Since all of you know us pretty damn well already... let me just get to the part of the story that is the proposal.

It was the week before the 4th of July, 2020. Nick and Stevie decided to plan a short one- or two-day camping trip on the long weekend coming up. They decided to try a new camping style - shoving an air mattress in the back of Stevie's SUV along with a few essentials - and see how that goes. Very fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants style. Well after a five and half hour drive up to the Mount Shasta area in Northern California, it was time to find a place to camp for the night. Down the bumpy dirt roads, they go (Stevie driving of course!). Finally after about an hour of searching, they find a nice spot up (and down) a long twisted dirt road with only one other couple nearby with a big plus... it was next to a pretty river! Since it was starting to get dark and camp had been setup, Nick decides cooks dinner and Stevie preps for bed... After having to perform a few gymnastic tricks to get in the car with the inflated air mattress, it was sleepy time... or so was thought.

They stayed up for a while just asking each other random questions that popped into their heads. But eventually the night came to the worse sleep ever. Both of them wake up every two hours... which is normal for Nick but not so for Stevie. 8:00 am finally rolls around but Stevie is exhausted, the air mattress has deflated, the inside of the car is hot, and the mosquitoes are back already. Nick gets Stevie to move into the bug-proof hammock with a blanket and her pillow and rocks her back to sleep. Meanwhile Nick takes a short hike around the area. Around 10:30 am, Nick wakes Stevie up to see what she wants to do for the day. Stevie says "Let's go for a hike." So they clean up camp and go for a hike, down the rest of the dirt road to the trail next to the river. After heading a little ways down the trail, Stevie decided to take a break and sit in the shade for a bit while Nick continues on down the trail to try and get closer to the water. After about fifteen minutes of sitting in the shade, Stevie decided it was time to go find where Nick had wandered off to.

She yelled his name twice with no response. She got a little worried that he might have fallen in the water, so off she went to find him. She found him further down the trail near a small rocky, sunny shore. He asked her to come touch to the water since it was so nice and cool. She refused at first but gave in to his puppy dog eyes. So there they stood holding each other, swaying back and forth just asking each other questions again. Standing in the sun was getting a bit too warm so Stevie grabbed Nick's hand and walked down the trail to a even smaller rocky but shady shore. They went back to asking their questions and Nick asks, "Stevie, will you be my adventure partner for life?". This sets all the alarms off in Stevie's brain. She starts over-analyzing and overthinking every detail of the situation to try and figure out if Nick is going to do what she thinks he might be or if she is just being silly. Then Nick lets go of Stevie and Stevie thinks he has gotten bored since she has zoned out so he is going to travel further down the trail or something. But then he starts to kneel down... surely he is just going to tie his shoe since they weren't laced well earlier.

Nope... out comes a dark wood ring box. Stevie's senses have left her for the most part - she is able to make out the silver opal ring and Nick but not much else. Her brain still running faster than light to process everything and her heart has either stopped or is beating so fast she can't feel it. Nick asks her "Stevie, will you marry me?" Stevie looks down at Nick's fingers and sees they are shaking... Stevie immediately thinks 'Damn! I haven't answered yet..!' She says yes - in what language, we will never know for sure... Nick pockets the ring and stands up to hug Stevie. Stevie hugs Nick back and then goes limp against him. They laugh and talk about how it felt like an entire three hours passed for Nick and only a few seconds for Stevie.