the proposal :)

Back in June, during one of our daily phone calls, Josh asked me if I'd like to go on a motorcycle ride with him the next day after work. Riding is fun, however, I am still very cautious and scared because I'm definitely no pro. Josh sounded super excited and that made me excited as well. His bikes were just out of the shop from being tuned up and we didn't see much of each other because of our work schedules, so I just figured those reasons were the cause of his excitement. Boy was I wrong! :)

We loaded up the bikes, drove to the parking lot at the bottom of the mountain, and began to unload. I started to get nervous because on our last motorcycle excursion, I had a little wreck. In the parking lot. However, after a couple circles around the truck while Josh was unloading his bike, I felt comfortable again. We headed up the trail which is pretty easy. Usually I like to ride slow and Josh cruises in front of me and comes back to find me then cruises off again. However, this time, he stayed by my side the whole way or let me take the lead. We had a lot of fun riding next to each other until we reached a fork in the road. We could choose to go down, to the right, or to the left. I knew that the left had a very pretty meadow a little way down the trail because Josh took me there once before, down just went to some camp grounds, and right just looked plain scary. Josh told me to choose between the left or right, and I obviously chose the left trail thinking it would be the easiest.

I started to doubt my choice as I started up the trail. It was a lot harder (aka scarier) than I previously thought. I made Josh ride up first and I waited at the bottom trying to gather my wits. After he made it up a little way, he called down to me and I tried to go up the trail. I went a little bit then I freaked out and did not want to ride anymore. Josh walked down and tried to convince me to get back on the bike, try again and get my courage back up. After a lot of convincing, I tried again and failed once more. Since I couldn't get up the trail, I tried to convince Josh to just get his bike and we'd go home. He was very adamant that we go up the trail. I was mad because I couldn't get up the trail, I was mad because I wanted to have the courage and skill to get up there, and I was mad because Josh was making me do all of this and he kept pestering me to "Get up the hill Karee, you can do it." Finally we decided that Josh would walk my bike up the hill and I would walk by him. Once we got up to a level area, we stopped and I got back on my bike.

We rode down the trail a bit farther until we got to this beautiful meadow.

Josh said, "Let's drive in there a little bit." I led the way and kept my eyes focused on the ground in front of me. After a while, I couldn't hear Josh's motor behind me and I stopped.

He was parked by the only tree in the meadow and yelled over to me to come back. So, I started back, eyes still completely focused on the ground. Once I got close to Josh, he threw down his bike and ran over to me. Before I knew what was happening, he got down on one k

nee, said some sweet things, then asked, "Karee Jurgensmeier, will you marry me?" and held up the most gorgeous ring I've ever seen. And I of course said "YES!"

He then led me to a blanket and some fun treats he took up before our ride. I didn't want to ride back down the mountain, I wished that we could have just stayed up there in the beautiful meadow forever, but he also made dinner reservations for us and it was getting late, so we had to go. We ate delicious steak and had a fried calamari appetizer.

The weather was perfect, the meadow was gorgeous, and my handsome soon to be hubby was so cute and thoughtful. It was the perfect proposal.