I typically take time on September29th to send my sister birthday wishes... but I really need to take some time to pen some thoughts on my recent engagement.
That's right fellow earthlings... Rolando & Rhiannon are officially engaged.
Officially put a Ring on It
I popped the question on Saturday (September 27th) night and she said yes... before I get into the details of how that all came about, I guess I should start at the very beginning.
I knew deep down inside that I wanted to marry Rhiannon about 8 or 9 months ago.. That feeling was affirmed after having a number of deep discussions about life and how we wanted to navigate through it together.
I didn't want to rush into an engagement so we had a discussion about wanting to wait till we were together for at least a year together before revisiting the "topic". Our relationship is a byproduct of perfect timing.... one of the requests that Rhiannon asked of me was to secure the blessing of her father and brother before proposing, so I knew that I would have to develop strong relationships with them individually before making the big jump.
Much to my surprise... our first year together came and went faster than I could ever imagine. The process of selecting a ring started in early late July and early August... I intended to pop the question some time in October of November of this year.
Rhiannon spent a good amount of time on the road in August, so this allowed me to visit local jewelers and learn about rings while she was away. I wanted to take my time in the selection process and I couldn't be happier with how all of that turned out. I could pen a big write up about how I came about selecting her diamond, but I'll save everyone the trouble by acknowledging that I simply knew it the moment I saw it. I would liken it to knowing which is the puppy you want to select for a pet from a litter. I genuinely saw it, felt it and asked the jeweler to make it happen.
The Blessings
I have to say that the most memorable part of our engagement, was me getting the blessings from Rhiannon's parents and brother on the morning of September 27th.
I had a few opportunities to reach out to them while she was away in August, but I wanted to have the ring in hand when I approached them for the blessing. I leveraged my parents being in town over the weekend to my advantage and diverted Rhiannon's attention so that I could sneak away and secure the OKs.
I paid a surprise visit to Rhiannon's parents house in the morning, informed them both of my intentions and they happily blessed my request. I asked them both to keep it quiet, until I met her brother and they happily complied.
Meeting up with AB (Rhiannon's brother) on Saturday - became a comedy of errors. He was battling a flu that day... we missed out on an opportunity to meet before lunch - so we tabled everything for an unspecified time in the afternoon.
AB asked me to help him with moving a scale at a house he's renovating and I acknowledged that as the time and place we would sit down and have a heart to heart about my intentions.
That plan however was thwarted when Rhiannon's car had an electrical problem... Shaking her on the afternoon of September 27th was harder than you could ever imagine. We finally got the car to turn over, we took it over to her father's house and while that was being addressed - I called AB, begged him to meet me so that I could talk to him in person. The day began to unravel a little bit and feared Rhiannon was beginning to piece together some strange behavior on my part...
My meeting with AB was 180 degrees different from the meet up I had with her parents... we talked about a number of things, but the conversation circled around our profound love for Rhiannon. In addition to that we talked a lot about how we wanted to perceive each other as brothers. It ended with a firm shake of the hand and with that... I had all the blessings in hand.
The day ended with Rhiannon agreeing to catch a sunset by the Riverwalk... we had a crazy day and I asked her to indulge with a request to simply see the sun set together. We didn't get a chance to connect throughout the day because of the secret circus I was conducting and with that I felt like I saw sitting on a secret that was burst at the seems to get out.
Rhiannon and I have a lot of great memories together on the Riverwalk... we had transformational date that included a boat ride over a year ago on the River, so it felt like the best place to sit down with her to discuss the day, decompress and propose to her.
It all came down to timing again, so I asked and she said "Yes".