The rest of the story

Gavin asked for the rest of the story, so here goes:

We took the week away for some vacation time after I cancelled my trip to Atlanta for the festival of Homiletics because I was too stressed to do another conference and travel across the country. So, we traveled up the coast and stayed with some of Rick's family.


During the week we went to the beach at San Simeon and played in the water and looked in the coves at all the very cool marine life. We also met up with some of his family so I could meet them.

On Wednesday we went to Hearst Castle and did the tour and then headed up highway 1 to Monterey.

We hadn't eaten since 6am so after the 3 hour drive up the coast we headed to Bubba Gumps for some dinner.

While we were there Rick put a banner on his iphone that said, "Will you marry ME?!"

(Now, you need to know some back story or you'll think I'm a total jerk. We have been talking about getting married for awhile and regularly one or the other of us will ask, "Will you marry me?" and the answer is always yes. We say it often and are earnest in our response and so when we talked about the "real deal" Rick said I would know because he would be on one knee. I also pretty much knew he would be asking while we were at the beach on vacation and had decided that until he asked for real I would simply answer, "probably.")

So, when I saw the banner, I smiled and said, "probably." He frowned a bit and took the phone away. A few minutes later he pulled out the ring (a temporary until we can get the family setting and stone put together by a jeweler) and said, "Will you marry me?" Again I said, "Probably." Again he frowned, and then he put the ring away.

We enjoyed our dinner and took some pics out front in the Forrest shoes on the bus bench:












And then headed toward the beach to walk. It was evening and cool and I had on his sweatshirt so I suggested we head toward the sun and rocks where it would be warmer. We climbed out on the rocks that protruded into the ocean and talked for a bit. After a few moments he said, "Will you marry me for real for real?" I said, "For real for real?" He said, "For real for real, even though I'm not on one knee because it's wet on the rocks and I will fall in...?" I said, "you're using your play voice." To which he answered, "So?!" He pulled out the ring and said, "I have this for you....(in a normal voice) will you marry me?" And I said yes. =)