The Proposal
So this is a bit of a story, but first a little background. Lauren had made plans to go to Skytop lodge up in the Poconos on the weekend as a surprise gift for her family. Skytop was a place they visited with her grandmother when they were younger, and Lauren had been telling me stories about it for months. I learned about how she and her brother used to play putt-putt in the basement, and how she and her grandmother used to sneak out to watch weddings in the courtyard. Lauren loved the place, and I was looking forward to going and giving her the only gift I’ve managed to give her without her figuring it out first. Lauren and I had been talking about getting engaged for a few months, but I kept telling her that it was awhile away (couldn’t afford a ring, what’s the rush, yada yada yada). Little did Lauren know that I had talked to her parents and her brother and already had a ring picked out and waiting. Just to avoid her guessing what was going to happen, I decided that we should go ring shopping the weekend before our trip. (I actually wanted to confirm the ring size one more time since the jeweler was finishing up the ring that weekend.) We had an interesting day of looking at rings that neither of us really liked, and went home to get the house ready and pack for the next weekend. I’m still pretty confident that the only reason I got to get in my surprise was that Lauren was so excited to surprise her parents with where we were going for the weekend.
So we got to Skytop, and the place was great. We stayed in cabins that were right up against the golf course and a short walk from the main lodge and everything else that we were going to do on the weekend. After we checked in and got unpacked we toured the lodge, and started to plan what we were going to be doing while we were there. Lauren took me out to the courtyard she watched with her grandmother, and it was beautiful and had an awesome view of the mountains.
We went back to the room and unpacked and decided we were going to have dinner in the lodge, in the main dining room. Apparently the guys were slow getting ready (still not sure how that happened), but Lauren and Vaughn were outside starting to walk up to dinner. Normally not so much of a problem but I had a question I wanted to ask Lauren. 
I managed to convince them to wait up for the guys and we all started to walk up do dinner, but then Lauren and Stefan started to walk away chatting. I managed to drop enough hints that Stefan realized what was going on and slowed up so that we all caught up together at the gate to the courtyard. As I delicately took Lauren’s arm (could be read as tackled … you’ll have to call and ask) and started to walk slowly with her, her parents and brother made it into the building for dinner as after we got up to the seating in the courtyard I got on one knee and asked her to marry me, and told her I hoped we could make amazing memories together, too. She was apparently caught off guard and asked me if I was serious LOL. I slipped the ring on her finger and she said yes. After emotions had calmed down a little we went inside to join the family for dinner. She sat down, collected herself a little more and realized that I had got her “the ring”. She had sent me a link to it a few months earlier and never mentioned it again cause I told her that I could never get her a ring that she had picked out. After she calmed down from that we had a wonderful dinner, and went back to the cabin where we had champagne that her mom had smuggled into the room without Lauren knowing.
The next day we had a “food tour” around the lake where they had different food at stations along a trail, and that is where Lauren’s mom (Thanks Vaughn!) snapped this great picture of us an an engaged couple!
