I'M GETTING MARRIED!!!!!

Hey everyone!

Neal and I got engaged Friday. I spoke with most of you and/or messaged you Friday night. (I apologize for waking most of you up, but I couldn't wait to tell the news.) I don't think I have Ashley's current number(s).

Here's how it went down...
Neal and I headed to Beaver Creek, Colorado Wednesday for skiing and fun with friends. While driving around after flying in, Neal asked what I thought about grabbing dinner by ourselves one night since we'd be spending so much time with everyone every other moment of our trip. We usually do that when traveling with a group, so I agreed it was a great idea.

At lunch on Friday, he let me know he'd made reservations at a restaurant called Splendido at the Chateau. After another full day of skiing and hauling it back to the lodge to get ready and barreling it back to Beaver Creek for dinner we arrived to the stunning location. We were seated a few minutes later and started looking over the menus.

After ordering a bottle of wine, the waiter brought the wrong one. Neal pointed out the correct one, to which the waiter apologized for the mistake and was eager to bring out the right one immediately. Neal asked him to give give us a few minutes, as he wanted to show me something.

We got up from the table, and he walked me back through the hallway to the lobby, through a hallway on the other side of the lobby and then into an empty lounge. He started telling a story about the housemaid at his boss's hunting camp and how she was married for a number of years. As soon as I heard the word married, the tears started flowing. I started covering my nose and mouth with my hands.

He continued to talk about how one day her husband just said he was tired of her and no longer wanted to be married. (I know it sounds bad, but it gets much better.) She told of how it happened years ago. However, Neal could still tell that it crushed her...knowing that she lost her soul mate, the person she thought she would spend the rest of her life with in the blink of an eye.
He continued to tell me about how he couldn't help but think of me, when she was telling him her story, realizing more than ever that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and couldn't wait for the day he could call me his wife.

He - finally - got down on one knee, opened the ring box and asked me to marry him. I said, "YES!"

It's getting sized right now. I'll post pictures from the trip when Neal sends them to me and pictures of the ring when I get it back from being sized. We've got a TENTATIVE date of June 6, 2008. CHARLES...please let me know when you'll be back on leave. We would love to be able to arrange things around then, but that will depend on a number of things.

We're so excited! We love you all!