I knew I wanted to ask Melissa to marry me after I dropped her off one night. She said she loved me for the first time then ran inside her house. I went up to her door and knocked waiting to see if she would even answer. She did and told her I loved her back. I spent a while trying to figure out how to propose. We planned a trip to Zion with Sarah and Alex and Sarah jokingly asked if I was going to propose there. I said no, but that was a good idea. We went to Zion and I decided on proposing on Angel’s landing and had my proposal along the lines of Melissa being the angel that landed in my life, but that didn’t happen. I’m terrified of heights and couldn’t face my fears. I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out a way to pop the question. People were everywhere. I knew Melissa would not want to be the center of attention and a public proposal was not my style either. We ended up on a sandy horse trail with next to no one. At this point in the day, we had been out of water for about an hour, borderline lost, and starting to burn. In my dehydrated mind, this was the perfect time. I spent the next couple of minutes putting a line together about navigating this crazy world with you and would want to be lost with you. I had Melissa stop under a tree and attempted to spit out my proposal. From being nervous and dehydrated, apparently I spoke some gibberish and got down on a knee and asked her to marry me.

March 2023 Several months before the proposal, Caleb and I were bowling with my friends Sarah, her husband and their daughter. During the game, Sarah started giving Caleb a hard time about proposing and told him that the upcoming trip to Zion National Park that we had planned together would be a great opportunity. He laughed it off and we didn't really talk about it again. but just in case she was colluding with Caleb, I started sending Sarah pictures of rings and took her to the jeweler with me. May 2023 Fast forward a month or so, I am working from home on a Friday that Caleb is off work. He tells me that he is going to look at motorcycles in Salt Lake with one of his buddies. I had texted him with out a reply and he should have made it to his destination by that time so I looked at his location. It was showing him in the parking lot outside the jewelry store. I was suspicious but figure maybe they had stopped to get lunch in the area since there are many restaurants near by. After awhile I checked his location again, he was still there. After he got home I asked him where they had gotten lunch and it was not close enough that the pin would have shown in that location. Shortly after this he started being sneaky with his phone which made my suspicion grow. Then, in a change of events he started asking me questions about what kind of ring I wanted. It was just a couple days before we were leaving for our trip to zion so I conceded that it wasn't going to be happening just yet. May 12, 2023 That was until the second day of our trip. We had plans that morning to hike the infamous Angels Landing in Zion National Park. Sarah and her family had picked up a stomach bug so they opted not to come with us. As we were getting ready to head out Caleb stops to whisper to Sarah by the back of the truck after I had gotten in. At this moment I started wishing I had gotten my nails done. Once we get to the Park we start heading up towards angels landing. by the time we get to the point of no return before starting the most difficult part of the hike, Caleb chickens out. We head back down and take a couple other trails to a waterfall and a few other places. We are then ready to head back to the trailhead but we either have to back track like a mile or so or head the other direction, what looks like a similar distance on the map, because the bridge across the river was closed. We chose not to backtrack and go the other way. This was a mistake. Apparently the National Park Service does not make their maps to scale! We end up walking for what feels like 2 hours on a sandy horse trail. It was probably more like 3 miles but we have already been hiking for 5 hours so I am tired. I feel like we are never going to make it back to the trail head and end up crying due to exhaustion and frustration. Finally the trail starts to head back to the trailhead And there is finally hope that we will be done soon. A few minutes later Caleb calls me over to the shade of a lone tree to take a break and gets down on one knee. I'm not sure if it was because of excitement or exhaustion but I have no recollection of what he said. Shortly later, we finally made it back to the car but I still had to wait several hours in order to be able to put the ring on because I was swollen and dehydrated.