in which an engagement transpires
omg.
dude. i am engaged!
i wanna tell you how it happened.
on saturday, we made a day trip into the santa ynez valley, on the pretense of checking out some wineries to take chad’s parents to during their visit the coming week. it was a really nice day, big puffy grey and white clouds rolling by, casting shadows on the oak trees dotting the hills. you know, that kind of garbage.
we scoped out solvang first because chad had never been before and i hadn't been in a long time. clearly, it only took us all of 15 minutes because we had no desire to go into any of the shops. we did pick up some rocky road fudge as a reward for having endured all that faux-danish architecture. then we went to los olivos to pick up sandwiches from panino, and proceeded to drive around aimlessly looking for a cool winery at which to picnic. following a half-useless map, we ended up driving much further out of the usual circle of wineries.
along the way, we checked out curtis, but there was a weird barbecue going on featuring a woman wailing into a microphone from atop a tiny soapbox of a stage… not my bag. the other winery, which i forget the name of, just was kind of bleak and blah. we ended up at rancho sisquoc, which is at the end of a one-lane country road. it was pretty, but not in the typical winery way-whitewashed old clapboard houses and ranch outbuildings, plus picnic tables galore, were scattered across a grassy hill.
we started a tasting, and sampled two white wines before going outside and unpacking our lunch spread. we'd gotten a turkey and brie sandwich, and a proscuitto and mozzerella sandwich. we traded halves and had sour cream and onion kettle chips on the side. after we finished our wine tasting, which was all right except for the small pours (boo!). at some point i went to the bathroom and was surprised to see a poster from a rancho sisquoc event last fall that described the winery as being in santa maria. i was like, did we really go that far north? our location was further confirmed when i heard one of the woman working the tasting counter talk about her daughter's graduation party from righetti. hur!
on our way back to the two-lane road, we stopped to investigate a church we'd seen atop a small hill. it was the chapel of san ramon, built in the 1800s. the church was total gothic americana, with a creaky old overgrown cemetery. needless to say, i was totally in love. after i’d satisfied my urge to take pictures, we drove on. chad had this idea to go try to find a scenic area by lake cachuma and have some drinks. so, on our way back east on the 154, we turned into the lookout point area for bradbury dam.
as far as dams go, this wasn’t a particularly scenic one. consisting of almost all parking lot, the place was surrounded by trees that blocked all views of the lake save for a small clearing directly overlooking the dam, which was guarded by a rusty rail.. the only place to sit down was a lone picnic table under a shady tree. not promising, but still we decided to give the place a chance. chad mixed us some vodka drinks in these plastic hypercolor glasses. we found this small trail down a hill, away from the parking lot. it was very short; dead-ending at a barbed wire fence. but there was enough of a hole to scramble underneath, so taking turns holding the drinks, we each shimmied under the fence and continued down trail. i was wearing highly inappropriate footwear for this spontaneous hike, i might add-cheap flats with absolutely no tread. we passed copious amounts of poison oak as tiny rocks gathered in my shoes. maybe an 1/8 mile later, the trail once again dead-ended, this time on the shore of lake cachuma. we just stood there amidst the sun-bleached branches of dead wood and the deer tracks, sipping our vodkas.
it was really pretty; a sweeping view of the lake and mountains and fast-moving clouds overhead. a fish jumped out of the water to my left, and i pointed and said to chad (who was standing to my right), "hey, did you see that fish?" he said he didn't, but that was probably because he was distracted by really digging into his pocket. i kind of pretended not to notice and kept looking off to the left where i'd last seen the fish jump. then he said, lyn, i love you. so i turned around to look at him and he asked, will you marry me? i said yeah! and he had this ring that he handed to me, and i took it and said "thank you!" and then for some reason he began to sink down, and i had this vision of him trying to get on one knee (the idea of which i abhorred; also, he'd already given me the ring so it was obviously a knee-jerk 'what do i do now!?' response on his part). i grabbed his elbow and said "no no no!" and then he stood up again. i stuck the ring on my hand and said "wow!"
really, it was probably the most awkward, dorkiest proposal on the face of the planet because we are both the biggest awkward dorks ever. but as my friend christi said upon hearing the story, “that is so classic chad and lyn.” and it’s true.
so then we stood around a while, just watching the scenery some more soaking up the afternoon. he also began filling me in on the back story. i found out he'd had the ring custom made, and it had been hiding in his dresser drawer for over a month. we’ve been busy every weekend, and he didn't want to give it to me at home, so he’d been waiting for an opportune moment. he didn’t plan anything specific, he just let the moment unfold. i am so glad our moment involved vodka in plastic cups and a barbed wire fence.
side note: for my part, the engagement thing wasn’t a total surprise. we’d begun tossing around the idea of gettin’ hitched a few months ago, but chad wanted to take the ring/proposal into his own hands. so i had no idea when it was going to happen, but i had an inkling it was lurking.
one final side note: we unintentionally ended up getting engaged exactly four years and two months to the day after we first met. added up, that makes… 50 months. not quite a memorable date, but i just like the auspiciousness of those numbers.
and finally, please visit my flickr for engagement day photogs.
gzhee….
dude. i am engaged!
i wanna tell you how it happened.
on saturday, we made a day trip into the santa ynez valley, on the pretense of checking out some wineries to take chad’s parents to during their visit the coming week. it was a really nice day, big puffy grey and white clouds rolling by, casting shadows on the oak trees dotting the hills. you know, that kind of garbage.
we scoped out solvang first because chad had never been before and i hadn't been in a long time. clearly, it only took us all of 15 minutes because we had no desire to go into any of the shops. we did pick up some rocky road fudge as a reward for having endured all that faux-danish architecture. then we went to los olivos to pick up sandwiches from panino, and proceeded to drive around aimlessly looking for a cool winery at which to picnic. following a half-useless map, we ended up driving much further out of the usual circle of wineries.
along the way, we checked out curtis, but there was a weird barbecue going on featuring a woman wailing into a microphone from atop a tiny soapbox of a stage… not my bag. the other winery, which i forget the name of, just was kind of bleak and blah. we ended up at rancho sisquoc, which is at the end of a one-lane country road. it was pretty, but not in the typical winery way-whitewashed old clapboard houses and ranch outbuildings, plus picnic tables galore, were scattered across a grassy hill.
we started a tasting, and sampled two white wines before going outside and unpacking our lunch spread. we'd gotten a turkey and brie sandwich, and a proscuitto and mozzerella sandwich. we traded halves and had sour cream and onion kettle chips on the side. after we finished our wine tasting, which was all right except for the small pours (boo!). at some point i went to the bathroom and was surprised to see a poster from a rancho sisquoc event last fall that described the winery as being in santa maria. i was like, did we really go that far north? our location was further confirmed when i heard one of the woman working the tasting counter talk about her daughter's graduation party from righetti. hur!
on our way back to the two-lane road, we stopped to investigate a church we'd seen atop a small hill. it was the chapel of san ramon, built in the 1800s. the church was total gothic americana, with a creaky old overgrown cemetery. needless to say, i was totally in love. after i’d satisfied my urge to take pictures, we drove on. chad had this idea to go try to find a scenic area by lake cachuma and have some drinks. so, on our way back east on the 154, we turned into the lookout point area for bradbury dam.
as far as dams go, this wasn’t a particularly scenic one. consisting of almost all parking lot, the place was surrounded by trees that blocked all views of the lake save for a small clearing directly overlooking the dam, which was guarded by a rusty rail.. the only place to sit down was a lone picnic table under a shady tree. not promising, but still we decided to give the place a chance. chad mixed us some vodka drinks in these plastic hypercolor glasses. we found this small trail down a hill, away from the parking lot. it was very short; dead-ending at a barbed wire fence. but there was enough of a hole to scramble underneath, so taking turns holding the drinks, we each shimmied under the fence and continued down trail. i was wearing highly inappropriate footwear for this spontaneous hike, i might add-cheap flats with absolutely no tread. we passed copious amounts of poison oak as tiny rocks gathered in my shoes. maybe an 1/8 mile later, the trail once again dead-ended, this time on the shore of lake cachuma. we just stood there amidst the sun-bleached branches of dead wood and the deer tracks, sipping our vodkas.
it was really pretty; a sweeping view of the lake and mountains and fast-moving clouds overhead. a fish jumped out of the water to my left, and i pointed and said to chad (who was standing to my right), "hey, did you see that fish?" he said he didn't, but that was probably because he was distracted by really digging into his pocket. i kind of pretended not to notice and kept looking off to the left where i'd last seen the fish jump. then he said, lyn, i love you. so i turned around to look at him and he asked, will you marry me? i said yeah! and he had this ring that he handed to me, and i took it and said "thank you!" and then for some reason he began to sink down, and i had this vision of him trying to get on one knee (the idea of which i abhorred; also, he'd already given me the ring so it was obviously a knee-jerk 'what do i do now!?' response on his part). i grabbed his elbow and said "no no no!" and then he stood up again. i stuck the ring on my hand and said "wow!"
really, it was probably the most awkward, dorkiest proposal on the face of the planet because we are both the biggest awkward dorks ever. but as my friend christi said upon hearing the story, “that is so classic chad and lyn.” and it’s true.
so then we stood around a while, just watching the scenery some more soaking up the afternoon. he also began filling me in on the back story. i found out he'd had the ring custom made, and it had been hiding in his dresser drawer for over a month. we’ve been busy every weekend, and he didn't want to give it to me at home, so he’d been waiting for an opportune moment. he didn’t plan anything specific, he just let the moment unfold. i am so glad our moment involved vodka in plastic cups and a barbed wire fence.
side note: for my part, the engagement thing wasn’t a total surprise. we’d begun tossing around the idea of gettin’ hitched a few months ago, but chad wanted to take the ring/proposal into his own hands. so i had no idea when it was going to happen, but i had an inkling it was lurking.
one final side note: we unintentionally ended up getting engaged exactly four years and two months to the day after we first met. added up, that makes… 50 months. not quite a memorable date, but i just like the auspiciousness of those numbers.
and finally, please visit my flickr for engagement day photogs.
gzhee….