Engagement Weekend

The sweetie surprised me last weekend with a trip to Vermont. Unbeknownst to me, she had arranged for us to stay at the Inn at the New England Culinary Institute. In addition to the inn being a beautiful place to stay and the fact that staying at a culinary school is just plain cool, this is also the school that my favorite celebrity chef attended.

We arrived in Vermont late Friday night, so the sweetie had done some research and found a vegetarian restaurant for us to stop at along the drive. Thinks of everything, that one.

Early Saturday morning, we drove to Mt. Mansfield and took a gondola ride most of the way to the top. We then started out on a fairly challenging, very rocky hike up to the highest point in Vermont. I did drag my hiking boots all the way to Vermont but left them at the hotel, so we were hiking in tennis shoes which made the wet rocks all the more exciting to navigate. We didn't end up making it all the way to the top, but stopped at one point along the trail where Mr. Sweetie got down on one knee and proposed. Of course, I said yes! Our self-portrait immediately after the proposal.

All smiles and in love.

We picked the ring out together a few weeks ago, so the proposal wasn't a complete surprise but I was definitely not expecting it at that moment. I thought that it would come at some point during the weekend, but I was expecting it would be at dinner later that night. I actually thought we'd left the ring in the hotel room, so the sweetie was halfway through the proposal before I caught on and thought, "OMG, this is it!" It was so perfect!

The entire weekend was beautiful and while its just the beginning of the foliage season, I thought the trees couldn't be any more gorgeous. I prefer there to be a bit of green, rather than all reds and golds, and we had a lovely view from the top of the mountain after some of the morning fog burned off.

Later that night, the boy had arranged another surprise--we had a private dinner cooked for us by one of the chef instructors at the school. The sweetie had designed the menu in advance (all vegan, natch) and we got to watch the chef prepare the food and learn some neat tricks (maple syrup in coffee? In mushrooms??!). Here we are, getting ready to eat butternut squash risotto.

And raspberry sorbet for dessert, with a message on the plate:

And a final pic of my sexy fiance on the trecherous hike.

Geo-what?

We had a lovely weekend over here in southern Connecticut. The weather threatened to ruin it for us Friday evening, but the rain cleared up and made way for gorgeous weather on Saturday and Sunday. The sweetie and I decided to visit a park we hadn't been to before and took a lovely hike along (and over!) a dry creek bed filled with boulders. At one point, about halfway through our hike, we found ourselves climbing up to the top of one of the largest boulders for a view of the park. As we were looking around, I saw something carefully wedged under a smaller rock, just barely out of sight. It was a plastic container and I first thought someone had forgotten their lunch after stopping for a rest, but as I got closer, I realized that it was a geocache! I've heard of these before and the sweetie and I have even talked about going looking for some, but we'd never found one. Essentially, someone leaves a box with a logbook and, sometimes, little trinkets hidden somewhere and then posts the gps coordinates on a website so that others may try to find it. We just stumbled upon this one, but the thrill of finding it was enough to make us interested in going out to intentionally find some more.