One Year Ago… Part 26
Once the tree was up, the next week we planned on decorating it. We went to the basement and brought up all the tree ornaments. Even acted like we were kissing under mistletoe when in fact, it was a tree limb. Hey you can have fun too right :). Who cares that we decorated on Monday night? The Monday night that was still in November. Heck we put the tree up in November, why not :).
Tuesday night was the Christmas parade. We headed to town to go watch his daughter with her cheerleading. She actually found us and ran up and gave us both a hug and then proceeded on down the path. Then her mother called and said his daughter wanted to see us so we trekked down the road to go meet up with them. She gave us both a hug and I swear my heart melted right there in the 40 degree weather. We told her we’d be over to pick her up Friday night and we left. It was kind of obvious she liked me and that meant a lot to me, especially because her daddy had dated another gal a few years prior and she didn’t care for her and told him so. I was still scared though with the thought she’d told her mother, “I don’t want a step-mother, they’re mean.”
Later that week we drug my Christmas tree up out of the basement and decorated it too. What can I say I like Christmas decorations and decorated houses and I had a helper :). We started going through the ornaments carefully because I wasn’t sure what we would find. The last time I had it out, the year before, I’d been dating someone else and I couldn’t remember what was put away. We also went through the ornaments and decided which we liked and which we didn’t and referred to this tree as Our Tree.
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Every year my family goes to Ft. Worth. It usually falls either the first or second week, sometimes the third weekend of December depending on the show schedule of the Futurity. We wind up leaving first thing Friday morning and come back mid-morning Monday. It is a seven hour trip. I was nervous. This was scary, our first trip together, well other than Thanksgiving to my aunt & uncle’s house. This was different though, it was staying in a hotel room, being around each other 24/7 for 4 days different.
The Thursday night before we left I went to a PEO meeting. It was our yearly Christmas talent table and I invited his sister and his mother to go with me. Geez I was just doing all kinds of first all at once. I’ll admit, first time being around them when my back up (aka him) wasn’t with me. He stayed at his sisters house that night watching his nephew. After the meeting was over I took them back home, picked him up, we ran down the road to his mother’s house to get his clothes for the weekend and set off for my house.
It was starting to get late when we got there so I ran upstairs and jumped in the shower. When I got out he called me into the kitchen and said he’d left his wallet with his money at his mom’s house and he needed to run back there. Since his truck was already at his mom’s house he needed to borrow my car. I told him I would go with him but he could drive. I wasn’t in the mood to drive there and back at 11pm.
On the way back to my house he sprung a question on me that completely caught me off guard.
-I’m only going to ask you this once, but I need to know your feelings on the situation.
-Okay?
-I hate telling you but I want your opinion. While you were upstairs in the shower your mother called me into the living room. She had a box in her hand and told me that if I wanted it for you that I was more than welcome to it.
-Okay?
-She offered me your grandmother’s wedding ring.
There was silence on my part and I got goosebumps and started tearing up.
-I just wanted to know if you wanted your grandmother’s wedding ring which is absolutely gorgeous, or if you’d like me to go out and buy you one?
I was in shock. Sure we’d talked about if we got married, but it never was really “the” talk about marriage or getting close to it. It was more of a, well I’d like this or I’d like that. I’d do this different or maybe would try this.
-I would just like your opinion.
-I would love my grandmother’s ring. But I’m leaving that up to you. I don’t want to know which ring you use, I don’t want to know when it’s coming. I don’t want it on a major holiday. Those are my only specifications. Oh and I want you to ask my dad. Other than that I hate to say this but I don’t care.
-Okay. That answers my question.
-Are you sure?
-Absolutely. I just needed to know your feelings.
We rode the rest of the way back to my house holding hands in the silent presence of each other. When we got to the house I wrapped my blanket around me (to lazy to put on pants or a jacket and it was cold so I grabbed a blanket) and we ran inside and went straight to bed. We had a long and busy day ahead of us and I had to get up before normal time. Funny thing about me, I still hadn’t packed yet either.
The next morning I woke up at 6am, jumped out of bed and started fixing my hair and putting my make-up on. When PC came upstairs I asked him to help me pack and started telling him where I had everything that I wanted to take. At times he had difficulty finding stuff so I’d run around grab it and go back to straightening my hair. Once we were packed and ready to go we went down stairs and started gathering up our stuff as well as my parents and packing the HHR my mother rented for us to drive down there. Then we were off.
PC had never been to Ft. Worth so along with the horse show, I wanted to show him my favorite parts of the city. We of course spent a lot of time at Will Rogers Coliseum but we also ate at Uncle Julios, Dos Gringos, Macaroni Grill, Joe T. Garcias, we went to Old Ft. Worth and went into almost every shop, went to tour Billy Bob’s, Looked inside the Old Ft. Worth Coliseum, went to the western stores, you name it, we tried to do it. At Will Rogers on Saturday mornings they have what they call Million Dollar Alley (Stud horses with lifetime earnings of $1Million are on display and their owners try to bribe you into breeding your mares to their studs) and of course we ate breakfast there. Then Monday morning when we headed out We ate at Old South Pancake house.
He and I were inseparable during this trip. He even went to some stores with me that I figured he’d rather not. I swear this trip we became closer than we’d been. The more time we spent together, the more we didn’t want to be apart.
But as usual, Monday morning brings back driving back to Missouri and going back to the real world. We loaded the HHR back up and headed home.
To be continued……..