After over three years of dating it was time. Secretly I began talking to close friends and family members for months about my plan to propose to her in July after Summer Camp.

My goal: to speak with her father in person and get permission to ask for his daughters hand in marriage when I returned from camp.

My reality: the day I returned from camp her father and mother had just flown out to the East Coast for two weeks to deal with family affairs.

This left me in a pickle. I wanted to ask her, but I didn’t want to get permission over the phone. What to do? I consulted with my mom and my pastor and told them my situation. “Would you be okay if a boy asked you this way given his circumstances?” After some deliberation the response was YES! I didn’t have a ring yet because I thought I was going to wait until her parents were home, but given current circumstances that wouldn’t work.  But fear not!  My mom had a plan. She gave me her engagement ring as a “stand in” ring for the proposal. It was July 4th, 2010.  Bethany and I were fighting a lot this week.  The main topic of our fight, my lack of plans for the future of our relationship.  Basically, Bethany wanted to get married and as far as she knew I had no plans to do so.  It’s not like I can blurt out “Look I’m working on it give me a week!” and ruin the surprise.  So, I just sat there in quiet helplessness.

July 5th was a monday. This was the first day Bethany and I had off work at the same time in months. We had decided a few weeks back to go Kayaking on Lake Natomas, a nearby lake. One thing that is important to note: Since Bethany was 13 she has wanted to climb this rock mound overlooking Lake Natomas. For years she has tried to reach this place with friends but continued to get lost and was never able to reach it. I, being a bicycle enthusiast, have ridden by this place multiple times and even climbed it on occasion. The view was beautiful, perhaps beautiful enough for a proposal backdrop. I thought to myself the time is now! I grabbed some swim trunks with a secure pocket and slipped my ring in.

I remember being very excited the day I was to propose.  I was filming from the get go with my new iPhone 4.  Bethany showed up and when I tried filming her said, “Don’t film me!”  I told her, “this is the first time we’ve hung out in awhile, we’re doing something fun, I’m going to film.”  I’m not normally so brazen but I knew what I was filming for.  It was a hot day and from the moment we exited the van we were hot.  We had all the fixings of a nice picnic in my picnic in a bag style backpack. We set out for the rock mound she had always wanted to go to. She had no idea what was in store. The mound was much farther then I had anticipated, kayaking and biking are very different. Each turn in the lake I said “I think it’s around this corner,” only to realize we weren’t even close. Eventually we pulled off and had a picnic on a small cliff overlooking the lake, Frank Sinatra played from my phone to set the mood. We had a good time talking, the food (wine, pasta, sandwiches and more) was delicious, and we headed out again.  Did I mention it was hot?  Did you pick up on the fact that wine tends to dehydrate you a bit, also we were low on water.  I was very nervous she wouldn’t want to keep going, after all she didn’t know what was coming.  She was tired but still decided she wanted to head to the hill, lucky for me!

We finally approached the area of the mound, docked our boat and started walking through 200 yards of large loose rocks. Did I mention she was wearing toms shoes and I was wearing flip flops?? This made the hike to the mound much more difficult then anticipated. Bethany started climbing up the steepest part of the mound, I looked for and found an easier trail up the side.  By the time she got up she was out of breath and covered in sweat, I was not.  Well I suppose I was sweating because it was hot and I was nervous but not from physical exertion.  By the time we reached the top of the mound we were covered in sweat and almost out of water (and dehydrated). Not exactly optimal settings for a romantic proposal. But that wouldn’t stop me from doing what needed to be done!

It’s here that Bethany likes to point out that at the bottom of the hill there was an older gentleman standing and starring at us.  It creeped her out.  I don’t fully remember this.  Can you blame me? I could barely piece together four words.  Two or three times I would start speaking “it’s been a hard month…” with the intention of saying “Bethany will you give me my happy ending and be my wife.” That would have been gold.  But what came out was “yeah…”  Needless to say, it took awhile for me to get out the words.  Meanwhile we were both hot, sweaty and thirsty.  Eventually Bethany wanted to go “Alright, can we go now, I’m hot.” (yeah she is!  Sorry…) “No let’s stay up here a little longer.”  “Why?” she thought in her head and probably said out loud I can’t recall.  I didn’t have a good response but I was insistent, so we stayed. 

I was so nervous. It turns out the words “will you marry me”? Are very hard to say!  After two more failed attempts I gave her a hug. The ring was on my pinky behind her head and I said “Babe, I’m not very good at doing this.” She said, “what are you talking about?” At this time I brought my hand in front of her face, showing her the ring and said “will you marry me?” I instantly started sobbing. All I remember in the next few minutes is her saying “of course I will marry you!” and me, still sobbing saying “Bethany, why am I crying? I knew this was coming, you’re supposed to be crying!!” Don’t worry she was to excited at the moment, the tears of joy came later.

We then paddled back, super thirsty but very happy, with a new sense of joy and excitement. Not knowing what the next few months will bring but excited to face them together.  Side note: you may be wondering what happened to the video.  Sadly this was a no go.  In my haste and nervousness I didn’t hit the record button.  This is one of the reasons I wanted to write down our story so we would never forget it.  

Three years past this moment I’m excited to see that this was only one of many awesome stories we will get to share with our children and grandchildren.  Sometimes life doesn’t happen how we want it to.  But, Sometimes those picture perfect stories we wish were ours are not as good as the real thing.

Love,
Bryce