And then he asked me to marry him...

This post is long over due but I thought I would share it now.  I will try to catch up with a few things in this post, almost a year of travelling (well not much travelling, we have a wedding to save for!)

It all started before Easter.  I was in Australia for work.  Someone who had never seen a map of Australia planned my trip and I crossed the country three times pretty much.  But I ended in Adelaide in South Australia and was to be flying out to NZ in the evening so I could arrive at midnight on Good Friday.  This would give me the entire weekend with Chris and Jesse.  Chris had even booked us a nice bach near Pouto.  However, Air NZ had another plan for me.  At this time a massive storm was heading towards NZ and the forecast was the worst it had been in ages.  Air NZ cancelled all flights to the country and I was stranded for Good Friday in Melbourne.  Melbourne is a lovely city, one of the best in Australia but it is frustrating knowing you are there and a lovely bach is waiting for you at home.  Plus Good Friday is one of the holidays that NZ and Australia respect.  Nothing like being in a wonderful new city and having absolutely everything closed.  Fortunately a friend from Matthews Hall is living there so we met up for a meal on VERY short notice and her and her fiance showed me around a bit on their day off work.  It was very kind of them and it was great to catch up.

I arrive in NZ 24 hours late and we headed straight north! Chris was happy to see me and Jesse seamed to enjoy the car trip.  We arrived after dark due to the delays of my flight.  Oh, and that massive storm, it missed the North Island but better to be safe than sorry.  The lady who met us to unlock the door was nice, she even gave us homemade Guava Jelly.  It was really nice to find a hound friendly fully fenced place and we knew that Jesse would love to explore in day time.  However, he is a dog who like his routine and he clearly was not in it that night.  He spent most of the night pacing back and forth between the living room and our bedroom whining the entire time like we were going to leave him.

The next day we were able to see the view and it was gorgeous!!! We were on a massive cattle/sheep farm with stunning views of the harbour and across to the mainland.  The owner of the bach came out to greet us and meet our 'very skinny dog' as the lady had reported to him the previous night.  I must say he was pretty relieved that it was a Greyhound and we don't just starve our dog.  He invited us over to the main house and told us everywhere we could walk on his property.  It was a pretty easy rule to follow: You can go everywhere except the paddocks with the Angus bulls in them.  That seemed like sound advice as those things were HUGE.

These cows don't know how luck they are.

We went for a lovely walk through the paddocks and to a wonderful look out.  Jesse really enjoyed the smells and especially liked the sheep paddocks.  He seemed unfussed by the cows but didn't really enjoy some of the steep hills.  We imaged him complaining that he is not a mountain goat and prefers the flat ground.  Jesse also enjoyed exploring the massive fenced in area around the bach.  You could tell he was still slightly worried about the new environment because he kept disappearing and when we found him he was always lying beside the car door so we couldn't leave him behind.  Little stinker!

Jesse exploring his surroundings

One happy dog!

Our tradition is that when I go to Australia for work I bring Chris back a nice rum from duty free.

Don't you wish this was your backyard?

You can see our batch across the valley in the very back of this shot.

I could walk here everyday

This is such a beautiful area.  It is the same distance from Auckland as the Coromandel but there are way less people (and less to do but hey, great for a weekend away!).  You drive north to Dargaville and head down the penninsula. A bridge would easily shave an hour or more off the trip but then it would be far to assessable to the JAFAs (J-ust A-other F-ing A-ucklander like us!).

This is actually alarmingly steep

We took a drive southward (down the peninsula) to some famous sand dune beaches.  They were gorgeous and although we would have loved to just let Jesse run his recall is atrocious and the last thing we wanted was to lose him somewhere in the dunes because none of us knew the area and we might never find him again.  So safely on leash he stayed!  It was a great Easter Sunday.

He is Batman!

That beautiful time just before the sun sets.

 The next morning we did another loop of the massive walk through the fields and down the valley.  It was a beautiful sunny day and Jesse loved it as much as we did.  He was much more settled the second night but his attempts to access the car were stepped up.  Once we started opening doors to lead the car he jumped and nothing would budge him.  When the owner came by to say good bye and let the dogs play we had to drag Jesse out of the car, drag him.  He was floppy and didn't realise we weren't laving for another few hours so he had to get out of the car anyway. 

This country is so beautiful

I tried to help Chris load the car but he kept telling me that he was fine and to go inside.  So I started playing with Jesse outside and was told to play with him inside.  No idea why he was being so weird. Who doesn't want help packing a car?

So I signed the guest book thanking them for a wonderful weekend and was giving Jesse some pets (inside the house) when Chris came running in telling me there was a cool bird outside.  What can I say, the man knows me! So naturally I went sprinting out of the house at top speed, I didn't even get my runners on right because I didn't want to miss the bird.  I following him (at high speed while hobbling in the shoes because I didn't want to crush the back of them) around the house and two thoughts occurred to me:

1) That is not a real bird, it is not going to fly away (immediately bent to fix shoes)
2) Why did he get me to run around here to look at a fake bird? (Is there something in the bird?)

There was something in the bird.

Do you see the ring in the fantail?

Chris asked me to marry him in typical engineering style...with a painted 3D printed ring. He knew that I would want to have say over the ring I was to wear for the rest of my life and he wanted to design something too so we made a start with his design and together we would finish it.  His design was simple and meaningful.  He used a one twist Pikorua to make a ring.  This symbol is very common in Maori culture and symbolises two lived joining together for eternity.  The perfect meaning for an engagement ring! I never knew that Chris was secretly super romantic.

So I said yes...and we were both super happy.  I immediately wanted to Skype our families but Chris asked that we wait until we had the real ring.  That didn't seem like too much to ask so I happily agreed.  Then it would be really official and until then it would be our happy little secret.

Chris signed the Guest book after me and wouldn't let me see it. To this day I still don't know what it says.  I can't wait to go back and read it.

So that is it.  How we became engaged and why we kept it a secret for a bit.  If we had known how long it would actually get to have the ring made we would have told everyone right away but that is water under the bridge.

Over the next three weeks we designed the most beautiful ring in the world that combined Chris's folded pikorua design, my requirement for no sticky-up bits because how do those women do that?  Then after being told it would take 5-6 weeks to make (and many false starts on Skype) it was ready for pick up 12 weeks minus one day!!! And it really is the most beautiful ring ever!!!! I still look at it too much.  But there are things I have discovered about wearing an engagement ring:

1) Yes when it is a wide ring like mine taking it off can sometimes feel like you are dislocating your finger (especially when it is hot outside or when you are first engaged and EVERYONE wants to see it)
2) You have to get used to it on your hand when you wash your face as it can hurt.
3) You will get a sore finger from continually holding it straight to stare at it.
4) Chris will get annoyed if you go "do you want to see something beautiful...BLING!" and shove the ring in his face more than 3 times a day since August. Under three times a day you are fine.  Oh, and don't wake him up in the middle of the night to say "look how it shines in the moonlight" he won't like that either.

Okay, that is really it.  The full story. I should have posted it months ago.

Since then we have been saving money but we have managed a few weekends away.  We have visited Wellington, Raglan and Tekapo! I will write about those in a separate post.  I want to keep this one just for our engagement.