For those of you that don't keep up with the news, or are not astronomical nerds like me, tonight was a ridiculously rare event. Tonight is Winter Solstice, a full moon, AND a total lunar eclipse. The last time this happened was in 1638, 372 years ago.

Here in Arizona, there's an Italian restaurant that Future Husband's been wanting to take me to, called Baci. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but seems to be doing well, which tells me they probably have a seriously loyal customer base. For dinner tonight, FH took me out for dinner to celebrate the Solstice. We started the night with an amazing Antipasto Salad. It was like Caprese Salad, but on delicious, meaty steroids. We chose soup over salad; I had Meatball and Orzo, he had Tortellini. For dinner, he had Shrimp and Scallops Florentine, and I had Chicken and Artichoke Limone. And desert? We split a Cannoli, of course. It was an amazing (and painfully filling) meal. And even though I've lived in a van with him for seven of the last ten months (and we literally cannot escape each others company), I still enjoy alone time with Future Husband. Especially date nights. It's one of the traits of my secretly girly side.

We drove home for a little pit stop until it was time to go out to see the eclpise. We chose to go to one of the county parks far away from everything, even the suburbs, so it was nice and dark. After getting a little turned around, we found the park and pulled Future Mother-in-Law's truck onto a little dirt road. We spread out sleeping bags in the back of the truck, and got to moon watching. Or trying to, anyway. Thick cloud cover had rolled in a few hours earlier, though. So we cuddled up under the sleeping bags (on the chilly, 55 degree Arizona night), and eavesdropped on the two other groups out in the park with us. We heard what sounded like a group of four teenagers talking about the Zombie Apocalypse. It was sooo tempting to sneak over to try and scare them, but we didn't. With my luck, I would've stumbled across a snake or scorpion, anyway.

As the time for the total eclipse neared, we realized we weren't going to be able to see anything because of the cloud cover. (Honestly, we spent a good deal of the time kissing anyway, so we wouldn't have seen much.) During one of our snuggly moments, Future Husband turned his face towards mine, and did that uber romantic, so-hard-to-not-get-fluttery-feelings thing where he puts his palm on my cheek and his fingers in my hair. You know, that super cinematic, really whimsical move to pull my lips to his. He kissed me eagerly, and when he pulled away, told me he loved me. He dug his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a ring.

So even though we're 'Facebook Official', and we're already knee deep in wedding plans, we didn't have a ring yet. We'd meant to get one earlier, but we hadn't run across one we liked, and practical things like not being in the country or not having a paycheck had postponed its purchase.

I smiled, and slipped it on, and Future Husband kissed me again. I held my hand up to look at my ring and saw this;


So I'll post a picture of it soon, once I have some light and Future Husband isn't kissing my neck, wanting to drag me away from my laptop. ;-D