Three years, three months, and three days.

Kleo is deathly afraid of swimming, but she loves splashing around in shallow creeks and muddy, stagnant waters. She’s been pretty slow-moving for the last few years, but there’s something about a good mosquito breeding ground that really gets her fired up.

After a particularly lethargic month for Kleo (she turned 12 this year), Ross suggested that we take her to her favorite splash pad in Belle Meade, a shallow rockbed creek requiring zero swimming skills, and, bonus, very few mosquitoes.

Arthritis: a visual diary

We started at Parmer Park and walked our normal path around the grassy field, stopping off at the wooden bench swing that backs up to fancy yard overlooking the entire park. The swing is set up in a prime location for people watching, so naturally, we hung around making up stories about the neighbors until the sun started to set.

Ross and I used to spend evenings walking Kleo in this neighborhood when he lived across the street, so we have a lot of fond memories tied to this spot. On lucky nights, we’d get to see the two horses that occasionally make an appearance on the Belle Meade Mansion property, and Kleo and I would gawk at them from the fence line.

There’s a secret-ish path through the neighborhood that leads to the backside of the mansion, so we snuck through the bushes, avoided a wedding in action, and stopped for a couple of pictures in the garden.

Kleo immediately recognized where we were when we reached the front of the property. Richland Creek did not disappoint.

By the time Kleo was making her third bounding path through the creek and the last bit of sun was sneaking through the trees, Ross grabbed my hands and reminded me that this was the first place that he told me he loved me.

And three years, three months, and three days later, Ross asked me to be his wife.

As we were making our way back to the car, we found the horses out in the field waiting to be tormented by our incessant clucks and desperate offerings of dead grass from the other side of the fence.

It was a perfect day, and we couldn’t be happier.

We’ve officially been engaged for 43 days. For the time being, we’ve agreed to enjoy these next several months of travel, and then we’ll figure out the rest.

<3