Christmas 2010 Recap...

For the past three years, I've drawn the short straw at my work and had to work on Christmas day.  2010 was no different.  Kristin and her family celebrated in the morning and then hopped in a car and headed to Danville, VA to visit her grandmother.  We had talked about the possibility of her heading back early to spend the evening with me, but I was still very excited to find out it was actually happening.

I later found out that she already knew I had bought a ring...apparently my "hiding place" was not very good.  My original plan was to wait until closer to New Years and maybe decorate the back porch with lights.  I wanted to make everything magical, but it turns out I couldn't wait and I knew Christmas is definitely her favorite holiday so...

See, the Lowthers have a tradition (with German roots I believe) where all the kids race to find a certain ornament on the tree.  I've tried it once, and believe me, it's harder than it sounds.  Well, I hid a small plastic ring on our little tree (think Charlie Brown size) and told Kristin we were going to play our own version.  She finally found the ring and by the time she started turning around to ask me what it meant, I was grabbing the real ring and getting down on one knee.  The picture above is Kristin's actual engagement ring while we tried to recreate the scene during our engagement shoot.

The two of us had known for some time that we wanted to get married one day, but Kristin had always joked that she would say maybe or something like that when I "finally" asked her.  She forgot.  I think she was trying to say yes before I finished my spiel.  Still, up to that point, it was the best day of my life and I can't blame her for getting caught up in the moment.