Ring, ring!

If the cliche wasn't so true, I wouldn't use it but where has the time gone? Nate is now ring shopping!

Nate and Lu in El Salvador

If your heart skipped a beat, and you're like "Wha?????"settle down there! If you imagined our OS searching for a shiny bauble for a Salvadorena beauty, I'm sorry to disappoint you. We're not there yet.

Nate is ring shopping for himself and deciding about the type of ring he wants as a 2012 graduate of the United States Military Academy.


During an impromptu visit home (which aside from Ike's flu, made it the best MLK weekend I've ever had!) Nate showed us the brochure featuring his ring options. What a huge accomplishment for our OS to be on the other side of the 48 month experience known as West Point. I sat beside him on Sunday pondering that the eager, determined teenager who entered West Point on that most notable day is now a competent, strong leader and man.

R-Day - June 2008, my boy walked by us in the parade and oh how I wanted to run and grab him take him away from all these people yelling!  Nate had made his mind up, he was going to West Point and I couldn't stand in the way. 

I like this figurative place as a WP mom.  You see, I'm strategically positioned to be content about all that he has done while not giving too much worry to what he's going to do AFTER graduation. I can celebrate the cool stuff like my OS getting a ring and block out the "other things" like when and where he will be deployed. Not.going.there.


Let's just concentrate on jewelry, shall we?

What makes a West Point ring especially significant is the symbolism literally melted in the ring. Following the death of a West Point grad, some families, upon the bequest of the departed grad or simply to pass on tradition, donate the ring back to West Point. It's called the Ring Memorial Program. The ring is then melted and the shavings are used to help create a new ring. When West Point grads receives their ring, they have a part of the men and women of the Long Gray Line with them.

Another impressive point about a West Point ring is that each class has a slogan. During Beast, the new cadets, not yet lowly plebes of the class of 2012, all selected a class slogan and a drawing which best represented their collective spirit. This is the slogan for the class of 2012. When we heard about the slogan they picked, knowing Nate, it sounded so fitting for our OS. We just loved it.

The design of the 2012 crest features two swords symbolizing the graduates going from a cadet to an officer. I will stuff my purse with Kleenex as I see this ring on my boy's finger. Partially because it will be no small feat to get a ring over his  gi-normous knuckle and also because I will be bursting with pride.

March back from Buckner where Beast was held - a momentous event!

Next year, the Hubs and I will attend the Ring Weekend. Nate will be on the receiving end of Ring Poop which thankfully has nothing to do with #2! I will buy an expensive new dress and possibly several new outfits for the event. The Hubs and I are attending Financial Peace University so I guess I'll need to start saving up right now because this girl is gonna bring it! ;)


I won't be wearing anything like this.

Personally I like matching shoes

But perhaps something like this? Hmmm...

This might be a little over the top but then again, maybe not!

As the mama of three sons, it's rare for me to talk bling in this household so I'm going to cherish this moment and not hurry to the next!