Amie and I are finally engaged! Since she is going out to Egypt at Christmas (only time this year) to visit her parents, it was highly probable that this was going to happen sometime in December (but most people didn't see it coming). Let me answer the big three questions that everyone asks us: when is the big day?, who helped Steve (apparently incapable) with that ring?, how did it happen?.

Ok the big day is going to be this coming summer. I think next weekend sounds good but I'll let Amie take over those kinds of arrangements. No one helped me at all with any engagement arrangements including ring shopping because I am highly educated (now) in those areas :)

I am only going to give the extremely short version of the engagement story because you have to ask me yourself to get the details. Here's the gist of it: I took Amie out of the city a fair distance where I was sure there would be no one around. We went for a nice walk in the hills and then Amie noticed the big letters on the side of the hill that I had carved out of the snow beforehand. Nearby there was a path of flowers and candles. After some bribing with chocolate and tea she agreed to marry me!

On the way back from a trip to Calgary, I decided to take Amie on a little detour. She of course thought we were going to more ghost towns. I had a different idea in mind.

I had saw on the map that there were these "great sand hills" in Saskatchewan, whatever that means. Unless you actually go looking for them, it is kind of hard to believe that there could possibly be sand dunes in Saskatchewan.

There are probably many access points but south of Scepter by the town of Leader is the place where we chose to go. I think a 4WD would have been the best option as we kept bottoming out the car. Anyway, the terrain started to change and before we realized, there were patches of sand dunes (some of them were quite large!). Who would have thought!!

-steve-

Amie and I went out to visit some friends in Calgary. We had a day off so we went hiking with Chantelle to Cascade mountain in the Rockies. The hike to the amphitheater starts at the Norquay ski hill and takes a good 2 hours to wind up the mountain. The hike is pretty cool cause you are hiking through these trees for like an hour and a half getting all depressed and then you come out into this beautiful, peaceful bowl. From there, the trail leads up to the the summit.

-steve-