The Proposals:
In June of 2010, we had the chance to spend two weeks together. The first week, Dave came out to Utah and spent a couple days with Karen and her family and then we went to Idaho for his extended family reunion. The reunion was held in a series of cabins in Island Park, Idaho. Dave's immediate family (and us) happened to get there a day before the rest of the extended family, and we spent the morning doing some landscaping work and getting the cabin ready since it would be the main base of operations for the extended family.
After lunch, Dave suggested we go canoeing up the river. It was a nice day so Karen readily agreed to go along. We canoed up the river until we found a fork and put the anchor down in the quieter side of the fork. We sat in the canoe for a awhile talking. Dave made a comment that he regretted not getting Karen some flowers while he was at the airport. Then Dave spotted some dandelions on the river bank. He paddled us over and got out, picked some dandelions and got back in. All with out tipping the canoe. Since he had gotten back in on her side of the canoe, Karen asked for a kiss to go along with her flowers. Dave told her to close her eyes. When she opened her eyes he had the ring out and said " Karen Alyse Richards will you marry me?" She said yes and offered her left hand. Dave being way to smart grabbed the right hand only to realized his mistake. We both laughed over the mistake. We continued to sit in the canoe together till we finally made our way back to the cabin and made our announcement.
The Proposal with The Ring:
Because the first proposal was the story every girl wants to tell to all of her friends etc. Dave couldn't wait until he had the actual engagement ring to propose. (It had gotten delayed in the mail). So the next week we spent in Washington together. Karen, as director of activities, had decided that we should go to Hershey Park since we'd been to the closer amusement parks in the area. We took a while getting started that morning but finally made it up to Pennsylvania in perfect amusement park weather. We rode a couple of rides, one of them being the Ferris Wheel. Karen was pretty convinced she was going to get her ring that day so she was on her guard when they got to the top of the Ferris Wheel, but since we had been joined in their car by a man and his son, her vigilance was unnecessary. (Dave was really upset that they didn't have privacy because he was going to totally psych her out). We meandered over to the water park.
Our first water ride was one of the big raft ones that takes you down a big hill and gets you soaking wet. And of course, we sat in the front row, prime soaking territory. At the top of the hill, Karen shut her eyes tight preparing for the drop when Dave leaned over and said, "Karen, marry me?" She said yes of course and started screaming because they were going down the drop. At the bottom of the ride, she opened her eyes and realized Dave had actually pulled out the ring at the top of the hill. She replaced the place holder ring with the real thing and, still soaking wet, we sent pictures to both our moms.
