The Story of Our Engagement

So, this is my first blog of all time. I've actually been a bit reluctant to break into the blogging scene, since I'm not entirely sure I won't fall in love with it and begin ignoring my multitude of other responsibilities. However, in the interest of keeping up with Jesse (who has now posted four times), I thought I'd better step up to the plate and carry my own weight around here.

Let me first just say how excited I am to be marrying the man of my dreams!

I couldn't have asked for a more caring, sweet, funny, smart, good looking man, -------------------->

<---------with an adorable dog,

and some other good stuff that I probably would embarrass him by mentioning (okay, he cooks a mean spaghetti. There, I said it).


I thought for my first blog, I would tell the story of our engagement and post some pictures of White Sands (aka "The Spot").

Jesse proposed the weekend after Thanksgiving, driving us out to White Sands, New Mexico. I initially thought we were going to visit an old western town or something since Jesse has been talking about doing such things while he is in the Southwest. Of course, when we drove into the Alamagordo valley, we were both struck by the mountains literally surrounding the entire valley.

We entered the park grounds, proceeding into dunes and dunes of pure white gypsum sand.
I thought to myself... ohhhh, of course "White Sands" literally means white sand covering every thing in sight.

Then the pavement ended and we drove onto roads of white sand, where people were climbing and hiking and sledding down the sand dunes. We chose an area to hike out alone so we could take Kayla off her leash (or so Jesse claimed). Kayla was so funny, running around and playing and rolling in the sand. Thank goodness the gypsum wasn't sticky like a lot of sand. In fact, it wouldn't clump at all, so whenever Kayla tried to dig a hole it filled in so fast she kept digging forward and would end up with a trench. Needless to say, she had a blast.

After a while, we climbed onto a new ridge and the sun was streaming sunbeams right on top of us.

Jesse said something to the effect of "I guess this is the place" and drops to his knee.
"The view from The Spot"

I won't repeat the sweetest words he said to me,
but then he pulled out the engagement ring ------------------->
(honestly, this picture doesn't do justice to my pretty, shiny, beautiful ring).

While he was proposing,
Kayla started circling us trying to figure out just what on earth we were doing.






It was all so beautiful, and so perfect. And we are engaged!






We hiked quite a bit more and played with Kayla until the sun started going down.

We saw more sunbeams, and at sunset there was a rainbow next to the rays. It was indescribably beautiful.

On the drive back to El Paso, the full moon sent its own moonbeams through the clouds onto the craggy mountains (I didn't get a picture of that part, unfortunately).

Overall, I'd say Jesse did it just right (he's good at that).

So that's it. That's the beautiful story of our engagement
(and... the end of my first blogging experience).