She's Got a Ring!

Thanksgiving has come and gone. It has been a good one and I've enjoyed the break; now the Christmas decorations are up. Nate and I have chopped the leaves and what we didn't get the wind has blown away. The soybeans have been cut and the wheat has sprouted. It feels like we are officially on final approach to the end of the year.

The big news around here is that Nolan has popped the question! And Jenna said yes! We had celebrated our Thanksgiving on Wednesday since Nolan's grandparents are in and his family planned to have their dinner on Thursday. He had spent the night here Wednesday so he and Jenna took a walk on the farm before they left. Jackie, your farm, close to the TVA tower, was actually the scene of the proposal. I told Nolan it was very fitting for an aspiring electrician to propose marriage under a set of high voltage power lines.

Jenna was completely blindsided. This is hard to pull off because she hears everything and picks up on the subtlest of clues. She certainly knew the proposal was coming because they have been talking about it for a while now and had even discussed ring shopping. She had no idea that Nolan had met with us on Halloween and asked our blessing before proposing and that we had given him Mom's engagement ring then. Mom met Nolan a few times and liked him—though she said he looks "so young"—so Vicki and I felt like this would be a fitting way to bless them both and pass that heirloom on to Jenna. Mom's ring is too large for Jenna so they plan to have the diamond set in a new setting. Even so, when Vicki took the ring to the jeweler for cleaning he had high praise for the stone Dad picked out for Mom some 60 years ago.

Vicki's secret keeping was put to the test last weekend as she and Jenna traveled to West Virginia for the wedding of Jenna's best friend from high school, Maegan They had about 13 hours in the car together for Vicki to avoid that subject. They had a fun trip and said Maegan's wedding was beautiful.

So here we are on the backend of Thanksgiving. My daughter is engaged to a young man we think very highly of. No date has been set, but we are thinking the wedding will be after school starts next fall. I'll pass along the details as they are ironed out. Hopefully the pandemic craziness will have settled down long before then.

Joe