Hip Hip Hooray!

One of our good friends in High School thought we would be good together and planned a bonfire to get us both to meet up. Hayden almost didn't show up, but his 4-wheeler broke down while he was out with friends and he decided to show up (fashionably late). It was a great cool night by the fire, we connected instantly as he showed me pictures of his trip to Montana that he took with his dad recently. From there it was fate. We spent nearly every day together that summer before our Senior year. He knew I was going to be around for a while, because he deliberately tried to wait 'til September for us to officially date so that he could be home from boot camp, which he was going to that next summer, for our 1-year anniversary.

I always like to have a cute family photo for our Christmas card. We have quite a few friends who are good behind the camera, so I thought it would be a great idea to just have them snap a quick photo or two of us. The best day to get all of us, and our dog, together for some nice mountain pictures was while we were picking out our Christmas tree up on the mountainside. We hiked around with our friends 'til we found the perfect tree. It just so happened to be right near a large clearing where you could see the beautiful mountains behind us. Naturally, I chose that spot to take our Christmas card photo. As we were taking a few pictures, our friend Martin started to tell us how to pose so that we would look cute in our photos. This sparked my interest and made me tell Hayden "I know who I want to take our engagement photos" clueless of what would actually happen that day. It was then after just a few more pictures that he got down on one knee behind me. I turned around, shocked as could be, to see the cutest boy asking me if I wanted to marry him. It was the best day ever. And of course we then spent the next hour and a half taking engagement photos.