From Rowe's Wharf, we walked to the Common via Downtown Crossing, and strolled from the Park Street end to the other, cutting through the emptied Frog Pond in the process.

We walked through the Public Garden, and took a ride on a swan boat. Now, since kirinqueen had never ridden the swan boats before, hober had to take her to Shreve, Crump & Low to buy her one of their swan boat pins:

So when the salesman asked hober if he wanted to buy it, and he said yes, kirinqueen was caught by surprise. The salesman needed some time to run a credit check, so we were asked to come back in 15 minutes. Both of us had a little adrenaline flowing at that point. hober could have really used a drink, but the bar down the street wasn't open yet, it being only 11:30 in the morning. So we went to the Arlington Street Starbucks for an iced tea. Then we sat on a bench overlooking the Public Garden lagoon and he calmed down a bit.

For tax reasons, we had the ring shipped to San Diego, so any official proposal had to wait until Friday, but presumably kirinqueen would have stopped hober from forking over the credit card if there were any possibility of a negative answer.

The three of us took the 77 bus to Arlington to have lunch at Blue Ribbon BBQ. On the way to the bus hober told his aunt about what had just transpired, so she was the first to find out. During the bus ride and an excellent lunch, she shared a few more embarassing stories from hober's childhood with kirinqueen.

After lunch we headed up the hill to the nursing home in which hober's grandmother lives, and broke the news to her. She nodded and said, "that's nice." I suppose that when you're 92 there's very little in life that can surprise you.

We visited with her for about an hour, then headed back in town to try to buy duck tour tickets at the Prudential Center. Alas, they were sold out. To kill time before heading to The Burren for dinner with Perkins, we meandered around the mall and sat in its new South Garden. After dinner we ran into this dude hober went to high school with, Grenham, whom he hadn't seen in several bajillion years or so.

After getting something to drink and socializing for a bit at the Someday Cafe, we were back on the train to Braintree, where hober's dad picked us up. We waited until we got back to the house to share our news with his parents and sister.

hober's parents were happily surprised with the news and, after some consultation in the other room, they decided to give kirinqueen the sapphire which hober's father had given his mother when he was born. Yay! Then we celebrated by finishing off all the Bailey's in the house.

And there you have it. Un-thumbnailed, unedited photos here. Yay!

— kirinqueen and hober