We're Engaged!

My new fiancee (sheesh - I hate that word - I think I'll stick with live-in-lover) took the liberties of typing out a full description of our engagement, so I've decided to be lazy and simply cut and paste:

Just want to let you know that Half Pint and I got engaged on Friday.
: )
Here's the story..
I told Half Pint that I'd been invited to sit in on one of the days of an offsite meeting for a group I'm interested in working for at my company on Friday -- and that the meeting was being held in Wilmington, DE.
Then -- so that she'd meet me in Wilmington and also ask the partner she works for if she could leave work early that day -- I told Half Pint that my friend, Nils, was going to be called out onto the field at the first preseason game of the Baltimore Ravens to present a check for a donation that Merrill Lynch was making to the United Way.
(She bought the first part.. but didn't really buy the second part.)
(Also, I'd packed a bag for the weekend -- telling Half Pint that after the Ravens game, she and I were going to spend the weekend at the house of the parents of Nils' wife, Harriett, in Annapolis.)
I'd already Half Pint's boss about her being able to leave early on Friday -- because, until Tuesday, there was a good chance that she might have needed to be in Tennessee on Friday for a closing.
But Half Pint was able to stay in New York after all -- and the boss said she could leave early on Friday (which Half Pint thought was suspicious).
I went down to Wilmington first thing on Friday and "got things ready" -- and, when Half Pint got to Wilmington around 4 p.m., she got picked up at the train station by a car that was supposed to "take her to the conference center where my meeting was being held" -- so that we could rent a car down the street and make our way to meet Nils and Harriett for dinner before the Ravens game.
The car picked Half Pint up and took her -- not to a conference center -- but to the Nemours Mansion and Gardens.
It's a really beautiful place -- which is actually closed through the end of this year while a preservation team works on the Mansion -- and the Director of Nemours let me use the Gardens for the proposing -- so it was great, Half Pint and I were the only ones on the 300 acre property..
A car met Half Pint's car at the gate and led it into the property.
They stopped at a pre-determined point and Half Pint was told to walk down a certain path on the grounds.
I'd put a card at the front of the path that told her to follow the trail of roses I'd laid along the path.. and she was led to the center of the property -- where there was another card telling her to look all around, so that she could take everything in, and then come around the pond and find me. Here are some of the views (Nemours has what's considered the premier French formal garden in the US):
http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/vtours/mansion/mg2178.html
http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/vtours/mansion/mg2166.html
http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/vtours/mansion/mg2169.html
http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/vtours/mansion/mg2171.html
http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/vtours/mansion/mg2167.html
And then Half Pint walked through http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/vtours/mansion/mg2172.html and met me on a bridge over the pond (there's a photo of the bridge and the pond that come up as one of the pictures here: http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/mansion/index2.html).
Then she and I walked to http://www.nemours.org/internet?url=no/vtours/mansion/mg2173.html where I proposed.. and she said yes.
We had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries and sat.. and walked around.. and called our immediate families.
And then we went to the Philadelphia airport -- where Half Pint's best friend, Mary, met us for a little bit -- and then Half Pint and I flew down to Miami for the weekend to decompress at the Standard Miami http://www.standardhotel.com/ -- which is really great -- and hang-out at the pool and do a couple of spa things, etc.
And now we're back at home in New York.
Just want to let you know..
: )
Talk to you soon, Manly