On the morning of December 14, 2024, Asia and I drove up to the Colorado mountain town of Evergreen. Asia had given me a scare earlier in the morning with a text saying that we would need to cancel our lunch date plans because a friend of hers was unexpectedly in town. Then a minute later the scare was defused with a follow-up saying “Disregard” as that friend was merely mischievously announcing her layover in the Denver airport.

The drive up into the front range mountains was fairly normal, and we arrived at Murphy’s Mountain Grill for lunch. I snuck a couple texts to my friend, Micah, who was teaming up with his girlfriend, Victoria, to capture the moment from an obscured location nearby where the proposal was to happen. We ate some great food and headed back to the car… well actually past the car. I declared to Asia that we were going on a little walk, but we would be back to the car in time to make it to our afternoon plans. “Downtown” Evergreen is about a half-mile long with some shops lining both sides of the street. At the end of the strip there is a beautiful lake with a path around the outside. Asia is a huge fan of any source or body of water, so I thought that would be a fitting place to ask her to marry me. Everything was going smoothly and subtly until we mistakenly bumped into Micah’s mom in one of the shops. Mary is a very sweet woman from whom one would not expect skullduggery. She came up with a good enough alibi for why she was alone in Evergreen that actually convinced us both for a moment. As we were leaving Mary asked where we were off to, to which I replied too eagerly, “the lake”. From then, Asia had put together the pieces and played along until the inevitable came about.

About half a mile around the lake, there is a small peninsula jutting into the frozen lake. Though the day is almost hot, the temperature drops so precipitously through the night that the beautiful surface that reflects the surrounding mountains was instead covered by ice huts inhabited by fishermen. Nonetheless, it made for a great place to fondly remember an important milestone in our relationship. I softly and shakily read through a poem that I had written about some of the shining qualities I see in Asia all the time, asked her to be my wife, and she agreed! The rest of the afternoon and evening was filled with a tour of a wedding venue and a walk through a light show at a park near where Asia used to attend college. An all in all success!

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