The Forgotten Valley Hike I’ll Never Forget

It’s been just over a year since Mike proposed on my birthday, and I honestly still can’t believe we’re married now!! I genuinely didn’t think I’d ever meet my perfect match, and yet here I am with a guy whose Enneagram even mirrors mine – he’s a core 8 Challenger with a close secondary 3 Achiever, while I’m the reverse (core 3 with a close secondary 8). The ultimate power couple 😂! Single friends, take heart – you never know when the right person will come along. And for that matter, when the right person does come along – you will know. I am also still in disbelief at how quickly we got engaged after meeting, but I also knew it was the right decision.

So that brings me to sharing how we actually got engaged! While I’ve told the story out loud dozens of times, I really wanted to write it down for posterity, not least because it still makes me smile every time I think about it. So here’s the story of how Mike asked me to marry him. (Also, for the record: when we announced our engagement on social media, IKON Pass commented that they were sending us something special and got lots of likes for that promise. We are still waiting, IKON. Still waiting!)

Mike and I went to pick out an engagement ring together on our one-month dating anniversary (yes, one month 🤦‍♀️). Even though I had never looked at engagement rings before, I knew I wanted something classic but ultra-sparkly. We quickly decided on an oval diamond with a hidden halo underneath and smaller diamonds on the band, but I suggested that Mike shop around rather than buying that one on the spot. We then headed out for dinner to the nearby Macaroni Grill, which longtime readers know was my favorite childhood restaurant for birthdays and special occasions. I was pretty giddy at what we had just done, but also the tiniest bit disappointed, knowing it would be harder to surprise me now that I was expecting a proposal. Yes, I’ve always thought it was absurd that someone would propose without discussing it first, but I’m also a classic romantic who would have loved to be surprised! Fortunately, Mike knew that about me…

Fast forward to the fourth of July. We went to visit Mike’s family in Wisconsin, a trip I was a bit nervous about. Mike had described his family as awesome… and I would say he undersold them, as my in-laws are absolutely amazing! But we had moved so quickly with our relationship and moving in together that I figured they might be judgmental. It ended up being a wonderful trip, but one of my favorite parts of it was a paddleboarding adventure that later threw me off the scent of Mike’s proposal.

After a morning hike with Mike’s parents, his brother Kevin invited us to go paddleboarding on the Bark River along with his wife and brother-in-law. Problem was, Kevin didn’t have quite enough equipment for all of us… so when we got to the boat launch, we found Kevin busily MacGyvering two plastic lawn chairs to a paddleboard with bungee cords. He then handed us one single paddle to share, and wished us luck. Ope – here we go!

We did pretty well on the float downriver, making it about 3/4 of the way down before we capsized for the first time. (Don’t worry, I held my Leinenkugel overhead out of the river water 🍺) But when we turned around to head upriver, all bets were off. When one of us would fall off, we’d capsize the other trying to get back on, and we were almost never both on the board at the same time. At one point, I was precariously balanced on top while Mike was clinging to the edge, doggypaddling and yelling, “Rose, you have to live!” With absolutely anyone else, I would have been super frustrated, and probably arguing about a better way to paddle and stabilize; with Mike, I was laughing my head off and having a fabulous time.

Honestly, that was the moment I knew that I wanted to spend my life with him, as he made what should have been a stressful situation really fun.

Anyway, on one of these capsizes, I knocked my hand on something and broke the nail on my left ring finger completely off. Mike noticed that it was my “engagement finger”, and teased me that now I’d have to wait until it healed before he could propose. That ended up taking weeks, since I had chopped it off pretty completely, and I took him seriously and figured he wouldn’t propose for a while. (And again… we were only six weeks into dating!)

While my nail grew and healed, there was also another factor ensuring Mike wouldn’t propose for a bit longer. While I may be independent, I have always loved the tradition of asking a father for permission to get engaged. Yes, I know it’s an antiquated tradition – especially since I had been living on my own and financially independent for nearly twenty years – but I had told Mike that when the time came, I really wanted him to talk to my dad and get his blessing. Although Mike had met my mom many times, my dad wasn’t coming to visit Colorado until the night of my birthday, when we’d all go out to dinner together. So I figured any proposal had to wait at least till after that.

On my birthday morning, July 10, I woke up really grumpy. I had to go to work, I hadn’t decided on any kind of morning adventure before that, and I was frustrated with my lack of planning. Although we had the vague plan of “let’s do a hike somewhere”, we hadn’t thought about where until my alarm went off. While one thing I love about Mike is that I don’t need to make plans with him and I’m happy to just be with him and be spontaneous, my birthday felt like a day I wanted to plan and make extra special. I petulantly suggested we turn the day into a regular day and celebrate the next day instead, when we could plan in advance, but Mike insisted we go hiking and I finally agreed, knowing that making Mike happy usually ends up making me happy too.

So off we went, with all four dogs in tow, to the Rifleman Phillips trailhead at Golden Gate Canyon State Park. I had hiked this trail before, but Mike hadn’t, and in spite of my earlier grumbles, I was now in a great mood and excited to show him the pretty views. After about a mile of walking on a fire road through the woods, we eventually popped out to a big clearing with sweeping views of the Forgotten Valley, and fields of wildflowers all around. We headed clockwise around the pond loop, and as we passed the old historic Tallman Ranch log cabin on the other side of the pond, Mike suggested we take a break there and sit on the porch swing.

Really pretty views from the porch!

“Do you want your birthday gift now?” he asked, and I laughed and said “sure.” Now I understood why he wore a backpack for such a short hike! He pulled out a jewelry box and said, “Okay, here it is, and it comes with a question…” My heart skipped a beat, but I quickly told myself that this was ridiculous. It was a watch box, not a ring box! He had said he wouldn’t propose until my ring fingernail was healed ! And he hadn’t met my dad yet! Sure enough, I opened it up to find… an IKON Pass. “Will you come ski IKON mountains with me this winter?” he grinned. We both cracked up, and I thanked him for the thoughtful (and very us) gift.

(For those not in the Colorado singles scene, nearly every online dating profile includes someone’s categorization as either “IKON” or “Epic”, the two predominant ski passes in Colorado. I’ve seen it firsthand as a dealbreaker when a potential partner is on the opposite pass, which I always thought was dumb. When we met, Mike was IKON and I was Epic, but somehow we survived, and now we each get both passes. Take that, dating apps!)

Then Mike turned to me and said, “I have one more gift… and it comes with another question.” This time, he pulled out a ring box (!), and I opened it to find the ring we had picked out together. “Laura, will you marry me?” Rather than responding, I started cracking up. He had managed to surprise me! And in such a perfect way! I couldn’t believe it, and was laughing so hard that I forgot to actually say yes right away. He had to prompt me with, “Sooooo… is that a yes?” before I managed a very emphatic, “Yes, yes, yes!”

And for those wondering: Mike had gone through my mom to set up a video call with my dad before proposing, so that night at dinner we all got to celebrate together.)

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last year or so, it’s that the best love stories don’t follow a timeline; they follow a feeling. I told you the story of our first date, and how I honestly never expected it to be more than just another name to cross off the endless list of dating app potentials. I certainly never expected to move in or get engaged so quickly, but it just felt easy and effortless and right. Of course, not everything in our relationship has been easy, but we’ve worked hard on communication and blending our lives together, and I’m so happy with how we figure things out together as a team. From paddleboard chaos to porch swing proposals, Mike always finds a way to surprise and delight me, make me laugh, and remind me that the best moments in life don’t need to be perfectly planned to be absolutely perfect.

I’m so grateful I said yes (eventually 😉).

And if you’re still waiting for your person, know that sometimes love dumps you in a river like a MacGyvered paddleboard fail, and sometimes it sneaks up like a surprise proposal. But when it’s the real thing, you’ll just know 💕