The Proposal

APPOLOGIES:
I must take a quick second to say sorry to anyone out there that reads my blog and has suffered through my terrible spelling/grammer and other mistakes.
I dont have a ton of time to blog, so when I do I generally do a few posts at a time and have them scheduled to post in the upcoming weeks. By the time I get to 3+ posts I am burned out and I never check my spelling or reread anything. Ive skimmed over the last few posts and its embarrassing. So, I do appologize, and I promise I am not as dumb as I sound.
Onward!

Right now, we are a month out from the wedding! I am getting so excited, and have kept extremely busy planning the last couple of months.
But lets first start with the proposal!
If you dont know Russ, and if you havent gathered from reading my blog, Russ LOVES the outdoors. He's been a ski instructor, river guide, worked with troubled kids in survival camp in the middle of nowhere, and the guy hikes a ton!
On July 24th, we had been up to Heber helping my parents move a few things in my uncles home. My uncle passed away last year and they were getting ready to rent his place. Russ asked if we could do a quick hike while we were up there.
It was SO hot. And we had been moving things in a very hot house and I just wasnt in the mood, but said I would go.
Moving took longer then we thought and I inherited an AWESOME old fridge and had to go back down to the valley to take it home. What I didnt know, is Russ was planning on proposing to me up in the mountains! I had NO idea.
So we totally ruined his plans by me getting this fridge and having to go back down to the valley to get it from my brother in law who offered to take it down in his trailer.
We got back to my house and unloaded it and I could tell her really wanted to go for a hike still. I was hot, I was tired but he was pretty adamant and he had been so nice to help my family so I gave in.
Since we had been moving, and I had known he wanted to hike I was wearing the ugliest outfit. Ugh...why does that always happen? I was wearing shorts that were 4 sizes too big, my hair was in pigtails (I never wear my hair in pigtails), and I knew it was going to be a hot one, so last minute I grabbed Eckos leopard print bandana to use on my head. Regrets.
So on the way up, I fell into a coma from being hot all day and driving in a truck without AC.
In this picture, we had just gotten to the trail head and I had just woken up.
But I love it because you can see I am not wearing a ring!

We started the hike and I started waking up a little, and tried to change my attitude about being there so Russ could have fun, plus once we got up into the mountains it was cooler then the valley.



Russ and I had talked about getting married and even had gone ring shopping the week before. BUT, I didnt know for sure what I wanted. I had picked out a band but didnt know what shape of diamond I wanted and we only had about a half an hr to look. The whole next week after we had looked we had something every night. So half way up the hike Russ started telling me how he was looking up honeymoons. I told him I thought it was sweet, but dont you think we should start with a ring?
He said the ring shop was closed on Monday due to the Pioneer holiday and we could go on Tuesday. He started asking me what shape of diamond I wanted etc.
We continued our hike with intentions of making it to the top of the mountain to a lake. After about an hr of hiking we ran into snow!The end of July and trail was completely covered in snow. Russ, unbeknown to be, was planning on proposing at the lake. He already had planned to propose up in Heber, and that plan got ruined, so when his plan B wasnt working out either I could tell he really wanted to just hike in the snow.

We started to hike in the snow, and it was steep, slippery and cold!
I could hear water running under us at certain points, and just felt it wasnt safe.
I told him I thought we should turn around and I didnt really want to be playing in the snow in July!



We started to head down the mountain and decided to just call it day and hike straight to the car. Russ told me he needed to go to the bathroom, so he ran down the side of the mountain out of sight.
After a few minutes he came running back up and I noticed he didnt have his backback on. I told him he forgot his backpack and he said there was a beautiful waterfall down the mountain a ways and he wanted me to come see it.
So we started down the steep mountain side and we came across a grove of trees.
Attached to the trees were blown up pictures of the 2 of us.
Russ is a VERY thoughtful person and will suprise me with something (flowers at my house when I come home from work, notes left for me to find them etc).
He told me he wanted to do something sweet for me since he had been dragging his feet in getting me a ring and didnt want me to lose my patience with him. So at this point I just thought he was being sweet and still didnt have a clue he was proposing.
He had picked a bouquet of wild flowers and tied a ribbon around them. He handed them to me and grabbed my hand to walk me over to the trees.
We went through each picture and he told me these were just some of his favorite memories of us and the fun times we had. There was a picture of us from Thailand, a picture of us camping with Ecko, one from our most recent roadtrip and a few others.
Then there was a big blank white piece of paper. He said he left it blank so we could take a picture of the 2 of us on the hike to add to our collection.
He set up the camera on a timer (which we always do) and had me go stand with the waterfall to my back.
He took a picture and hurry and ran over!
He went back to the camera and said it wasnt a good one, lets do one more.
So he set it up, ran over again and...

I could NOT believe what was happening!!
He totally and completely shocked the heck out of me! He said the sweetest things in the world, and asked me to marry him :)
I love how thoughtful he was and how we have an actual picture of him proposing to me!
My ring, I love it! I wanted the petite band and he surprised me with the diamond.

I wish I had a better picture of all the trees with the hanging pictures, but here is the blank one he hung for the engagement picture, and you can see some of the others in the background.

I know this is a major no no, but right after we got engaged Russ carved our intials into the tree :)



I honestly feel so incredibly lucky to have found a guy like Russ.
He is one of the most positive, genuine, thoughtful, and FUNNEST guy I know.
Can not wait to be married to him.