Best Christmas Cities: Our Engagement

I was walking the gardens of the Biltmore, or what I would like to call the piazza as there was really no "gardens" there, just rocks and some statues. I was taking pictures of the Biltmore when Michael waved me over to this beautiful little gazebo overlooking the mountains - "Come look - it is so beautiful over here."

It took me a few minutes to come over as I was trying to take some artsy pictures with the camera. After a few good shots I walked over to look at the mountains. When I was looking out over the wall a gift appeared in front of me - "You get one more present on this trip", Michael said as he presented to me a wrapped rectangular Christmas gift (Before we left on our road trip he gave me an iPad so I could blog and browse the Internet during the days on the road - thus is why he said "one more").

I was really surprised as I was totally not expecting another gift since he did such a great job with the first one. When I opened the present, it turned out to be a scrapbook that Michael created via an Apple scrapbook program through iPhoto. When I flipped through the book I came to realize it was a collection of photos we have taken on all of our travels together with sweet captions that marked almost every page - such as "I love this girl so much!" and "We have had some great times together". And of course Michael had a couple misspellings, which I caught right away - but you know, I LOVED IT because that is him. It brought even more character to this wonderful gift.

Toward the end I stumbled upon a world map with the caption "Are you ready to travel the world with me Ashley?" and the next page said "Are you ready to sail the world with me Ashley?" I started getting an inkling that the next page was going to ask me probably one of the most important questions I will ever hear in my life - my heart started pounding and I flipped the page:

"Ashley... Will you" - I turned to Michael and was like "Seriously?" (But of course in an excited way). Michael said "Turn the page!" - So the next page finished this amazing question with "Marry Me?" - I turned to my right and Michael was on his knee asking the question over again - and without hesitation I said "YES!"

We hugged and kissed, and started crying (tears of joy of course!). This lady who was right by Michael finally realized what just happened - "OMG Congratulations! Let me take some pictures!" as she pretty much grabbed the camera off of Michael. The pictures of the mountains behind us were the photos she was able to capture.

And a great part to this story is that literally a few seconds after Michael proposed at the Biltmore, a woman came out wearing a wedding dress, with photographers following behind, as 12/18/2011 was her wedding day. Talk about an AMAZING omen!