"Will you marry me?"

November 23, 2008 (Brooke's 18th Birthday) started out as a regular Sunday afternoon. Matthew and I decided to go geocaching- (to learn about geocaching click here). We were going to go find a couple caches and then go and meet up with a few friends to watch the Columbus Crew play in the MLS Cup. It was nothing out of the ordinary and I was just going with the flow of the day. We decided to head to the cache down by Griggs reservoir first, we drove back to a little parking area and then walked back a little trail in search of the cache. The cache was hidden up a little slope underneath the trunk of a tree that had fallen down covered up by bark. I was the one to spot the cache- I turned around to let Matthew know that I had found it. I was standing up on the little slope and he was just a few feet away from me and down a slight bit. I had asked him if he brought anything to switch out something in the cache with- his first response was "No, I forgot" (even though I had reminded him 10 minutes ago when we left the apartment) he then said, "well actually I might have something." The next thing I knew I was crouched down and he was in front of me on one knee with the most beautiful ring ever and asked "Tara Dawn, will you marry me?"

I was in shock! I looked at him and then at the ring, then back at him and then at the ring again. All the while thoughts were running through my head saying: "Oh my gosh is this really happening?" "This can't be happening!" "Matthew Strohman is seriously sitting in front of me with a ring!" "The ring is so pretty & so big!!" "Oh my gosh this is really happening!!" "Shoot, I'm supposed to answer him!"---so I looked up at him gave him a kiss and said "YES!"

He said it felt like 10 minutes before I finally answered him, it was probably more like 30 seconds. But nonetheless I said yes. He put the ring on my finger and we just took it all in for a moment. I then put the cache back in its place (and accidentally dug my beautiful new ring in the mud) and we headed back to the jeep to call our family and friends to share the good news.

We were in the woods without a camera so we have no pictures of the actual engagement but I will add a few pictures of my ring for those of you who haven't seen it yet.