It was a normal Friday afternoon in early August (it was actually August 9, exactly a year before our wedding date). Spencer and I were preparing for a road trip to Ellensburg, the home of Spencer's alma matter, Central Washington University. One of his friends from college was getting hitched and I was, naturally, his plus-one.  I remember feeling as though there was something different about that day.  There was something in his behavior.  He was never this quiet. I remember wondering vaguely if something was up, but then I brushed the thought aside.

Our four-hour road trip flew by.  When we arrived in Ellensburg, Spencer decided to take me out to dinner at one of his favorite college hang-outs: Buffalo Wild Wings.  We ordered beer and wings and chatted away happily, pausing only to lick our sticky wing-sauce fingers. Spencer announced towards the end of our meal that he wanted to show me a look-out spot in the woods where he and his friends used to snow board.  It was supposedly about a 10 minute drive and wouldn't take us too far out of the way of our actual destination.  So I said, "Sure. Why not?"

It turned out to be quite a bit more than 10 minutes.

The drive itself was perilous; Spencer's little Suburu Impreza bounced and bumped up the rocky, overgrown pathway.  A cloud of dust and dirt billowed out behind us, sure to confuse anyone in our wake.  Half-way up the hill I felt my second beer catching up to my bladder.  We stopped and I peed right there in the woods.  Then we got back in the car and kept driving.  It was then that I realized that we were being followed by a burgundy pick-up truck.  After an eon, we reached the top.  And the view, my friends, was worth it.  The sun was just starting to set over the tops of the cliffs and mountains in the distance and you could see for miles.

About two hundred feet away, the pick-up parked and a family of three climbed out to take in the breathtaking view.  I looked at Spencer and he was shaking a little, dancing back and forth nervously, with one hand in his jeans pocket.

"These people are crampling my style," he laughed, looking around. 

I smiled and focused on watching the sun turn from Valencia orange to an almost blood-orange color.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the air was hot and dry.  We were definitely in the desert.  

Then, before I knew it, I turned to find Spencer down on one knee.  He held a ring in his hand and he said, "Will you marry me?"

I screamed, which turned into a squeal of delight. 

"Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!" I'm sure I stole that from somewhere but it felt like the right thing to say.

He placed the ring on my hand.  We kissed, took a selfie with his phone, and sent the ficture swimming wildly through the world wide web where it received about 40 "likes" that same evening.  The ring, as it happened, had been his grandmother's, but as Spencer never knew his grandmother, he referred to it, endearingly, as his "mom's mom's ring".  It was yellow gold, and the huge, crystal clear gemstones that gleamed up at me were in fact not diamonds, but white topaz (my birthstone). It was a happy coincidence, I thought.  The only downside was that it was too big.  I've inherited my mom's slender "piano-playing" fingers.  Spencer, on the other hand, comes from big, Scottish stock.  His mother's father was 6'5" and his mother is 5'9".  At a diminutive 5'3", I felt rather dwarfed and my fingers were far too small. So, we're having the ring resized, but I am so, so happy.