With wedding planning well underway and these little guys beautifully designed with help from Wedding Paper Divas *hopefully* landing in mailboxes in the next week if I can get my act together, I figured it was about time to ink our engagement story from December to paper a blog post. A little overdue, yes, but just as fun. 

Maybe it was trying on my wedding dress for a second time today that just has me in the mood for a little love. I could twirl in that thing all day, every day for the record. So here ya go, the story nearly four months overdue and seven years in the making of how P popped the question.

Always after a good adventure, The Great Urban Race National Championships took us to Puerto Rico this past December. It sounded like the perfect excuse to do a little exploring and a little vacationing not too far from home. When Patrick strained his ACL (again) we cancelled the race, but kept the trip.

Not to be completely sidelined, we found our way to renting a car for a drive to El Yunque National Rainforest. Not ones for plans, we didn’t have a trail picked out, opted out of the $2 entry fee (we’re known to be a little “thrifty”) for a map and we wound our way through the mountains, simply on the lookout for what might look like a good trail. When the rain picked up (who knew it rained in the rainforest?), we pulled over and settled for a less crowded route.

The trail we picked just so happened to connect to the main trail, leading us to the rainforest summit in a little less than two hours – much less than we had read online – our “give in” trail ended up being a rather sweet shortcut.

Soaking wet, in the clouds, without a darn thing to see, I insisted on a photo from the top of one of the rainforest’s many stone lookout towers (this one just so happened to look like a miniature castle which was even cooler). When it turned out terrible (perhaps it foreshadowed some nerves), I turned around to find Patrick on one knee.

After several “are you serious’s”, a “I think I might throw up” and a “yes” later, we were making phone calls, marching ourselves through the mud, avoiding slipping off of ledges held together with branches and heading for a dinner in a small seaside town. It couldn’t have been a more perfect moment, and trip, to represent everything we’ve loved most about our relationship over the past seven years.

While the last four months have been a whirlwind, it’s so exciting to see things getting crossed off the list and the vision coming together. The countdown to November is on!

A special thank you to Miss Lauren Carnes for the beautiful engagement photos, we cannot wait to have you capture our big day!