible and making a day out of it. Something I hadn't anticipated was how cold it would get spending a day navigating the exhibits in nearly single digit temperatures. Who would have thought? We were all getting pretty chilly by the time the lights started coming on so decided to spend some time warming up in the aquarium. Jazmine was ready to go at that point but I needed it to be a little darker out so the lights would be on full display, so we (somewhat successfully) tried hyping up the lights for the next 20 minutes while getting warm and looking at fish. The big central tree I had planned to propose in front of was 1 of maybe 3 displays that wasn't lit up. It was cold. Jazmine was ready to go again. Time for audible number 2. After doing a speed lap to look for a new spot, I beelined it for a smaller tree in the distance. It ended up being more private and intimate than originally planned which was definitely more our speed. Couldn't be happier with how the audibles turned out!