Grey Mountain

The morning after I proposed to Chelsea, I told the kids about our engagement. Josh's response was, "bout time!". Apparently, he pressed "paste" on my computer one day in the summer and the words "engagement ring" popped up. Somehow he knew for months it was going to happen but was able to keep it a secret, pretty impressive. Jaylene hugged me and said, "Congratulations!".

Since then the kids have been giving us input on the wedding: the music (Josh thinks our wedding song should be "Hard Headed Woman" by Cat Stevens. He also suggested "Gotcha."), the wedding dress (Josh chose the dress he liked best and it was actually very elegant), the wedding location (They both suggested getting married on Vancouver island where their Uncle Mike was married), and even hairstyles (Jay thinks Chelsea should wear her hair down, because, as she explained, that's what she would do). Both Josh and I are looking forward to wedding cake.

Not long ago the four of us went on a 4x4 drive up Grey Mountain in our little Bronco II. We were trying to get up to where our proposal happened, but the road was a bit more than we could handle. Since the mountain is quite a bit higher in elevation there was a lot of snow up top. We more or less were following some previous 4x4 tracks up the road. At one point these tracks led off the road into a big mess of snow, ruts, trees and footprints. Needless to say, our truck tried to follow the tracks off the road...we stopped there and started walking. It was a nice day, but a cool stiff breeze really bit into the skin. The wind chill made it pretty cold and our watering eyes froze our teardrops to our cheeks.

The last few years we have been trying to take a family picture by going somewhere and holding the camera out so that the four of us fit into the frame. We thought that it would be fun to do it on Grey Mountain this year since it was so important to us. We also wanted to do it a bit differently so we waited until the true Yukon weather arrived: winter.

Our original plan to drive to the top of the mountain and hike to the spot where I proposed to Chelsea never happened. We couldn't get to the top of the mountain with the truck and the weather was too cold for us to hike comfortably. We just decided to simply find a nice place on the mountain with a good view of the valley and the proposal location. Chelsea and I pointed out the spot and walked the kids through how it all went down pointing at little bumps on the mountain while we all shivered in the biting wind.

Deja was having the time of her life out there. I don't think the weather bothered her one bit. She was up one side of the mountain and to the other in a flash. Every once in a while Chelsea reminds me that it was us and Deja on the mountain the day of the proposal and I think that having Deja there with us made it even more special. Deja is actually quite a good 4x4er. Normally she is packed in the back of the truck with all the random equipment we bring. Today she had a lot of space because we didn't bring much of anything.

It is pretty amazing that we can get to our special place so quickly. Just a hop in our truck and a beautiful hike!