This day was pretty memorable I guess you could say...just kidding it was the happiest day of my life so far!! On October 21st, 2011 Scott Jennings ask me to marry him and I said yes! So here's the story according to me. (maybe Scott's will appear here sometime)
HER STORY:
So for about a week we had been talking about driving the Alpine Loop in the convertible Beamer (thanks future father-in-law :). Scott switched out cars about Wednesday, I think so that we could enjoy the fall beauty that much more. As an FYI the Alpine Loop is a curvy, narrow, somewhat two lane paved road that goes up past Sundance over the mountain to Alpine, hence the name. Most of the trees are Aspens and on October 21st every single one of them had bright yellow and yellowish/orange leaves covering them against the bright blue sky. We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was a bit chilly, but I was perfectly content with a blanket over me enjoying the crisp fall air. Anyways, enough of the details.
We packed a picnic lunch beforehand equipt with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (for Scott), a peanut butter and honey sandwhich (for me), goldfish, an apple, some Reese's, and some water. Pretty simple so I thought nothing of it. I mean, if he was going to propose why would we make the lunch ourselves right? (point 1) We packed it all into the car and I evaluated his clothing of which was pretty fitted, no awkward ring box type shape anywhere to be seen. (point 2) We brought Scott's fancy camera, of course just to take pictures of the trees, which came in handy later. (point 3) I did in fact take quite the plethora of pictures of trees so if you're ever short on tree pictures, I got you covered.
As we drove we stopped every so often to take pictures/"look for a place to have our picnic." (point 4) Eventually we got to the top of the mountain and started heading down the other side a bit. We still hadn't found a good spot to have our picnic, but Scott thought we should just "keep looking." I had figured we would just have to pull off on the side of the road somewhere and ignore the road behind us. But somehow we came upon this little pull off that opened up into a fire pit area. I mentioned how that looked like a good place as soon as I spotted it. I didn't realize til afterwards, but Scott was already turning when I said it. However, I thought it was my idea. (point 5)
We got out of the car and got our picnic stuff out of the trunk. I thought maybe he would have the ring box in the blanket, but no. He swung the blanket over his shoulder like a rag doll. Most definitely not in the blanket. (point 6) So then we ironically found this nice little dirt path that lead into the woods and we decided to search for a "log" to sit on to eat our lunch. Scott went first down the path and I followed. I found a cool log, but apparently it wasn't good enough so we kept walking. The path went down the little hill and opened up into a field. In the middle of the field was...just take a guess.....well if you guessed CUTE LITTLE TABLE WITH FLOWERS, LACE TABLECOTH, AND CUTE PLACE SETTINGS you were right! Now you see, I saw the table from pretty far away and pointed it out to Scott. Scott responded, "What table? I don't see a table?" in his goofy, dumb voice. Silly Scott.
We walked up to the table, which had raspberries, grapes, pink lemonade, roses, the works. Soo cute! (point for Amy and point 7 for Scott) I was taking pictures of the trees and stuff, trying to ease the tension because suddenly I got really nervous because I knew it was coming. Then Scott kissed me, put his hand in his pocket, got down on one knee, and said, "Karalee, will you marry me??" I said YES! Happy kisses and hugs proceeded as well as an unnecessary amount of happy giggling from me. (ten million points)
We took lots of pictures and luckily we left our phones in the car so we just got to enjoy the moment for a while. I'm sooooo excited to marry Mr. Scott Nathan Jennings and be the luckiest girl in the world!!
Sincerely,
The future Mrs. Jennings
HIS STORY:
Well it all started about a week before once I had bought the ring. I had suggested to her that we borrow my dad's bmw and go drive the Alpine Loop with all of the beautiful fall colors the following week. Once I had the ring (Friday) I then started brainstorming up different scenarios of how and when to ask Karalee to marry me. Deciding I didn't want to wait too long, the Alpine Loop presented itself as the perfect opportunity.So Wednesday I drove up the loop in order to scope out the perfect spot. After stopping at least half a dozen times I finally found the perfect spot. There was a little pull off, a bit away from the road with a little path that lead through some trees and down onto a meadow.
On my way home I called Karalee's dad to get his permission. He answered and after some small talk I said, "Well I bet you've been expecting this call for a while now." He laughed and after asking his permission he said yes. phew.
Thursday was my prep day. I first went and bought flowers 1 red, 4 white, and 3 pink (1 I, 4 love, 3 you). Then I got in contact with my sister Amy asking if she happened to have a folding table that i could borrow (that was how I ended up roping her into helping me). Turns out she did and so I went and checked it out. While we were shooting the breeze she offered to do the set up for the following day so Karalee wouldn't be able to suspect a thing. I showed her on google earth where the spot was and the plan was set.
Friday morning I went and bought fruit and lemonade for the picnic (and cold cereal as a cover story for why I was running late for picking up Karalee from the pool). I then dropped off the stuff at my sisters and went back to my apartment to grab the ring. I couldn't figure out a good way to conceal the box so i called my mom and she suggested that I tie a ribbon around the rings and just put them in my pocket. I of course didn't have any ribbon so i just stashed the box in my car and figured somehow I'd make it work (this comes is later).
After picking up Karalee from practice I had some good dead time waiting downstairs just waiting. While I was eating my cereal realized that the dried flowers on her wall were all tied around the middle by a little piece of ribbon. instantly putting 2 and 2 together I went into the kitchen grabbed some scissors and snipped off a piece (I figured she wouldn't mind too much). then i snuck out to the car, grabbed the rings, tied them together with the ribbon, and stashed them safely in one of the (zippered) pockets of my jacket. Soon my sister texted me that things were running behind up on her end and that I needed to buy some time. So after Karalee was done getting ready I ate some more cereal, we made our lunch together, and read an entire magazine sitting on the couch while eating yet another bowl of cereal. As we were walking out the door I texted Amy again to double check we were good to go and there was no reply. So trying to buy just a little more time we pulled off and filled up the tank before heading up the canyon.
On our way up the canyon we stopped for a second to let the big truck ahead of us get ahead, as we stopped I noticed my sisters car pulled off the road ahead and hopped that Karalee didn't (she didn't). We then continued on up the canyon up to the fork in the road where I knew we needed to go right. I said, "Which way should we go? We went left last time so let's go right." We then continued down the road and soon enough came the pull off. I suggested we pull of and we did.
After parking we grabbed the blankets and food for our picnic and started off down some random trail (wink, wink). As we were walking down the trail Karalee suddenly said, "Hey there's a table." I rebutted, "What table" (smooth I know). Karalee, "Is that table for us?" I just smiled and kept on walking.
Moments later we got to the table and Karalee started just snapping off pictures, I figured this was my opportune moment so I opened up my pocket and slid out the ring. We gave each other a hug, I gave her a kiss and interrupted with, "Karalee.." kneeling on one knee and showing her the ring, "will you marry me?"
-Mr. Jennings
