I had planned to propose to Michelle at a place called Stewart Falls which is a "short" hike from Sundance ski resort. This is right on the way to midway. I had contacted Nikaela to see if she could meet us up there to take some secret photos from some hiding spots to capture the moment. She agreed. That might have been her first mistake. While Michelle and I are driving up Nikaela is texting me about meeting up and if we are on time so Michelle is looking at me phone because I am the one driving and she is asking me whats going on with Nikaela and why are we meeting her. I quickly covered my story saying that Ammon and I were going to try and go golfing. Well we end up being about an hour late getting to Steward Falls and Michelle is freaking out because we were responsible for dinner that same night. Michelle didn't know we were hiking to the falls until we got to Sundance. So now she is freaking out even more. About 3/4 of the way to the falls she asks what time it is and I say 5:40pm with a hesitation. Dinner was at 6:30pm. She is to the point were she just wants to get to the falls take a look and get going. Well we get to the falls after about a 40min hike and she takes one look and says looks great now lets go. I pull her over the the side of the falls and I tell her I have something for her. I pull out a puzzle with all the pieces except the 3 last pieces that say,"will you marry me." She is thinking ok lets do this puzzle quickly so we can get back to the house. Well after she starts to put the puzzle together I ask her if she recognizes the picture. She does and at that point starts to think something is up. We get to the last pieces and I pull out the last ones and get down on one knee and sign,"will you marry me." She says,"yes" and we hug and kiss. I then tell her that this moment was captured by digital media. She doesn't quite get it but I point to Ammon who is across the stream with a camera and then to Nikaela who is behind us with a camera as well. The story doesn't end there, oh no. Ammon and Nikaela hiked in the long way whereas Michelle and I took the ski lift half way and hiked the rest. So Ammon and Nikaela are tired and thirsty so I suggest that we hike back to the lift then take the lift down. Well there are a few issues with that; one is that we hiked down in elevation to the falls so naturally we had to hike up in elevation to get to the lift. This was not very desirable. Then by the time we got back to the lift it had shut down for a 2 hour break between the regular hours and twilight hours. So we waited at the lift platform for an hour until the lift started again to take us down the mountain. I would be remiss if I did not mention the lift attendant who was a bit fearful of the weird guy looking at her from around the corner (Ammon). But her fears were dispelled when we just said we wanted a ride back down the mountain. So the story doesn't end here either! When we get to the bottom of the mountain everybody is hungry and thirsty. We decide to eat there at Sundance. I wanted to eat at the Tree Room but it was rented out so we asked for a table at the Foundry Grill. Well we got there past 9pm which is the last time they seat guests. I winked and smiled and the hostess sat us down anyway. Apparently there is a dead zone in the restaurant where no cell service exists and we were sitting dead in the middle of it. Mean while back at the ranch, Jon and Joyzelle are getting worried because we had failed to tell the rest of the family that we were going to eat there at Sundance so Jon and Joyzelle were on their way down from Midway to find us, presuming that some misfortune had befallen us. Well luckily we got back to the car after dinner and Michelle's phone had a bunch of texts and voice mails so she called and cleared everything up. Whew what a story! I thought to myself wow this did not go as smoothly as planned and I felt bad for Ammon and Nikaela for having to hike so far unexpectedly and be so hungry and thirsty and then to worry the whole family about us as well. But you know what? It will always be remembered even with all its craziness and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Below are a few photos of the Proposal experience.
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