Never too late to talk about the break...

Since it is the first official day back at work after the break, it is definitely not too late to discuss.

It was actually a pretty eventful break for the Sweet family - my sister moved into the city and had my parents help her midget apt. look like a real home. Also, and slightly bigger news, my brother brother got engaged! First one in the family. Who would've thought that Andrew would be the first one!? (Yes, of course my brother's name is also Andrew because you either have to be an Andrew or a Matt to know us, it is just a rule).

The engagement story... so my brother decided to drive me and my sister home for break, which was very sweet of him. He drove the four hours from Ithaca NY to the city and got us. After I realized my brother lacks the male car-packing gene and my sister had three nice Hoboken-ers push her car out of the snow, we were off to go to Pennsylvania. No, I am not from Pennsylvania, but my brother wanted to take the slight 3 hour detour to spend a night at his girlfriend's parents house. Emily and I did not quite understand why a 3-hour detour was necessary but whatevs, we went with it. We had a nice dinner with Andrew's girlfriend, Laurie's family and drove 9 hours home to Indiana the next day. Now sometime in the some odd 14 hours the three Sweet children were alone in a car together, it MAY have come up that Andrew was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Especially after the three-hour Pennsylvania detour was taken SPECIFICALLY to ask his girlfriend's father for her hand in marriage. But no, that would be too easy to explain.

Andrew did, however, manage to ask me to slow down from 75 MPH to something more inside the speed limit so he could smoke... not cigarettes.

Not ONCE did the subject of marriage come up.

So we get home to greet my parents who were enjoying their first day of having power after 5 days of outages. My brother asks my parents to meet him upstairs and that is when my sister and I got suspicious. What secret meeting could the be having... well Andrew was discusssing whether there was a family heirloom ring he could use or whether to buy one. My mom gave him one he could use if he didn't find something better while shopping the next day.

Clearly my dad was over the ring conversation when he comes down and says to me and Emily, "Well, have you heard about this ring business?"

So THAT is how we found out.

The next day the whole family (minus me because everyone forgot to tell me of course) goes to a jeweler by our house and my brother buys a gourgeous sapphire ring with pave diamonds all around it (actual ring above).

Then two days later back in Ithaca he proposes, and she says yes! Congrats Andrew and Laurie!

My only question is, does she jump on mom and dad's bed with us on Christmas morning now too?