The Cricket - The Night They Met

While dancing on a Saturday night they bumped into each other. Becca had been attending the Cricket for a while now and had somewhat mastered the line dances while Eli and Jenny were new and trying to figure it out. They both were watching Becca for guidance and Becca began to call out the moves to help them along. After the dance they all exchanged thank yous for the help and everyone went back to their designated areas with friends. About 30 minutes later Becca went to the bar for another beer and happened to run into Jenny. Becca explained that Jenny and her husband should come to the dance lessons on Thursday night as they are very fun and easy to learn from. Jenny laughed out loud and replied with “that is NOT my husband, he is just a very good friend”. Becca replied with a shocked “oh! Sorry, I just assumed since I saw your ring.” Jenny then happened to mention that this person - Eli, was single and asked whether Becca was single and looking. Becca explained that she was always open to options but that the person had to meet some criteria. Becca went through a checklist that included, has to have a job, love the outdoors, backpacking, hiking, camping, and so forth. Jenny immediately laughed and said “okay, you guys need to meet”.

Jenny brought Becca over to Eli’s group and they began to chat and instantly hit it off. As the night went on the two had interacted a few times and Eli attempted to pull Becca to dance multiple times. Each time though, other guys kept asking her to dance almost just as Eli approached the table. As Eli and Jenny sat against the railing and watched, they kept saying “no, she isnt liking the dance and she doesn't look like she is having as much fun as dancing with you!”. As the night continued Becca danced a couple more times with Eli working to show him the ropes. By the end of the night Becca had decided she was very interested and wanted to continue talking to Eli. She told him that in order to stay in touch she would need his phone number. Eli gave Becca his phone number and then Becca wrote the description for Eli as “6/10 Dancer” - this went on to become a running joke as well as the name of their joint playlist together on Spotify. With a side hug and a kiss on the top of the head the night ended and they both went home.

Eli, Jenny,and Nick all got an uber back to Jenny’s house where they had some late night snacks. During that period, the debate was on between the three of them; should Eli text her or wait to see if she texts him first. Nick was adamant that Eli should wait, but Eli and Jenny felt that it could go either way. And then “DING”, she texted Eli, and the rest is history.

Eli and Becca were confident that they wanted to get something on the books as soon as possible. It was memorial day weekend and both of them had plans to take the guns out to go shooting (coincidence? No one will ever know) so Sunday was out of the question so Monday became the next best option! They both arranged to get together at the old mill in Bend for some coffee and a walk by the river.

Old Mill - When Everything Changed

As they started walking the river loop around Old Mill, hard topics to discuss normally, seemed to come easy. They spent the 3 mile walk getting to each other's cores and values and what they wanted in the future. With each of their histories, they knew what they wanted to a “T” and when they found it, they both knew that there was nothing better out there. The level of open communication and transparency was nothing like they have ever experienced before and that day laid the foundation to their relationship today. After that day, they knew this was different, this was real and they were meant for each other.

The next day, and only after hanging out 2 times and a handful of texts, Eli came to the Results Imagery office and told his best friend Kyle “I am going to marry that girl”. While Becca came home and told her roommate Tori - “this is something very different, very real!” Tori looked at her like she was crazy but little did she know this was the beginning of forever!

Broken Top - The Proposal

A few months before the date, Eli had put a sunrise hike up broken top on the calendar. Becca noticed and thought, “that was odd”... A week before the “hike”, Andrew (brother-in-law) gave Eli some insight that she was on to him. As the week rolled up, Becca hurt her knee in the gym and Eli was insistent that we DIDN’T have to go on the hike to try to throw her off. Becca was doing exactly that. All she could think about was that if this was supposed to be THE hike, why was he being so flexible and lenient on whether or not they went. As they continued with the plan, 5am came around on September 23rd, 2023 where they set off on their 12 mile hike to the summit and back beginning in the dark with headlamps. As soon as they stepped out of the car, the smell of dense smoke was in the air from a nearby forest fire.

They began hiking and Becca noticed that Eli was hiking extremely fast. She was also wondering if this was going to be the hike and was looking for clues. Eli was on a mission to get to the top, knowing what was just ahead and about to happen, he was focused and pumping with adrenaline. It was about 30 degrees and he didn't feel a wisp of the air with how focused he was. As they hiked Becca stopped multiple times asking if they were actually going to take a look at the sunrise or just keep on trucking! While hiking they were eating snacks and retrieving items from the bags. Becca was being very observant looking for anything that looked like a ring box and wasn’t able to see anything. At this point she had decided that a proposal was not happening on this hike. As they continued to walk, Becca just kept telling herself “it’s okay if it doesn’t happen, it will happen when it is supposed to!”

As they continued their journey to the top, it started to get colder and windier. Becca had dressed expecting a decent amount of sun after the sunrise but with the smoke that had blown in over night, that was not the case. Once reaching the top Becca was shivering and miserable! Eli continued to insist that we didn’t have to take a picture and that we could totally head back down. This of course just continued to prove to Becca that the proposal was really not happening. In order to try and recreate their picture from the prior trip, they went down to a lower spot and worked to get the camera in position. All of the sudden the smoke began to clear out from the mountains, the wind died down, and they could see blue sky. During this time (photo evidence) Becca is hugging Barley to try and keep warm. As Eli approached to take the picture, Becca stayed hugging Barley. Eli asked if she was going to stand up which Becca did so reluctantly but also thought that was interesting and wondered why we wouldn’t just take the picture kneeling. In a matter of moments, Eli pulled Becca’s hands to the side and got down on one knee to propose with Barley sitting and looking right up at Becca as if asking alongside. After a sobbing yes! Beca and Eli took in the moment on Broken Top with a couple more pictures and decided to begin heading down as it was quite cold! As they began to walk away, the wind picked up and the smoke began to cover the mountains worse than it had before. As a good friend said after we told him “The mountains choose.”.