Ferries and Cars and Trains, oh my!

I know, I know... the first time I have legitimately big news and I haven't blogged it yet. But I
implore you, put away your pitchforks and torches! Here I come with all the tidbits :) not only because I promised a blog before the end of break (BARELY met my quota) but also because this is quite the nice little distraction from lesson planning! This and the Duck game, but I digress...

Well, this was quite the winter break! We basically spent three days total at home, but I wouldn't
trade it for anything :) After leaving school on Friday the 16th (last one to go too... the custodians were really confused by my presence because I was there until 4pm... not that late, but...) I went home to find Richard, pizza, a movie and my footie pajamas. Pretty great start, right? After a pretty uneventful weekend (apart from church at our new church home! We feel very blessed to be attending the Summit in Enumclaw and feel like it's a perfect fit for both of us individually as well as a couple) we headed off on a surprise trip (on my part) to Victoria, B.C.! I honestly had no clue where we were going, just knew what to pack :) keeping this a secret from me, especially for Richard, was no easy feat, but I didn't know we were heading to our neighbors to the North until we pulled up to the ferry. We stayed at the Empress hotel, another surprise, and walked to all manner of attractions and events! In the two and a half days we were there, we went to: Butchart Gardens, the Undersea Gardens, a bug zoo, the Royal BC Museum, Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, walked all over town, ate all sorts of food and went to all sorts of souvenir shops (we don't play tourists very well... actually, depending on how you look at it, we played it very well!). We couldn't feel our feet by the time we were done each day! Either way, it was the most wonderful trip I've ever taken, full of adventure :) and it was really nice to not worry about anything!

And of course, the big news and the reason behind the trip, Richard and I are engaged! Our first
night there we had reservations for Il Terrazo, a very nice and locally popular Italian place in downtown Victoria. The sequence of events were pretty great and fairly indicative of how things usually go for us, so I'll share it with you as a play by play. Just imagine us, dressed in our finest and stuffed into a small table by the kitchen/bar/front door and yelling to hear each other:

Richard & Chelsea: *chatting back and forth about how happy we are and how wonderful this
trip is*
Richard: Chels, I am tired of looking at you
Waitress *walks up, interrupts*: How's everything tasting? Can I bring you anything else?
Richard: Thanks, it's great, we're fine!
Waitress *walks away*
Chelsea: Real nice. Please tell me that wasn't the end of your sentence.
Richard: No, she interrupted me! I meant to say that I'm tired of looking at you without knowing
you are going to be my wife.
Chelsea: We've already talked about this, I want to be with you forever!
Richard: *falls out of chair and knocks it over as he gets down on one knee, says sweet things
about how he knew I was the one that I honestly can't remember because I was so shocked* Chelsea, will you do me the honor of being my wife? *opens the ring box stuffed in his sock*
Chelsea: For real?! I think I'm gonna puke!
Richard: *as he gives me my grandmother's ring and busboys/water boys walk over his overturned chair and legs* 57 years of a happy marriage went into this ring, and I want us to
add another 57 to its legacy.
Chelsea: *cries and kisses and commences to staring between the ring and Richard for the rest of
the night*

Tada! That was the moment :) I can honestly say I've never been happier and that I've never felt
more blessed. He is my best friend, my support and rock, my ultimate encourager and understands me when I don't understand myself. With the most incredible heart of anyone I've ever met, I can't WAIT to call him my partner and husband and to spend the rest of my life with him :D

This happened on the first night we were there, so needless to say the rest was just a massive
celebration; we were pretty bummed to return. For pictures, check out Richard's album on Facebook! Or post your dislike of my not posting pictures here and I'll work on it...

When we returned, we had a few days to put our maple creme cookies away and move our clothes from our backpacks to the washer and back into a duffel bag so that we could head over to Priest River, Idaho for Christmas! Beforehand though, I got to spend a wonderful Christmas Eve with the Book family complete with homemade mustard, FaceTime between Payton and Logo, and enhanced Apples to Apples. Kyanne and Ryan were great hosts! And just a quick shout-out to Aunt Tanya for housing Richard and I the night before leaving for the East. She really took a chunk of stress away from our travels and even provided us with Christmas morning stockings... Aunt Tanya, you're too good to this family :) thanks again!

Our Priest River trip was awesome! It was great to spend time with his family, as always, and
engagement or no engagement they welcome me like family :) I couldn't have lucked out better in my future in-laws! (If that sentence makes sense...). We stayed with his sister and with his parents while also traveling around to multiple siblings' domiciles to play games and just chat (a lot of times about weddings). His younger sister Britta is engaged as well so we had plenty of wedding jazz to talk about :) on Christmas day, there was also a get-together with Richard's mom's side of the family! There were about 50 people there (which was roughly 1/3 of the people in his mom's side of the family) and they LOVED hearing about my little family of "five total cousins? Is that both sides?!" and we did one of those gift exchanges where you have number and open a gift or steal another one... twas great :) so much food, so many laughs! And I know Richard was happy to be with his family, sadly it doesn't happen enough, which made me extremely happy also :)

The day after we got back, I hopped a train down to Albany to see Jenna, Kyle and Payton. HOLY
STINKING CUTE! She is more and more fun every time I see her :) I loved spending time with her and my parents, but especially loved spending good talking time with Jenna. I miss her so much, and it just isn't the same over the phone... by far the best part of my trip was sister time with her :) we also got to talk wedding ideas which was fun! It's nice to bounce ideas off of my Matron of Honor :)

So here we are! I got back New Year's Eve night and Richard and I were lame and played games until midnight and promptly fell asleep :) since then I've been trying to get the house in a state of perfection (well, to me) and been putting off working on school work (hence the blog). But I'd better get to work since time is running low as are excuses. I truly hope that your Christmases and New Years were full of light hearts and heavy laughter, big joys and little stresses. You are all in my heart, and I hope to hear from you guys soon! I will try to be better about updating you; I hear the rest of my first year of teaching will go like the wind, but I want to make sure I'm keeping up :)

Love,
Chels