I'm back... and She Said Yes!

We've reach the final third of August, which means that it's time to bring this blog out of its customary summertime hiatus and share some exciting news with both of my faithful readers.

Our trip to Europe (that I mentioned a few months ago) was everything we expected it to be - exciting, enjoyable and educational. We revisited some old sights - my girlfriend (Corinne) and I took our parents back to some of the places we discovered two years ago - and saw a lot of new ones for the first time. I've finally crossed Venice, the Palace of Knossos, the Acropolis and the picturesque Slovenian capital of Ljubljana off my bucket list! Hopefully I'll have the time and motivation to write about these travels in the coming weeks and months even as I follow the exploits of another UH Cougar football season (my season preview should be up in about a week, by the way).

One place that Corinne and I discovered during our first "Alpine Adventure" two years ago was a little village in the corner of Slovenia by the name of Kranjska Gora. Although we were only in the village for a few hours, we became particularly enchanted by it. It was an adorable town, full of cute buildings and friendly people, surrounded by amazing Alpine beauty, and located just across the border from both Italy and Austria. We joked about how we wanted to one day own a house there, which we would use as a base to explore Europe (and escape the Houston heat) during the summer; we'd rent it out to winter sports enthusiasts who crowd the Kranjska Gora region in the winter months. Hey, we can dream, right? The point being: we had always planned on returning.

That, of course, was 2016, at which time Corinne and I had been together for about nine months. Two years later, we're obviously still together - we moved in together a year ago to our mutual enjoyment and satisfaction - and, while I hadn't been under any pressure from Corinne to do so,* it had become increasingly obvious to me that the time had come to "put a ring on it." As we made plans for our summer trip, I decided that the charming little Slovenian village that Corinne and I discovered two years ago would be the optimal location for the big event should happen.

On Saturday June 21st, we disembarked from our cruise ship in Venice, acquired our rental car, and made the journey along Autostrada and Autobahn from Venice to our timeshare in Schladming, Austria. On the way, Corinne and I stopped to show my parents some points of interest in the Julian Alps that we first visited in 2016: the town of Tarvisio, Italy (where we ate lunch), the picturesque Fusine Lakes, the even more picturesque Zelenci Nature Reserve just across the border in Slovenia, and finally, Kranjska Gora (ostensibly to pick up some basic stables such as coffee, breakfast stuff and wine at the Mercator store there, because all of the grocery stores in Schladming would be closed by the time we arrived).

We walked around the charming little town, purchased some souvenirs, visited Kranjska Gora's 16th-century church, and then walked out to the plaza in front of the church. I handed my camera to my parents and asked them to take a picture of us in front of the church. They obliged. Then I asked them to take a couple more, got down on my knee, and pulled out a ring:

Corinne was stunned; I had never given her a slightest hint that I was going to propose to her during this trip. She exclaimed "oh my God, are you really doing this? before I was even able to officially ask her to marry me. My parents were pretty surprised, too; I had not told anyone, not even them, about my plan. Corinne, of course, said yes; there was a smattering of laughter and applause from the few people in the square who were paying attention.

The only hitch was the ring I got: it was much too big for Corinne's finger. It turns out that the ring I discovered when I snuck through her jewelry collection - she doesn't normally wear rings, so I didn't know her ring size - and took to a jeweler to be sized didn't actually belong to her, but rather was a keepsake from her grandparents. What I get for trying to be sneaky! We were easily able to exchange the ring for one with the correct size when we returned to Houston.

After having a celebratory beer at the little inn at the edge of the square and heading back to the aforementioned Mercator to pick up the aforementioned groceries, we left Kranjska Gora and continued on to Schladming to check into our timeshare. Corinne finally got in touch with her mom that evening to share the good news; we also announced our engagement on Facebook, which resulted in literally hundreds of deeply-appeciated comments and likes from our friends and family.

Of course, this all means that we need to plan for (and figure out how to pay for) a wedding. We've just begun the process of researching venues and options and we're nowhere near setting a date, but the stress of wedding planning is already beginning to be felt. This is all new to Corinne, but I've already done this once so I know what I'm in for. (Hopefully, it will result in a better outcome for me than the first time around...)

So here's to a long and happy life together. Even if we never get that summer home in Kransjka Gora, that lovely little Alpine village will always in in our hearts.

*However, over the part several months I did get plenty of pressure from both of our mothers and at least one of Corinne's friends...