THE PROPOSAL.

(disclaimer: this may not sound very cute or romantic or original or anything, BUT it was absolutely PERFECT! I would not have wanted it ANY other way! It was totally cute and romantic and original and exactly what I wanted!)

Saturday April 14, 2012.

I had gone down to Salt Lake for the weekend to see Nate. We had no big plans, went to dinner Friday night at our usual sushi place. During the course of the evening Nate's boss sent him a text about a bbq he was throwing for all the overhead guys and their significant others Sunday afternoon. This text started the ball rolling.
(background: due to my stubbornness we are getting married at the tail end of fire season. Taking time off during fire season is a BIG no-no. And because of this Nate got quite a lashing for requesting 5 days off for the wedding and long story short his boss was not happy with him.)
I start getting nervous, not only does his boss not like me for the fact that its my fault he's taking a few days off, but in my head I'm scrambling because technically I don't even have my ring yet! I thought that might just add fuel to the fire and give his boss even more reason to not like me if he thought we weren't even engaged yet!
I tell Nate we've got to go find a fake engagement ring RIGHT NOW! It's about 8:30pm and the only places we can think to look are Target, Wal Mart, and K Mart. Well Target was a big fat no. They didnt even have any fake rings. Wal Mart only had CTR rings. Finally at K Mart we found one that could pass if it had to. I got a call from Kelli about then and she told me to check out Kohls. She met us there and found the most real looking rings she could. Even better they were on sale! So Nate bought me a fake little band for $5.33. I wore that thing for the next 17 hours.
Fast forward to Saturday morning. Nate had a hiking trip with his crew he had to go on. He said they'd be gone about 11-12 and after that he'd meet up with Kelli and I. We took our time getting ready and by the time we were it was already 12:30pm. Nate was annoyed we hadn't left yet as he said he really just wanted to see me! Kelli had tickets to a What Women Want show at the expo center. She had an extra ticket and through a bunch of texts and phone calls I guilted Nate into meeting us there (and I just have to add that in the auditorium next door there was a gun show happening...poor Nate!:) It was lamer than we all imagined and we werent there long.
After we left we decided to get some Costa Vida for lunch. During lunch it started POURING. I mean there were buckets of rain coming down! Little did I know how this would play into our afternoon. During lunch Kelli got a text from her uncle, a photographer, that he needed her help with a project, so off she headed.
Nate decided we should take a drive up the canyon and after discovering that I'd never even seen Snowbird or Alta, we were off.
We drove all the way up the canyon to the very end of the road, it was snowing pretty bad and all I had on was my black glitter flats. Nate had mentioned wanting to get out and walk around but no way was that gonna happen, plus I was starting to feel carsick. So we headed back down the mountain.
On the way down Nate mentioned again wanting to stop at one of the pull outs (ha ha) and walking a trail of something. We drove down out of the snow and passed a couple spots but Nate kept on going. Finally, as he was about to drive right passed another I said "didn't you want to stop?" Nate slammed on his breaks and pulled into the end of the dirt parking lot. Then it started to smell like burning sooooo so so so bad! I thought his truck was on fire. It was so bad and just stunk! Nate said it was just the brakes. So he popped the hood and got out to check it out. He dinked around under the hood for a minute and then came over to my side of the truck and opened the door. He kissed me and said the truck was fine and before I knew it he was down on one knee!
I believe I said something along the lines of "you don't even have my ring yet."
And then he pulled this beautiful, HUGE, ring...MY ring out of his pocket and held it up to me.
He had tears in his eyes and was crying before he even said a word. But it was something to the affect of "Lindsey, you're the most perfect girl for me, will you marry me?"
Of course by this time my eyes were watering too and I just leaned over and gave him the biggest hug and said of course I would marry him! We sat there hugging and crying for a good minute or two before I realized he was still kneeling in the mud and of course it was still raining on us!
It was by far the sweetest thing I have ever experienced. Nate knows me so well and knew that is exactly how I would have wanted it to happen.
I told him long before that my only two requests for proposal were: nothing fancy, just he and I alone somewhere. And to try to surprise me since I basically thought I knew when I would be getting my ring since I was there for all of it.
Well, he did a GREAT job and I am the happiest girl in the world!
186 days!!

Turns out there was never a hiking trip he had to go on! He just had to go pick up my ring :)