Taking Advantage of Sunshine

So last Sunday, we had a lazy start to the morning wit'th a casual trip to the Cactus for some groceries and some pastries for breakfast. We had our coffee, we ate our pastries, we put away the groceries, and then were just kind of muddling around. Andy suggested we go for a walk, Les replied with a whiny, "I don't want to go for a walk, I am tired and I just want to lay on the couch." We were supposed to go to the IKEA (not to shop, it is mercifully closed on Sundays) for manual transmission driving lessons for Les, and she was quite excited about them and wanted to lay on the couch for a while and get a good dose of CNN International until they started to repeat the same programming (about an hour) and then head to Belgium for the infamous driving education. Sounds glamorous, but it takes less time for us to get to the IKEA in Belgium than it does to the office during rush hour traffic. It was a gorgeous fall day, Andy pointed out that we shouldn't waste it, so Les begrudgingly agreed to a revised plan of a walk, lunch back at the apartment of Indian food leftovers from the night prior (God, the Indian food. That is a topic for another blog entry altogether!), and then off to the IKEA parking lot.

So we packed up the camera, a bottle of water (which will prove very wise in a little bit), and a bag of potato chips in case we got lost and needed sustenance whilst they sent out a search party for us, and we were off! Now, up to this point, several locations had been discussed, and in the spirit of excellent relationship communications, Les thought we were headed towards the woods behind the apartment, Andy thought we were headed to a historic part of the city overlooking the Grund (sort of a valley with a river and lots of really old pubs and shops and restaurants). Andy suggested they drive, which Les thought was odd since they were going for a walk, but didn't say anything and got in. When Andy started to turn one way instead of the direction of the woods, Les said, "Why are you going this way?" A confusing convo ensued, with Andy ended up turning around and heading for the woods, both parties insisting neither cared which way we went or what we did. So we drove about 100 meters (a football field) to the bottom of this hill where there is a bike path leading straight uphill to the woods behind our apartment with some bike trails and running paths. When we say straight uphill, think about another 100 meters of a 20% grade. No lie, it is really a 20% grade and there is a sign to prove it. We both were sucking wind. Luckily there is a bench at the top for the weary climbers to pass out on, we chugged some of the water and vowed to start exercising and running again, as clearly a few weeks of IKEA furniture assembly was not the cardio workout we were pretending it to be! We have both run marathons, remember, so this is quite an embarrassing display.

Once we had recovered and could speak again, we spent a few minutes admiring the view (one of the pictures attached is of our little neighborhood, Beggen, and one of the buildings in the front of the picture is our apartment) and then set off down a tree-lined path. If we haven't mentioned previously, sunshine is a rare event in Lux, and certainly one to be celebrated! It was a gorgeously crisp fall day, and while the trees were prettier a few weeks ago, they were nothing to sneeze at! We walked along a little bit, took some pictures, enjoyed the peace and quiet. Moving to Europe together when you are just dating makes you have some convos you probably wouldn't normally have, so while not officially engaged, we pretty well knew we were going to get married someday, so somewhere along the walk, Les realized, "Hmm...this might be a nice place/day/time to get engaged" and started to get a little excited/nervous/giddy/whatever. A few minutes later, nothing had happened, and Les was relaxing back into her normal state, and was secretly a bit relieved as she hadn't showered and was wearing Adidas pants and a fleece pullover. We agreed to head back to the car for the rest of the day of Indian food and driving lessons, when things went awry. At this point, we cease the joint telling of this tale and turn it over officially to Andy.

As we were headed back along the path towards the car, it seemed like Les was looking at me all funny, like something was up. Granted, I had been carrying the water bottle on my left side the entire time and tried my best to keep her on my right side, but I thought I was being sly enough to not make it obvious. Anyway, we were walking back and I had a place picked out in my mind where we could stop and talk for a little bit...until I saw a slow moving family of 4 coming our way. So instead of stopping we just kept on walking until the end of the trail. At that point, I figured I had carried this thing in my pocket long enough, slow moving family of 4 be damned. So as we stood on top of the 20% incline, I took a knee, more excited than nervous (all those previous conversations meant this was going to be like taking candy from a baby), and pulled out the small jewelry box from my left coat pocket and popped the question. A kiss and a giant bear hug later, I looked her in the eye and said "well, are you going to take the ring?" After the look of "I had completely forgotten about that part" left her face, she put the ring on and gave me another bear hug. Strangely, this one did not feel like the first one, probably because while there were two arms around me, there was only one hand as the other one was outstretched so she could check out the ring some more.

So that is the story, and we are sticking to it. Luckily for Les, she agreed to take the walk, and the trail was beautiful, because no walk or an ugly trail meant she was going to have a naked ring finger for a few more days.

In case anyone is interested, we are getting married August 8, 2009 in Evansville, Indiana. For all you who are now mumbling things like "why there?" and "where is that again?", rest assured that there is a riverboat casino nearby (good old Casino Aztar) to entertain the degenerate gamblers that we count among our friends.