Proposal Story (Short Version)

July 24, 2010 -

4:30am -
Woke Maria up from sleep.
Me: “Wake up!”
Maria: “Why? What time is it?”
Me: “It’s 4:30am. We’re going to go climb a mountain today! It’s our last weekend to do this! Let’s go!”
Maria (whine-y): “Ehhhh, but I don’t want to climb a mountain”
Me: “Come on! It’ll be fun! Let’s go”
Somehow I was able to convince her to wake up and go. It was her day to sleep in (opps).

5:30am -
Left Vail to head toward Mt. Elbert trail head. Maria slept during the car ride.

6:50am -
Arrived at trail head. Parking lot packed full with cars.

7:15am -
After getting our gears together, off we go on our hike!

sometime after -
During the climb up, Maria was very crabby and teared up a few times because she really had no motivation to climb. Constant prayers to God to hold off the rain until after proposal, prayers for Maria to have energy, prayers for words to speak. Constant encouragement “You’re doing great babe!”

11:50am -
Arrived at summit. (According to the forecast, it was suppose to be T-Storm by now)
Maria is in tears again, she wish she had more energy to be excited. She feels like she should be excited and feel accomplished, but she just doesn’t have the energy for that. I comforted her a bit then told her I’ll go scout out a place for us to take some pictures. I saw a woman who was using her iPhone to take pictures. I approached her and told her my plan. I told her pretend to take photos of us, but in reality she would have it on video recording mode the whole time.

Sometime after 12:00pm -
Convinced Maria to come look around.
Me: “Maria, come look around, I’m sure you’ll be excited about all of this soon! The view is gonna be great! ”
Walked around a bit, then a “random” woman approached us.
Random woman: “You guys want your pictures taken?”
Me: “Sure. Do you know how to use an iPhone?”
Random woman: “Yea, I got one.”
I handed her Maria’s iPhone and we “posed” for a few pictures…
Me: “Maria, you should turn around and look out into the mountains and put your hands out, it’ll be a cool picture!”
So she did. After she turned around, I took the ring out of my pocket and called out her name.
Me: “Maria, do you trust me to lead you and would you allow me the privilege to care for you the rest of your life?”
Maria teared up, cried, more tears, finally she says yes.

We stayed at the summit and had lunch. An hour or so later, we started hiking down.

We got down the mountain at ~3pm. God was gracious to us and kept the rain and thunderstorm away throughout our hike.

I am engaged! I have a fiance! Wow!