during the Hocking Hills trip, mike asked rena to marry him at Conkle's Hollow! it will forever be a special place for us.

a fun little story about the proposal:

mike had planned to propose to rena at a beautiful clearing overlooking the valley. we passed three of those cleanings, but mike didn’t think they looked like the one in the pictures he saw on the internet, so we kept walking. finally mike realized that those were his opportunities, that he missed, and decided on his back-up plan to hike to “airplane rock.”

we wandered off course to attempt to find this airplane rock, but after taking too many forks in the road, we decided it was a lost cause because it was getting late and we didn’t want to be lost at dark..

after making it back to where we veered off course at Conkle’s Hollow, mike asked rena if she wanted to go back the way we came (past the beautiful clearings we already saw) or continue on the rest of the trail. of course, rena thought it was silly to go back the way we already came from and wanted to finish the rest of the trail. mike simply wanted to go back to his proposal spot.

we made it to a really pretty green and rocky area that rena wanted to take pictures of, so she asked to use mike’s phone since he had the better camera quality. she wandered ahead taking pictures, while mike was behind preparing to ask one of the biggest questions of his life!

when rena turned around to give him his phone back, there he was, all teary-eyed, on one knee, with the most beautiful ring. it's a core memory she hopes to never forget.

an older couple caught the tail-end of our engagement and wanted to take our picture. they ended up sharing that they were there celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, which made the moment even more special... celebrating the start of our life together with people celebrating 50 years together.

the entire day makes us laugh simply because it was so beautiful and perfectly imperfect, just like our love!

R&M