WE'RE ENGAGED!

Well after being together for 10 1/2 years, I will admit I did not see this coming!  On June 15, 2013 around 3pm Aaron proposed to me.  He had just arrived on a float plane to the Nanaimo Harbour (or so I thought), when in reality our friend Andrew had picked Aaron up on an earlier flight and the two of them went ring shopping.  So I was waiting in the car for Aaron when he texted me & asked me to come down to book out flights for the next day.  When I got down to the harbour (about 2 minutes later) he said it was taken care, and he wanted to go for a walk.  I was confused because we were late for his work going away party, but I confusingly said ok. 

We were walking & Aaron seemed to be on a mission, I was wondering why he was acting so strangely, so I asked him.  Funnily enough he thought he was acting perfectly cool, and had to make a quick recovery.  So we continued walking until we came across a bench facing the waterfront.  We sat down & caught up since we hadn't seen each other for a few days (this was Aaron's way of recovering from 'acting weird').   He said, "we need to talk about the wedding", I was confused as to why we would need to discuss his brother's upcoming wedding & said, "why would we need to talk about the wedding, don't we just need to show up?", Aaron replied, "no OUR wedding".  He paused and pulled out a beautiful ring.  I was so shocked I didn't know what to say, but of course I started to cry. I'm sure that the people walking by us thought he was breaking up with me.  I continued crying... He asked me to marry him & of course I said yes, and cried some more... I gave him a huge hug, and cried a little more...

Then I pulled myself together & we went to Aaron's going away party.  I will admit I was in a state of shock for the next few hours afterward.  It's just starting to hit me now. I'M ENGAGED!

I was unaware he had some help from our friends, Andrea & Andrew, & my friend Jess.  I'm really not sure how Jess managed to keep it from me, good job Jess!  Everyone has been very excited for us, and we are thrilled.  We are looking at wedding in August 2014.  

Now the wedding planning begins!

Oregon Vacation

We spent our first night in Centralia, Washington.  

I let the waitress know it was Aaron's birthday and they did the customary embarrassing happy birthday. It was great!  It also happened to be the first time we had heard happy birthday in Spanish.

The second day was mostly travel, a little bit of shopping, & we stayed the night in Albany. The next day we headed to Corvallis to visit Colleen & pick up some motorcycle parts she has been holding on to for Aaron.  Then it was over to Monmouth, for a quick trip up to the Chamberlin cemetery to see how grown up it has become.  

 After checking out the cemetery we headed back up to Salem to visit with Charlotte.

Along the way we took this little ferry.

Afterward we headed back up north & stayed in Wilsonville for a night.

Then it was off to explore Portland for a few days.

 We had a great time!  

This is the Lan Su Chinese Garden. This place is a Ming Dynasty Style garden and is gorgeous!
http://www.lansugarden.org/

Pittock Mansion

This is where you get the best view of the city of Portland!

http://pittockmansion.org/

The following day we headed to the Grotto, which is at the National Sanctuary for Sorrowful Mother.

http://www.thegrotto.org/

The Meditation Chapel

Although we aren't Catholic ourselves, we learned a lot about the religion through the storytelling of sculptures & other artwork. 

But then again who wouldn't be in that position...

(Sorry I couldn't resist!)

The Labyrinth

Victory!

St Anne's Chapel

It really was a very beautiful & peaceful botanical garden.  

Religious or not, there's no way a person wouldn't appreciate the beauty of the Grotto.

The following day we got the roof rack installed on my car.  While that was being done we walked around the city & just tried to stay dry!  We checked out Powell's City of Books, which is the largest independent chain of book stores.  This particular location is a city block in size, 3 stories high, and carries over a million books.  Sorry no pictures of the book store.

We used the Urban Spoon app a lot to decide where we were going to eat. We felt like some authentic Mexican & had no idea what we had coming to us!

The car with my nice new roof rack.

After the car was done it was time for us to start making our way north & head home. 

We spent our last night in Shelton Washington, which made for a scenic drive to the Port Angeles ferry to Victoria.  All along the drive were random rhododendrons which were beautiful.  

Nice way to end a holiday!

All & all it was  a fantastic getaway!  We'll be back in Oregon again in August:)