A lump of Coal

OK so I'm DYING to spill, but just barely more determined to wait because I REALLY wanna do a candle-light :) soooo I'll spill now, save this as a draft and publish after the candle-light.

Sooo here's the details I left out in the last blog ;) Went down to Nashville after exams, and when I said we went shopping... I meant we went shopping for Christmas presents, but we also went ring shopping :). We'd had the recurring debate about white vs yellow gold and so we went and looked. I was still sold on yellow gold, but had no clue he was seriously looking at rings, I just thought he kinda wanted an idea what sort of things I liked....

So he comes into town the next thurs and I suggest we make plans to have dinner at the Campbell Club to take my dad up on his Christmas gift to Lance LAST year. So we get all dressed up (including digging up a tie and jacket for Lance last minute) go down to the river Winter Wonderland for a little bit and then down to the Campbell Club where we were to meet my dad and his fiance Jennifer for dinner, however they backed out as Jennifer had just gotten back from taking her daughter Kelly to Nashville to see her dad and was "worn out" (which I would find out later was not true, they just wanted to allow us to be alone, ... nice dinner for two...you know the drill, much more suspicious if planned than if by chance happens that way... :P ). So it's just me and Lance, we have a nice dinner... romantic and happy and then we head out to his cabin because his mom wanted us to see her Christmas decorations - she'd hung our stockings and such and insisted we go see says Lance. So we head out there and as we are sauntering down the sidewalk looking at the stars all the trees around us lit up! They are all wrapped in all kinds of different christmas lights lining the path. Lance then turns around and I'm like "did you do that?" "yes" he tells me and he's holding me and talking to me and all of a sudden he's down on a knee!!! shaking and opening a ring box as the words are coming out of his mouth I'm totally speechless. I managed some sort of nod or confirmation and pull him to his feet and hug him :) so he asks if I like the ring (small interjection here because something we talked about over dinner makes a difference.... somehow in conversation it had come up that he had watched an episode of 7th Heaven and the youngest had proposed to his girlfriend for whatever reason and all she could do was look at the ring and ask "It's a least a carat right?" never taking her eyes off the ring. We had aggreed that that was terrible and I'd stated I'd hope I'd be looking back and forth between him and the ring at least, I mean really, it's not all about the ring...) so now I'm flipping out, because it's dark and hard to see the ring, but I don't want to dwell on that I want to be excited and happy with him.... so he asks if I like the ring, and I'm like, well I can't really see it... so he suggest we go back up where we can see it. So we walk back up the porch of a shed sortof thing they have up by the driveway and he turns on a light so we can see.... and FIREWORKS start going off down by the lake!!! It was amazing! (and apparently very funny from the cabin since Billy and Jake lit them and then hit the ground G.I. Jo-ing it back up toward the cabin away from the sparks LOL) So when they are finished we walk down the path and by this point I know Jake's gotta be there (I still haven't seen anyone though because there were no cars) and I hear his mom laugh so I figure she's there, and then this person comes FLYNG at me... I assume it's Debbie but it's Jenny! and in tow Debbie, Billy, My mom, Jake, Vernon ect... hugs all around and into the cabin we are ushered where his granny and mamaw are waiting as well as a couple of bottles of wine... so we pop open a bottle of splarkling Beringer white zin and everyone gets a good look at the ring. He had shown NOBODY the ring before I saw it, and had actually gone to Nashville and back for it that day! A minute later we are popping open another bottle of wine and the corkscrew breaks off in the cork!! so now Billy, Jenny, and Jake are looking at this thing scratching their heads with "now what?" expressions and asking for pocket knives that would have a corkscrew. Nothin. Someone suggests a drill and Jake dissapears. Oh dear. He definately comes back with a drill and they proceed to put a 3" screw into the cork and pull the whole thing back out. The cork with the screw in it is HYSTERICAL. We kept it of course. It might be our wedding cake topper ;) SOOOO needless to say the next two weeks between all the Christmas and New Years activities have been a blur of congratulations and ring showings :) But I wouldn't have it any other way because I got to do it all in person right away... now I see why the holidays are such a popular time to get engaged... you get to see everyone and announce it right away... and you get to consolidate a ring with a Christmas present ;P
Hehe so now our new joke is I got a lump of coal from Lance for Christmas this year ;) and I could not be happier....