Little Baby Pigeon: Engagement Day!!

Rory's Mamas are going to get married...

I made her a ring made of wood.

I brought her to the top of my favorite mountain.

I asked her to marry me. She said "yes, of course".

What a beautiful hiking day!!

That's the ideal short version anyway...all the little things that didn't quite go as planned only made the day more amusing and more like our real lives...not quite perfect, but always wonderful and full of happiness and laughter.

First, she didn't want to do the hike I wanted. It took several tries before I could convince her that there were reasons that I really wanted to do Tumbledown. She finally gave in last minute. Not that another hike wouldn't have been wonderful too, but I've always had this one in mind since I started thinking about my plan. Of course, after all the effort I put into making sure it was this mountain that we were at, we got to the top and there were quite honestly probably 50 people up there. So much for a nice private moment. I was counting on some people up there, but never expected this kind of crowd. So we chose a spot a little away from the crowd to sit and eat, and just as I was thinking it would be a good time to ask the question, a group of about 5 very conservative and very talkative people came and sat down about 2 feet from us and talked nonstop from the point they sat down until the time they left. Had I known they were ever going to leave, I would have waited, but thinking I was stuck with them in the background of my perfect moment, I went ahead and asked her anyway, despite the background chatter. I wanted to capture the moment, but since self timer won't take several photos in a row on my camera, I decided to just put it on video and pull still images from it later. In this first picture, you can see Bev is still looking at the camera, thinking we're waiting for the timer to take a family photo. It took a few seconds for her to realize I was saying something important rather than posing for the picture. I finally got out what I wanted to say and it was time to give her the ring. With Rory eating lunch on her lap, when I grabbed her hand to put the ring on it, I had to first empty her hand of the Cheerios and raisins she was holding for him. Of course, as soon as our moment was over, the entire mountain top cleared out and there was only us and 2 other couples hanging out. I guess I should've had a bit of patience, but I was just too excited.