You Colorado Crazy Ladies caused a proposal!

I owe
a BIGGER than usual thank you to Teresa (many of you know her as ‘flicksmom’)
& the gals from Colorado
for bringing me out this past weekend to judge….because aside from the great
fun that is, it gave my man the impetus to
propose!!

(coughcoughfinallyafter5.75yearsofdating)
;)

No seriously, he was planning on it later this winter sometime…I
had a bit of a clue but not that it would be nearly so soon.. and I had no idea
of all that went into it. That he’d managed to get them to design his custom
ring in a hurry for this rare vacation to the mountains event that came up a
few weeks ago. We know folks who live in Golden CO, a few towns away so we stayed
there with them. :) They were wonderful about it too (and of course in on the
planning).

Of course I got to see gals I haven’t seen in AGES as well
as put some new faces with the names I see – good times!!! There’s a bit of
a report here on it by Jennifer; http://www.braymere.blogspot.com/
. I was kinda planning on meeting with Teresa and Heather the following day,
but then it rather “dawned” on me that my man was being a tad pushy about doing
something like ‘trail riding’ in the weeks before… soooo if he was planning
on it, I realized that I ought to give him a chance and not make it a whole
big “model horse weekend” just for me. (mind you I did work out a trade for
something in that tack box you see me sitting there going through – slygrin!)
;)

Soooo I got Teresa to take me out to see Flick on Saturday
evening after the show. & My biggest HUGS to Heather who I never seem to
connect up with enough… :( (hugs to Heather!).

AND then
it was off on some random adventure for the remaining day of our stay.. an adventure that the man of the hour here ‘pretended’
to not have any real plan for...

Sooooo we get to this dinosaur fossil park. http://www.cliffshade.com/colorado/dakota_hogback/
We had visited it before on our last trip out 5 years ago so it was a taaad
suspicious that he chose THIS as a place to go again on our trip out this time…
However THIS time he also seemed bent on climbing some obscure ‘hill’ (read
mountain to those flatlanders like me) trail off to the side. See the link’s
pictures, that’s essentially where were were. I’m kinda thinking ‘ahhhh, ok…mmmm
the hill thing…mmm, this could be it.. men always seem to chose hills in case
we say no??’. ;) Now I’d just like also to say that “trails” in CO are not like
ours. And despite what that chic Sonya says, ;) they are NOT clear easy treading
paths – they’re full of tricky rocks and yes, plenty of tree roots too Sonya
(Sonya thinks New England trails are horrible & these western parks are
a cakewalk… what eva!). I’m also drinking tons of water on the way up because
of my body’s dislike of altitude (that’s a whole nother story really). Anyhow,
so we get to what seems like ‘plenty damn high’ in my book and I put on the
brakes and say, “sorry, I’m sitting down here now” (in the sun on a nice flat
rock that many former probably tired people also clearly thought the same thing
by this point as it almost looks like a bench or fainting couch). Soooo he says
“well, why don’t you sit over here” (in the shade, on a much less flat rock
but that is higher up… a rock placed like a pedestal like you might say. And
now of course I’m going to myself, ‘oh wow, does he really plan to here?’. And
then I take a quick swig of water and (of course) promptly swallow it wrong
and have a really great hacking fit. (I’m soooo lady like!) He stands there
all weird-like through this and waits. … Then when I’m done gagging suddenly
he goes down on his knee and does the proposal thing. Honestly I have no idea
of what he said or I said. It was all very romantic. We sat there for a good
long while afterwards and talked about things and then a gentleman came along
and took our picture;

This was our effort at taking them ourselves where I sat
(but of course you can't see the location - I LOVE that tree tho!)

I was soo charmed that he really really tried to get my ring
size from my junk jewelry box. Little did he know that it all really is junk,
I don’t wear jewelry & never had one for my left ring finger. When I went
to the jewelry store today I learned that he was in there many times with his
design plans. The entire staff remembers him & the ring he came up with.
Those are our birthstones – in the past couple of years I’ve been making a point
over and over again specifically that I have no desire to own a diamond (cost
mostly bothers me). He does listen occasionally. I also had recently realized
he didn’t know I’m allergic to silver (well the purest just itches a little
but anything less than turns me green). So it’s white gold with a sapphire and
citrine. Custom designed by him.

We will be doing the court-house/elopement thing someday
down the road after he buys property. (so no, no date) Hey, & maybe the
party then can be a housewarming/wedding reception type thing. ;) I’m not one
to get all ‘girly’ about weddings and such, I’m not even sure if I’ll buy a
super fancy dress (I have some REALLY nice formal dresses though I should add).
I’m rather frugal and would rather see us invest it in something bigger than
a ‘day about me’. In fact, to be honest the whole “my day” bride thing really
kinda spooks me & weirds me out. I’ve never wanted a “my day” (but I do,
oddly, kinda like going to weddings!). But conversely “my ring” here is totally
unique and symbolic and a completely different matter! I’m so charmed how much
thought and planning he put into it. Someday (around about when we get that
house or so), we’ve decided to get a custom wedding band to fit around it. (I’m
wondering now if he forgets how much I want THAT to be platinum though… hmmm…
that’s a pretty wide platinum band that will be needed to wrap around those
horseshoes…) Gads, well, we’ll see. I didn’t ask prices today at the jewelry
store when I got this sized. I rather choked when I saw the costs of getting
a simple chain to hang this ring from when I’m working in the studio… I’m just
not up on these things! (only wanted something like platinum because of it’s
durability/longevity – I’d want it even if it was the cheapest.. course my tastes
are never cheap, isn’t that always the way?). WELL ANYHOW – this is my only
real piece of expensive jewelry and it’s little story behind it.

Yay!

Aaaaand I owe the biggest thanks of all to those Crazy Ladies
of Colorado (name of the show) for flying me out… otherwise apparently I would’ve
had to wait many more months before getting this! Tx for thinking of me Teresa!