Engagement Story

Okay, okay. My chronological mind is twitching right now because I'm going to be posting this out of sequence, but here is the engagement story:

So we had a great time in Colorado, and I have a couple of more posts to come, but right off the bat I have to tell you all that Dirk and I are getting married! On May 29, 2004, Dirk and I hung out for the first time and he told me he was going to marry me. And then a couple of months later when we were doing the whole look-through-each-other's-old-photo-albums thing, he told me he had always wanted to propose to his future wife at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Well, wouldn't you know it? Phish posted tour dates in Colorado and the rest is history.

We spent a couple of days with family and friends in Fort Collins (blog entry to follow), then drove into RMNP. It was super foggy/cloudy and Dirk was all upset about it. I kept on saying, "Don't worry! It'll clear up! It's not that big of a deal, and I couldn't understand why he was freaking out about a little fog. I mean, he was practically sweating and was cussing and swearing and so upset. Total PMS over a little fog.

Then we turned a bend in the road and the sun was shining down and it was just absolutely gorgeous! We spent all morning driving through the park, stopping for photos (blog entry to follow.) Then the dogs started crying and we decided to pull over to play fetch for a little bit.

We stopped at this wildflower meadow on the banks of the Colorado River.

We scrambled down the banks to the river (SO cold!) and I handed Dirk my camera 'cause I had to use the latrine in true Iowa farm girl fashion.

So then we headed back up to the meadow, I retrieved my camera and got this self-portrait of us on a downed aspen log. This is when Dirk asked me if I looked through the photos he took with my camera while I was off going to the bathroom. "Did you take a picture of me peeing?!" I asked. But no, I started scrolling through the images and they were blurry pictures of him holding a ring (curse the Nikon SLR that cannot be used by anyone other than me!) I freaked out.

Then he grabbed me, told me he loved me more than anything and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. And I asked him if he was asking me a question, and he took out the ring and asked me to marry him. Yup. Pretty romantic. He's had the ring since March and have I mentioned how horrible he is at keeping secrets?! He's the guy that will tell me what he got me for my birthday even if he gets it for me a month before my actual birthday. And the ring is perfect. An art deco piece from the 20's...big diamond flanked by sapphires (my birthstone) in a platinum setting. It's completely one of a kind and so very "me."

So, yeah. We're planning on a fun mountain wedding in August 2010, no specific date just yet :)