Day 3 Highlights and the final Surprise

 

Sunday we went on a nice drive.  First we went to the beach at Bodega Bay.  At this beach the roadway sat up really high above the water and there was a cliff dropoff.  We had to walk down this really steep and slippery embankment to get down to the water.  When we got down the hill we took off our shoes and walked up the beach a ways.  There were tons of surfers in the water.  Scattered on the beach were seaweed flower remnants that had washed up on shore.  The video below is Aaron playing with one of them like a whip.  The sand was super soft and the water was freezing.

 There were these crazy little birds that were eating stuff in the sand that had been washed up by the surf.  It was so funny to watch them because they all would run away from the water each time that a wave came in.  And then as the water rushed back out they would frantically start pecking at the sand and chasing the water back out.  They just kept doing this over and over again.

 There were a bunch of dead jelly fish washed up on the shore as well.  They were about the size of a softball and looked like a breast inplant thing.  They looked weird and I did not know if it was ok to touch them so I just kept my distance.  This little guy still had his tentacles attached.  They weren't very long, so I am not sure what that means.  I have heard however that the bigger the jelly is that the less of a punch that it packs.

After our drive out to the shore we took all the back roads back to Napa.  It was so pretty driving through the country side.  We saw tons of apple orchards and pumpkin patches.  We stopped in hippie towns and had a lot of fun seeing the country.  After arriving back in Napa we met up with Jay again and went to the Miner, Folie a Duex, and Silverado wineries.  All very different wines and very different atmospheres.  Loved it.  Next I knew that Aaron had made dinner reservations for us somewhere, so we abandoned Jay and went to go have dinner. 

We parked in town next to this market that we had gone to the day before.  This market had a nice restaurant and so I was pretty excited to go there, when Aaron started walking in the opposite direction.  I had no idea where he was taking me but it didn't take long to figure out that we were walking towards the train station.  We were going on a dinner train ride up the valley.  I was sitting in the lobby waiting to board the train and listening to the guy give his spiel  about the history of the train.  He said that they just built this bridge outside on the way to the train platform and decided to do something called a "love lock" with the bridge.  Apparently this is a big thing in Europe.  What you do is you have a pad lock that symbolizes your love and you close the lock on the bridge and throw away the keys.  This way your love is locked forever.  So I immediately jumped up and went back into the gift shop to buy one of these silly locks.  Aaron engraved it with our names and the date. 

  We locked the lock on the bridge and then headed out to our fun train ride. The dinner was amazing.  We started out with a meat, fruit and cheese plate.  Then we had a salad with walnuts and goat cheese and other goodies.  Next came the Italian ice stuff to "cleanse the palate".  For our entree Aaron got the lamb (gross) and I got the yellow tail something or other.  Aaron claims that his was delicious, but eating a baby I am not really sure how that is possible and mine was melt in your mouth good.  The fish was such the perfect choice.

 After dinner this man walked by us on his way to the dessert car.  As he was walking he knocked over a class at the table across from ours.  It was really hard to walk in a straight line on the train.  Aaron got up and set up the glass.  I thought that he was going to come over and sit with me so I started clearing off the chair next to me.  Instead he moves the chair out of the way, starts pulling something out of his pocket and gets down on one knee.  This all happened so quickly and I started crying.  I knew what was coming.  Aaron grabbed my right hand and started to say "Kara Jones will..." and I interrupted him and told him that he had the wrong hand.  He grabbed the other hand and said " Kara Jones will you marry me?"  I was crying so hard at this point that I was not even able to answer him I just grabbed him and hugged him and shook my head yes into his shirt.  He said I take that as a yes and I pulled away from him and told him that yes I would marry him.  I was laughing an crying.  By this time more people are walking by us on the train and they realize as Aaron is sitting halfway out in the aisle that he just proposed to me.  And they are all ooohhing and ahhhhing.  It was so funny.  About this time our waitress comes back and she asks if she just missed something.  Aaron told her what happened and she started crying.  She was so sweet and came over to give me a hug.  It was a really nice romantic moment and setting for the two of us.  I am so happy that I am going to be Mrs. Brown.  I could not have made a better choice in a lifelong partner.

 

We have been talking for the past year on what we want to do for a wedding. We met on a camping trip where we 4wheeled to the top of Mt. Bross.  This is a 14er in the central part of Colorado.  We thought that it might be fun to take the whole family and whoever else can make it and drive to the top of Mt. Bross get married come back down and do a big reception and party in Alma.  So the tentative plan, hopefully it is feasible, is to do this in August of next year.  I want to just thank everyone who knew about this and kept it a secret for so long.  It took a lot of planning on Aaron's part and I was completely surprised and excited when I found out what he has been up to these past few months.  I love him so much and am so grateful to have such a wonderful loving man in my life.

Take care everyone.

Love, Kara