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rosalietheprairieflower
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Name: Rosalie (kind of)
Interests: I like learning and teaching and doing whatever else falls into my path.
Expertise: Don't possess one, jack of all trades, master of none
Occupation: Student
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/9/2005
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| So here's the story, all of it from Matt's perspective.
A Story
It
started during her Spring Break from student teaching, while we were at
my home in TX for a week with my family. (I could go futher back, if
you'd like. Let's see... I was born at a very young age...). That was
when I began the process of buying the ring (insert dramatic music, and keep it ready - we'll need it again later). Wow, this is kind of fun.
I
found an excuse to go to town with my Dad, so we went to a jeweler
about 10 minutes from my home. I commenced to spend a couple hours
perusing catalogs of stones, bands, engagement rings, etc., etc., etc.
Finally, I decided on a combination that I thought would be good, but I
(also) decided to wait awhile before ordering it to make sure it really
felt right. It did, so the next day I went back and spoke with a different
lady (that's important, but only in that it complicated communications)
and gave her the information on the design I'd chosen. Oh yeah, and
payed her half of the (cough, cough) dollars, because you had
to pay half of it up front (the other half to be paid when you'd seen
the ring, had any little adjustments made that needed to be made, and
were satisfied with it - that's also important).
So, we go
driving back off to TN for the last half of the semester. Oh wait, I
forgot (ha, how ironic): I'd had to call back sometime after I actually
ordered the ring to tell them what size to make it. (Somehow I'd
managed to leave out that little detail... and neither of us had
noticed. Just wait, this gets better).
So, we were back at
school. But the saga of phone calls continued. You see, the jeweler was
having trouble locating someone who would actually cut the side stones
the size I wanted (Mystic Fire Topaz is apparently tricky to cut small
because it's a treated stone - Hudson, keep that in mind). But they
finally located one who would cut it almost as small as the
design called for. Hey, I'll take that. But that means the prongs will
have to be the curved design instead of the strait ones you'd chosen
(in order to hold the slightly larger stones), are you okay with that?
Yes, that's fine. Go ahead.
Well, the man who would actually set
the stones wasn't able to get the work done very quickly because of
some things going on in his life, so it ends up that I was still on the
phone with them trying to get all the details taken care of as late as
Senior Trip (for you non-Bryan people, that's the week before finals,
when the seniors go have a good time while everyone else is taking
exams... a very nice arrangement, if I may say so myself). Also note...
well, you'll see.
Remember that little detail about paying the
other half of the money once you could look at the finished product and
see if anything needed to be adjusted? Well, the ring was done about a
day before my parents would be leaving Texas to drive to Tennessee for
Graduation. Not a lot of time for making any adjustments (thankfully,
none were needed - except the size, but that's another fun story in
itself). My parents get there, make the hand-off, and from then on I
have a (cough, cough)-dollar ring in my possession (often in my
pocket). To keep track of. (Boy, would that have been horrible to
lose... oh, I don't want to figure out what I would have done then).
Thankfully, I think I had some help in all of this (as in, God kept the
whole thing from falling apart in lots of ways, many of which I
probably don't know about).
And then we left for Europe. The
Chorale (with us in it) left two days after graduation to spend two
weeks touring five different countries in Europe ministering through
music. So, we were both in Europe. Together. And I had an engagement
ring in my pocket. What a horrible situation. (Note the sarcasm
dripping from that last comment). An engagement ring, by the way, does not
have to be declared when going through customs, because it will be
going back out with you - just in case you ever needed to know that
random fact.
We started in England (London), then crossed to
France (where we sang at five different places). And while in France,
we visited the Eiffel Tower. Gee, how inconvenient.
But wait!
Crys doesn't like being normal, much less being so absolutely cliched
as getting engaged at the Eiffel Tower. Hmm.... But we're on the Eiffel
Tower, looking out over the city of Paris, France, and Crys is sitting
beside me, and I have this ring in my pocket...
So I ask her if
she likes blow-pops. She looks at me kind of funny, and says she does.
Why? Well, because I have this ring-pop here in my pocket. So I give it
to her. She really likes it (and I think she really likes me, too...
which makes me smile really, really wide, even right now just thinking
about it). And it's her favorite flavors (blue raspberry and
watermelon, if I remember right), as well as two of her favorite colors
(blue and green, respectively). So she gives me several hugs over the
next while, and tells me periodically how good I am (which I think
means she likes me... which makes me really, really happy). (Really, really happy). (Did I say that makes me happy? Okay, just checking).
She
also has a fun time showing of her ring(-pop) to people, and laughing
about it with them once they get over realizing that she's not really
engaged, I had just given her a candy ring. (The ring, by the way,
lasted - I think - less than an hour; after that, there was nothing
left of it but the red plastic ring base and blue/green stains on
Crys's tongue).
From France, we went on into Switzerland
(spending an afternoon in Geneva), and ending up on the North-East
corner of lake Geneva, in a town called Vevey. And that was where I
proposed. Oh wait! Did I say that? Scratch that. That's not where I
proposed. (Just seeing if you're still awake). =o)
But while we
were in Switzerland, we had one day almost entirely off. We toured
several locations (driving there on the coach, then staying for an hour
or two), including a town that was sort of encolsed within a medieval
fortress-type arrangement. I don't really know how it all worked, but
there was a town and there were various walls and little parapets and
stuff around the edge of it.
So while at the medieval fortress
town, I proposed. Oh wait! Not again. Okay, so I didn't really propose
there, but I thought about it. In fact, I was planning on it. In fact,
I'd told some friends that I was going to propose there. It just didn't
work out. (We had some difficulties with paying for strawberries and
cream which ended up taking too much of our time - so instead, we just
played around for awhile on some parapeted walls and trying to get both
of us up into one of the little towers, which didn't really work, but
someone does have some rather entertaining footage of it, from what I
hear... ask Ashley about it if you get a chance... and while you're at
it, ask her if she's got it on her computer yet so that some of us can
see it... thanks). Ahh, good times.
So our next stop was at
Lausanne, Switzerland. It's Wednesday, May 17th, 2006, a little while
before 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
Note the precision.
After
walking around with Crys inside the Cathedral there (which apparently
is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in all of Switzerland), we find
out that, yes, you can go up in the tower. Bingo.
We head over
there, and Crys, myself, and Ashley (who is secretly acting as
videographer) are ushered past the register as paid-for. I find out
later that Mr. Miller (who paid for the three of us, from what I
understand) proceeded to stall the rest of the group, explaining that
it really was a lot of steps, and he wasn't sure they really wanted to
go up there right now. He really seems like a quality man.
So
Ashley, Crys, and I head up multiple flights of spiral staircases,
through a hallway or two, past the bell (which rings on the hour), and
finally up to the top of the tower. We were basically on a walkway that
went around the end of the peaked roof of the highest tower of the
Cathedral of Lausanne, Switzerland, overlooking lake Geneva, with Alps
filling the horizon in several directions. (Just trying to give you
some of the little, fill-in sort of details). So that's where we were.
After
walking once around the walkway, I started towards the first side we
had looked out from, mumbling something about "I don't know if you've
seen the view from over here, but..."
That's when I proposed.
After walking once around the walkway, I started towards the first side
we had looked out from, mumbling something about "I don't know if
you've seen the view from over here, but..."
Turning around, I
knelt quickly down to one knee. As I did, I pulled a small white box
out of my pocket, and popped the lid open. "Will you marry me?" I
actually said it all sort of quickly (but I think she understood).
She stood there for a moment, just staring. This is for real... Yes, it's for real. I love you.
Her eyes started to tear up. We hugged. Yes.
We
sat there for a long time. After awhile, I got out an envelope labeled
with her name. When she saw the handwriting, she looked up at me,
surprised. She instantly recognized the handwriting. Opening the
envelope, she found two letters. One was from her Dad. One was from her
Mom.
Several weeks before, I had asked them if they would write
a note for me to give to her whenever I proposed. I didn't know what
the notes said (she let me read them several days later), but that
wasn't the point. The point was for her parents to be able to be a part
of the occassion. The engagement of their only daughter.
The
story goes on, for on the way down we heard the bell in the tower begin
tolling five o'clock. "What time were we supposed to be back at the
bus?" Oh yeah, I remember now. Five.
After a quick dash down
through the winding passages of the cathedral, out the door, down some
streets and around some corners, we arrived back at the bus only a few
minutes late. But everyone else was already there when we climbed into
the bus. And they cheered.
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| I'm alive, planning a wedding, riding bucking bronco's, falling off abused horses and trying to follow God. It's somewhat harder than I would hope, but God is faithful. The hardest part is I wnat to stay in contact withfriends and it's hard to keep contact with them and keep my focus where God wants it. I am trying to work with some teenage girls and to really love them and give myself to them requires me to put aside everthing else; this balancing act is difficult. so forgive me if I don't stay in as much contact with you as I would like. Pray for me too. My horse that I ride is a little skittish and that can get dangerous and one of my co-counselors broke her finger in a freak accident and had to go through surgery for it, so she is part way out of commission. And one of the wranglers got bucked off her horse and landed on her head, a little harder than I did, so she can't ride. I had best sign off and get going to camp. Have a great day gang.
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| So maybe I should actually write something eh? It was rather lonely after graduation being all by myself with VERY little in my room. But on Monday, the hours went quickly and before I knew it I was headed to the airport to go to Europe. Got on the plane that afternoon and a few hours later arrived in London, England; unfortunately, it was morning their time. We took a brief tour of London and crashed at the church. Neither Matt nor I wanted to sleep so we ended up reading and talking. It was a GREAT time of relaxation. But our lack of rest came back to haunt us that night in the concert. I think both of us fell asleep, while singing. And everybody was so sweet after the concert. They were kind and talked a lot. We stayed in hostels that night, which was a lot of fun. I did, however, learn that amercians are VERY loud. ok, so that wasn't much, but I covered the first day...stay tuned for more about the trip and the definite best part, but you might not want to read it if you don't like lovey dovey stuff. 
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| Ok, look, like 2 entries within one month. I hope you are sitting down. So the major news is that *drum roll please* I AM GOING TO EUROPE, but that's not until May. I made it into Spring chorale. And of course, in chorale they had to point out that I had tried out all four years and hadn't made it. Not exactly true, but most def embarrasing, but, hey, I can handle embarrasment for Europe. Other big news, I was asked to homecoming, YEAH! Now if only my roomie would be it would be perfect. Oh yeah, and in three weeks I will be leaving for INDIA!!! Can you believe it? I can't. God certainly is good. And tomorrow, I guess it's today, I will sleep. YEAH for sleep and God. or, God and sleep. Anyway...I had best go get one or the other. | | |
| hello to all people who are bored enough to read my blog. I only have 5 minutes b-4 I have to be somewhere, but I thought I would tell you How amazing God is. I don't know why particularly, but He is just amazing.
We (sr. class) washed the freshman's feet. Quite a few SGA members were worried we would not have enough sr's, but it ended up that about 74 came out of 80 or so. We ended up running out of towels to dry feet with. I cannot express how much of a blessing it was to see people willing to sacrifice their time, energy, pride etc. to be a blessing to others. It thrilled my heart. If you could have only been there. and the freshman were seemed totally touched by the experience, which is what we wanted. We should do more stuff like that at churches and things. Ahhhh...well, I need to go to the hall meeting, and I think I shall float on a cloud all the way there. | | |
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