A modest proposal

It is upon my return to Oxford, after seeing Z off to the airport, that I finally have access to a computer and time to write this update. Unfortunately, his departure means we won't see each other again until July, but he's off to amazing adventures through Appalachia, and there remains much work for me to accomplish before my own exit from Ox, so it's probably for the best. Besides this, I can't complain too much because his visit was a pretty great one for several reasons, not least of which being....

WE'RE ENGAGED!

(to be married, more specifically.)

I'll spare you the satire and get on with the story:

After a few days together in Oxford, Z and I did some train-hopping that brought us to a few towns/villages in the Cotswolds, west of Oxford. [I'll post some pictures+stories of the actual trip later; we've got more important details to cover.] On our third day of trekking, we found ourselves in Bath (minds out of the gutter, folks) and with our thin wallets preventing us from paying for fancy tours or special exhibits, we needed to kill some time...

Thus we ended up in Henrietta Gardens—a lovely place, even in the cold—and proceeded to take silly pictures as we wandered through the park. The whole trip, we'd been using my camera's self-timer to snap pictures of the two of us together, and sneaky little Zachary used this fact to trick me good: In one corner of the park, he set up the camera to take a bunch of consecutive shots for what I thought was going to be a goofy little way to pass the time. He got me.

....without further ado, here's the frame-by-frame:

[And I promise, folks, it's authentic. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have acted this out if I tried.]

look at that lil' sneak, reaching into his pocket while I'm completely unaware...

Yep, I just keep on being ridiculous...

So there ya have it.

In my excitement utter surprise, the best I could give in response to his "Will you marry me?" was "Bwhaa?! YEAH!!" I suppose what I lacked in originality was made up for with enthusiasm, eh?

Without a doubt, we're a pretty silly couple, and after seven solid years, we're engaged (with no idea of date/location yet, err'body, so don't bother asking  ---> lies! July 2014, woot!).

And if you didn't catch it on the ol' book of faces, here's how we announced it to our friends:

With tons of love for each other, and for all of you,

Z&M