Engaged!

I know what you're saying and I'm saying it with you: "FINALLY!"

Hah, and no, not "finally we're engaged" but "finally, I've got a blog post about it!"

Long story short, my computer had some issues and for a bit there, we thought all the pictures had gone "poof!". Yes, I was upset. (That's putting it mildly.) But then thanks to Brad's sleuthing and some recovery software, we got them back last night. You're my hero!

I was going to go through the events in order, starting with the week in Igls, then the first week of training for World Championships, then the week Brad got there, then the engagement, then World Championships itself, but...several people have been clamoring for the engagement story first so here it is!

WARNING - LONG STORY WITH LOTS OF WORDS.
Hah, enjoy!

Brad raced the Intercontinental Cup races in Whistler, Canada in January, and then was done with his season since he had 7 races during first half. We'd talked a lot about him coming to visit and be there for our first World Championships, but...

We were waiting to see if the strategy would work and we'd qualify 3 sleds for Worlds before deciding if he would come visit; if we didn't qualify 3 sleds, there was a slim chance I wouldn't go back to Europe to race. He thought it would be great to propose there, but couldn't plan for sure until we knew whether or not I'd be there.

I, on the other had, had no idea of his thoughts.

Regardless, it was 2 days before I got on the plane that we knew for sure...and then he was scrambling!

We had casually looked at rings here and there over the last couple years, but weren't in any sort of hurry (as you can tell - getting engaged after 6 1/2 years, eh?). Last spring, we saw one that we both liked, and Brad had kept the info on the ring (though I wasn't aware of it).

He called the jewelry store, and tried to order it - but there was one small catch: whatever ring we got, we'd agreed that we wanted sapphires instead of diamonds, so a ready-to-grab ring wasn't an option. (By the way, he even tricked me into giving him my ring size, and I was still none the wiser. Clever boy.)

• Jewelry store: "Sure, we can get it made for you. Should be ready in, oh, 4-6 weeks."

• Brad: "Um...how about...ah...next week?"

• Jewelry store: ... silence ...

Then there was some mad scrambling. Instead of a ring made to order, he had to buy the store sample and then have it shipped to the maker to swap stones and resize it, then quickly be shipped back to the store, hopefully in time.

• Jewelry store: "It might be a case of meeting you at the airport with it...and if we don't get it in time, we have a ring you can borrow for a 'stunt ring.'"

Stunt ring, I love it, hilarious!

Nevertheless, it all came together. A couple days before he left, the ring was ready. Unfortunately they'd put the wrong stones in, but he didn't care. They promised to fix it when we got back, so he hopped on a plane.

• For a 10+ hour flight from Salt Lake City to Paris.
• Then a 10+ hour train trip from Paris to Koenigssee (long story)
• All with the ring in his coat pocket. (The poor guy constantly pocket-checked to reassure himself it hadn't gotten lost on the journey. He finds it funny now, but at the time it was super stressful!)

Over in Europe, I was oblivious. In fact, the day before Brad arrived, I was talking to one of our coaches, Orvie, on a particularly lovely day. I felt a whim and told him that while Brad and I weren't engaged, we'd talked about wedding options, and had even thought of a "destination wedding" in Königssee!

Why?

It's one of the most beautiful spots on tour...




Has a lot of fun stuff to do and see:


Is one of the first tracks we slid together in Europe...




And is our favorite track, thus far.




Anyway, I told this all to Orvie, and he was pretty excited about it. So...when Brad arrived...Orvie promptly told him what I'd said.

My reaction: !!!!!!!

At dinner that night, Brad started talking about rings for some reason. I was suspicious for a moment, then he played it off "talking to Orvie must have made me self conscious I guess."

He worried for a moment that he was giving the game away, but...I bought it hook, line and sinker, even actually thought I'd caused the conversation. Heh, FOOLED ME!

A couple days later, though, he was getting concerned:

• The World Championship races were coming in a few days, and he wanted to give me time to calm down from being proposed to so I could focus on racing.

• He wanted it to be a nice day, and the weather had been crappy. (It's beautiful when you can see the mountains, gloomy when you can't.)

• We didn't have a car of our own, instead sharing with the other two women.

• He wanted to do it by the lake, the prettiest spot, but lack of car was an issue.

Finally, 2 days before the race, the day dawned lovely and clear. We trained in the morning, and had a free afternoon, so we thought about going to "check out the little market by the lake." Or so he said - it was a ruse to get me there.

Problems:

• The girls had taken the car for lunch/shopping, and didn't make it back on time for us to go anywhere.

• The lake was miles away, so without the car we couldn't make it there.

• I was in a bad mood, since I wasn't pushing well in training, was just frustrated with my legs and wanted to sit and mope.

• If he didn't propose that day, it wasn't going to happen in Europe since we were packing and leaving immediately after finishing racing. Literally, minutes afterward.
  

Brad was freaking out, though I had no idea. He kept thinking "This is going down TODAY or it isn't going down!"

Then he came up with a backup plan: a nice walk to a prettier part of town.

I didn't make it easy.

• Brad: "Let's go for a walk."

• Me, pretty salty: "I don't want to go for a walk. Why can't we just stay in and watch a movie or something?"

• Brad: "I just want to get out of the [hotel] room."

• Me: "I don't want to wear out my legs! I'm pushing SO SLOW! Gah!"

• Brad: "Let's just go for a short walk then, get some fresh air. It'll be good, loosen your legs up, get out of here."

• Me: "FINE! But it'd better be short!"

Poor boy.

So out we went, for a little walk, down to the roundabout in the middle of town, which crosses the confluence of two streams with super clear water. It was literally only about 5 minutes away, and I admitted to him that it was nice to get out. We got to the roundabout, then...(condensed and put best I can from memory):

• Me: "Now what...ready to go back?"

• Brad: "Well..."

• Me: "What? You wanna keep going?"

• Brad: "Well, I just, think we should go find you a ring."

• Me, surprised: "Wow, I REALLY must have made you self conscious!"

• Brad: "Heh, maybe."

• Me, half-seriously: "Um, where would we find a ring anyway?"

• Brad: "I don't know...surely there's somewhere."

• Me: "What, some kind of Swarovski knockoff?" (FYI - Swarovski crystals come from Austria and can be found all over in Austria and Germany)

• Brad: "Of all people, I'd think you would know where to find a ring."

• Me, confused and offended: "What's that supposed to mean?"

• Me, turning and trying to storm off: "Fine, let's go find a ring."

He grabbed my arm instead, and then:

• Brad: "What if I told you...I already had a ring?"

• Me, half-laughing and half-mad: "No, you do not!"

• Brad: "What if..." and started patting his pockets.

• Me, no longer mad and starting to be concerned it wasn't a joke: "That's not funny."
  

Then he pulled out a ring box and I...

...was the stereotypical girl and gasped. Not at the ring but at being proposed to. Heh! He opened the ring box and barely had time to actually get the words out before I jumped on him and said yes and burst into tears.

My reaction shocked the heck out of even me, and I hadn't even LOOKED at the ring box other than to notice there actually was something in it! Embarrassed...


Afterward, we took a couple pictures to memorialize the moment - these are the pictures that we thought had been lost, and I was heartbroken over. So happy he found them!:


My favorite:


The next day, we ended up actually being able to go to the lake after all, and took a few more pictures there.


The water is SO clear.


The market area across the lake from the track, where we had tried to go the day before.


We had fun with pics.




I'm wearing the ring on the wrong finger since I've apparently lost weight since the last time I sized my finger, oops! And the knuckle on my right hand has been broken in the past so is big enough to keep the ring from falling off, unlike my left.




A nice couple took some pictures for us (the previous were autotimed from the hood of the car) and I switched the ring to the proper finger.




We kept the news quiet for a couple days (didn't want to distract anyone or make a big deal out of it) but it had leaked out so we let it be known the first day of racing.


P.S. - I pushed MUCH faster in the race than I had in training, so Brad was right, the walk was good! ;)

P.P.S. - Info on the ring - the center was originally row of 5 diamonds, but they swapped out 3 of them for sapphires. I mentioned they'd put the wrong stones in - the sapphires were supposed to be the cornflower blue (super light blue, sky almost), and we're swapping all the diamonds instead of just 3, so it's back at the jeweler right now. I am actually wearing a stunt ring for the time being! Heh.