festive light fun

So these are from a while ago, but I hadn't started a blog yet, nor have I shared this special memory on this here blog, and what with all the reminiscing in lieu of new year's coming up and the glow of the holidays, it seemed like a good time. plus they're just fun pictures. So. the story. This photos were taken the night Ryan asked me to marry him. I can't really say that I knew it was coming, and especially in the way that it happened- it was later in the night and just the two of us, so I don't have any pictures, but here we are earlier in the evening, enjoying the Christmas Lights at the Mesa temple with my friend Lizzie.















We were down in Arizona visiting Ryan's parents, and since I went to high school around those parts I thought it would be fun for Lizzie and Ryan to meet. We had fun being wowed by all the christmas lights, and taking some longer exposure photos, and by then it was getting pretty late and Lizzie bid us goodbye. As we were heading home, Ryan asked if there was anything we still needed/ wanted to do while we were still out, and after a little while he suggested we check out an old building site we had discovered about a year ago when things first started getting romantic between us.








Up at the very top of a...ahem, forgive me- mountain? hill? mesa? whatever those things are in Arizona that are higher up than everything else but still aren't really THAT big in the grand scheme of things? anyway, up at the top of one of those was a very wealthy housing development, and at the highest point was a a huge halfway built villa/ mansion/ thing. A chain link fence surrounded the house, which had all the walls and roof up, but no doors or windows or real floors installed. Construction had been abandoned, and it had just been sitting there for quite a while. It felt like exploring a movie set, or some Roman ruins or something....the halls and rooms were surprisingly cavernous, and some unfinished parts felt like courtyards. The back opened up to a backyard with the skeletons of a pool, a swimming bar, and gazebo, with a spectacular view of the whole valley.

We explored and revisited different parts of the house and yard, and as we were heading back, Ryan took me by the waist and started dancing with me in the middle of the huge open hall. He twirled me around, pulled me close and told me that he loved me and asked me to marry him. He didn't have a ring or anything yet and said he wanted to talk to my dad properly first and then get one, so the next couple weeks I was kind of going crazy not being able to announce anything, but that night will always be a really special memory to me.