my precious...

You have to forgive the title of this post. We just watched Lord of the Rings last night.

I thought I would post a computer rendering of my engagement ring. It's the closest thing I have to a photo of it. A friend of Emmanuel's designed it. I think it's quite beautiful. :-)

Sparkle

I keep replaying the scene over and over in my head, and the more I do, the more and more surreal it seems, in a way. It was just two weeks ago (almost exactly to the hour), but it seems like a very distant memory from a far away land. But then I look down at the sparkle on my finger, and I remember that the scene wasn't a story from a far off kingdom but a real, live-in-person memory with all sorts of exciting consequences in my life.

Matthew, Charlotte, Emmanuel, Luke and I were in North Carolina for Justin and Morgan's wedding. We spent Thursday through Saturday in Burlington, Morgan's hometown, and had a great time celebrating their marriage. They are one of the happiest, best-fit couples I've known. Their wedding was wonderfully unique- a nice, simple ceremony at a quaint little church, a fun reception in the church basement with all of the fun traditions (first dance, bouquet toss- I caught it again!, cake, etc.), and then the real party began- We all changed clothes (including the bride and groom) and headed over to the Bostians' backyard for some ladder golf, Rock Band, Cheerwine, and Chick-fil-a. We bid the Rios adieu to their Vegas honeymoon and then on Sunday morning, the five of us headed to the beach.

The first very exciting thing that happened on Sunday was that I kicked major patootie at mini-golf. I beat all four of my competitors, and I was thrilled. Matthew later said that it would be cruel of him to say that he let me win because he was planning to ask me to marry him; I told him that it would be very cruel indeed. I won, fair and square. It was awesome.

We then drove to Wrightsville Beach and went in search of lunch. The search took much longer than we hoped, but we got to enjoy walking along the Atlantic Ocean, even if it was cool and cloudy. We had a fun lunch at a burger and fish joint, and then we hit the waves. I hadn't been to the ocean since I went to South Carolina with my family back in the 8th grade. That time, I got stung by a jellyfish. This time, there were no jellyfish, so I enjoyed the water much more, even if it was cold. After a few hours in the water, we decided we'd had enough and drove to nearby Wilmington for dinner. Matt had told me that he had made us reservations at "the most romantic restaurant in Wilmington", which I thought was very sweet, but because he told me exactly what we were up to, I wasn't overly suspicious that he had anything else up his sleeve other than a nice dinner in a new place. But as the evening progressed, the anticipation in my little heart progressed as well.

We arrived at Riverboat Landing and Matthew requested a private balcony, which had a wonderful view of the river. We watched the sun set while we ate. Knowing that I have a good memory, he asked if I remembered all of the dates we've went on over the past 11 plus months. We started at the beginning (our first date of Shakespeare at Bayliss Park last October) and then spent the course of the dinner reminiscing about all of the milestones and memorable dates of our relationship. By the end of dinner, he asked me if I remembered how it began. Of course I do, and so we talked about the camping trip late last September, and all that was going on in both of our hearts leading up to that Saturday morning when he invited me to a little camp fire on the river's edge. "Do you remember the Scripture passage I read to you that morning?" he asked. Though I said that I did, he told me he wanted to read it to me again. So he pulled Ephesians 5 out of his bag and read it to me, with a little personal commentary of his own mixed in. And then he said, "That's how we started our relationship, and that's how I want to start our marriage as well." He pulled the ring out of his pocket, got down on one knee, and asked that life-changing question: "Will you marry me?" And of course I said yes.

The next few days all blended together with oodles of phone calls, visits, emails and Facebook messages. Every step of the way, I kept looking down at my finger with a mix of awe and befuddlement, saying, "Holy crap, I'm engaged!" I still do that, actually. To top it all off, it was my birthday on the 10th, just a few days later, and so the excitement continued. It was the very first time in all of my life that I had a date on my birthday, and I enjoyed every second of our night at Cheeseburger in Paradise and Boulder Creek Adventure Golf, even if I did lose this time. I told Matt that it would be very cruel of me to say that I let him win because he's going to be my husband and I therefore wanted to protect his pride. He agreed that it would be cruel indeed.