So. Yup. The trip to Anderson was fun. The highlight? Oh, I dunno ... maybe when Geoffrey asked me to marry him? Yeah, that's it. Ooh, or getting fried pickle slices at Sonic ... Nah. Getting engaged was better, I'd say. WOOO-HOOOO! I'm hoping this isn't news to anyone, by the way, as I've been racking up the long distance charges on my phone bill all this week trying to get in touch with pretty much everyone I know. If I haven't told you in person, then, well, I'm a creep and I'm sorry. Call me and harangue me and watch me squirm. Certainly we have tried to call everybody, but we live in fear we have missed someone.

The full story, for those who haven't heard it in its nauseating fullness already: It was Friday, we were in South Carolina for a visit. We went for a hike at Jones Gap State Park up in the mountains. I tried to derail the trip, actually, saying maybe we should do the hiking some other time since it was, oh, I don't know, like 12 degrees outside. But poor Geoffrey, who apparently was about to puke all day, insisted, and luckily I didn't put up too much of a fight. We headed up the main trail and hoped to get to "our rocks," which are just some boulders on the side of the river where we've always sat and talked and hung out and just taken in nature. These rocks, I should point out, are a good ways up the trail, maybe a mile or so, and easily found by the fact that they are right where the main trail very obviously ends and a new trail starts up at a right angle. But we've gone maybe 100 yards or so into the woods and Geoffrey's all "Um, hey, are those our rocks?" So I remind him, gently, that no, our rocks are a leeetle further on, remember? So we press on, but he stops me again with the same question maybe, oh, 50 feet later. And I'm like "no, dumbass! You know where our rocks are!" And he says "Oh, um, OK, well lets go sit on these anyway," which at the time seemed to me like a reasonable decision since it was pretty durn cold outside and I didn't see us getting a whole mile up the trail. So we're sitting there, and I'm just kinda looking around. Pretty rocks. Beautiful river, even if it is partly frozen. Towering pines, blue sky, mountains close by all around. And then I notice Geoffrey, who is sitting beside me, is fumbling around in his pocket, and he says he has something he wants to ask me ... and then I knew. I'll spare you the googly details, but he got down on one knee in the ice and mud and asked me to marry him, and I said yes. And we were very happy. And we are very happy. And the plan is we will be very happy for the rest of our lives. I think we're going to be good at that. :)

Ahem. Oh, to top off the romantic love-fest, after we got out of the state park, we headed straight to ... that's right, friend, Sonic. Where we ordered a ridiculous amount of fried food that we were too excited to eat anyway. It was a very good day.

It was awesome, too, to get to go back to Anderson and share our good news with our friends there -- coolest collection of peeps you can find anywhere, says me. Emily and Ian had a party for us Saturday night, and even got some champagne for us all to toast with. It was a blast. Click on Emily's name to see some pictures from the party. As soon as I can get Webmasthter Geoffrey to work his magic, I will have pictures of the purty purty ring he got me on my own site.

So, that's about it. What, that's not enough news for you, you vultures??? No concrete wedding plans so far. No date set (though we're thinking about this fall), no firm place (though we're thinking Atlanta), and don't even start in on me on things like a dress, flowers, themes, invites, crap and crap. These things will come. Or they won't and one day you'll get a postcard from me and Geoffrey on some island saying we're married, suckas! See YUH.