Thursday, June 2, 2011

An Engagement Story

There are a TON of pictures in this post, but I didn't want to leave out any!

Wednesday morning Tom and I woke up to enjoy our second full day in the mountains. It was another beautiful day and we had planned a long hike a little bit closer to our condo. Tuesday's hike was pretty dominated by snow so we were hoping it would be a different situation. We enjoyed breakfast and Tom suggested I play with my camera again to try and get the continuous shots timer setting down. We climbed up into the loft and took a few pictures.

The timer worked but the multiple photo setting did not. Tom seemed bummed which was unusual given his usual interest in my photo taking. I didn't think much of it. Tom packed lunches while I insisted on a shower before hiking. I said quote "I don't want to look like this if we are going to be taking pictures!" I had NO idea.

We drove a short ten minutes to a trailhead which was tucked back in golf course neighborhood. Signs everywhere stated "No Parking" so we drove around for a bit trying to determine where they expected hikers to park. We finally found a spot that seemed reasonable and headed for the trail. We didn't have a trail map and were uncertain of the directions since most people hiking this trail were coming from the west. We decided to try and approach from the east to try and knock off six miles and still see the "pristine alpine lakes". HA.
After hiking for an hour and fifteen minutes we came upon this beautiful spot. We were unsure if we were still on the correct trail and we had already had to reroute once. Tom remarked on the beauty of the location and I agreed. He was acting especially awe inspired throwing out words like, "perfect" and "beautiful". I agreed. It was. I did not at all wonder why he seemed so into confirming my enthusiasm for this particular spot.
Then, Tom encouraged me ONE MORE TIME to try and get the multiple photos timer setting on my camera to work. At this point I even said, "Tom, I have tried and it is not going to work". As I worked on setting the timer Tom stood with the backpack in a very unusual spot. At that time I was totally unaware, but he had slipped the ring into his pocket and was holding his backpack to block the bulge of the box. Check out the pictures... I find them humorous.


He finally drops the backpack and stands. If you click on the picture and look closely you can see the box. Also, please note the headband in the previous photo but not in the next photo. That morning when Tom put on his headband I said, "Oh, you are wearing THAT today?!" He knew I didn't love it so he took it off AND asked how his hair looked before proceeding with the proposal!
I set the timer and ran over to capture a picture.
AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW... It kept taking them.
and kept taking them!
and kept taking them! Tom was ecstatic.
He encouraged me to set the timer again for a second set of photos. As if we hadn't made enough of a fool of ourselves during the first set, lets do this again! Just an FYI, I took out some of the photos, so this isn't even the full set! I didn't really get it but I went ahead and set the timer to try and take some more. When I walked back over he got down on his knee and said, "Katherine Mary Rau, Will you marry me?"
You can see my shock in this photo!!
When I asked him later what I said he said I managed to get a shocked "Yes!" out.
And then he put the ring on!
And in this photo all I was doing was saying thank you! over and over again. He literally told me to stop saying thank you and just say "I love you". To which I said, "I love you too!" Ha.
I knew the camera was still snapping pictures so I took a look at the ring!
And we were both pretty excited!!!
And the ring was perfect. It fits absolutely perfectly and is exactly what I would have chosen myself. I caught myself staring at it the whole rest of the day.
It has just the perfect sparkle. I love it.
However... that is probably the best photo you are getting on here. Gotta see it in person :)
So I snapped a few photos at the engagement spot.
Tom immediately announced he was hungry.
And we enjoyed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We continued to hike for about five more hours! I didn't call or text anyone. We just hiked through the mountains and enjoyed the beautiful day. We took tons of pictures. When we walked back the direction we came from we found the original trail we were supposed to take. Tom was happy he proposed where he did and didn't wait for the lakes we never got to see! Below are pictures from the rest of our hike.






Here's another go at the self timer. I can tell you this. I do not have enough expressions to fill 9 shots in a row at the same exact spot. I was getting desperate!
I love this picture. I am so excited and Tom is looking like
"What have I gotten myself into?"




That was our turn around point. We had been on the trail for four hours and were 3.5 miles from the lakes. Boo! We enjoyed a clif bar and some photos before heading back down.
At this point the concern started to be whether or not our car would be there when we arrived!

As we hiked back down I asked Tom questions about the whole process. I asked him who knew and when he had gotten the ring. He told people at his work, his friends, his sisters, his mom, and my parents. So everyone he knows! He got the ring the day before we left but had ordered it a month and a half ago! He asked my parents the day before we left. Such a sneaky guy. As we hiked through the aspens at the end of the trail we saw the car in the distance and celebrated not ending the hike with a cab ride to the tow lot!


As we drove home from the hike we called our parents on speaker phone and talked to them. That was fun! We then text our family and friends and enjoyed sharing the responses. When we got home we were exhausted. We decided we needed to sit in the hot tub for a bit.
And then to culminate the day in the most stylish way possible we cooked up some DiGiorno and breadsticks and opened a bottle of vino.
We toasted to each other.

And then played some Chinese Checkers and watched the Stanley Cup Finals.
And when I asked Tom when he thought we would get married his response was, "Let's just enjoy this, Rau". So we are. Just enjoying our engagement moon for the next few days!

1 comment:

rachel blazer said...

katie, this is a perfect story! congratulations!!