The future Stephanie McMorris?

So I had quite the exciting weekend. On Friday evening I got back from Sacramento and there was a rose on my car. There was a note saying this rose was lonely because his "friends" left him and Brett figured I could give it a nice home. When I got back to my house I found the rest of the "rose friends" on my porch which was a bouquet of 5 roses. Little did I know that there were 6 more to be found.

Saturday I had breakfast with Brett and then there was much to do in town. The annual holiday parade was taking place so I got to ride along on the float for the Church/preschool. Fort Jones was full of energy and everyone and their dog (literally) were there. Also, I think there were more horses entered into the parade than all of the other entries. (Maybe next year I need to enter Dixie as the Forest Service representative!) After the Parade in the evening our church hosts a free holiday dinner for the entire community. There was a good turnout of people from our church, other churches in the valley, and most importantly people who don't go to church and could really use the free dinner. After clean up Brett, Craig, and I watched a movie which might not have been a good idea if I would have known exactly what was happening the next day.

Sunday morning I went to church and Brett had told me not to plan anything for the rest of the day. I had kind of figured he was going to ask me today but wasn't entirely sure because he was still talking to the Munn's (senior pastor's family) about pre-engagement counseling. He gave me a card which was the first of the clues for the "rose" scavenger hunt. Leslie Munn had somewhat given away the first location..which was at their house, but it was a fun clue anyway. The card said to pay a visit to the household that I blame for getting God to move me here (They had been praying for a wife for Brett for almost 2 years and have been VERY supportive of our relationship!) We had hamburgers and then I was given the first of the six "missing" roses. The second stop was at Craig's house at Kidder Creek Camp. The significance of this spot was that the first rafting trip that I went on with Brett was a Kidder trip. My mom asked me if he was interested in me after this trip but I replied, "oh no Mom- we are just friends". (Little did I know he actually had an interest in me at that point.) The third spot was Mile Marker 6 on McAdams Creek road. There was a rose waiting for me in a tree. On our first date we went on a bike ride and turned around at this spot. The fourth rose was at the LeDuca's house which is a couple that we are friends with. One night after having dinner over there we were getting into the car to go home and that is where we first said "I love you" to one another. The fifth clue was to go to the Mexican restaurant in town. It was closed but Brett had the rose in the car with us. We went here the first week of dating and that is when I first knew that I really liked this guy and wanted to continue to get to know him. The last rose was at the Gottlieb's house. They are some other friends of ours who were instrumental in Brett and my friendship stage. We have bible study and game nights every week over there. After I had collected my roses we were supposed to go up to the Etna summit to get this great view but as it was snowing fairly hard Brett decided to just go back to his house. He took me to the front lawn, kneeled in the snow and asked to me marry him.

This has been quite the wild ride for me living out here in Fort Jones. New job, new place to live, and now I will be changing my lifestyle again to include a Husband! All I can say is that God is good and has directed me onto a path that is unusual, but I wouldn't trade it for the world! (PS, now I bet you are thinking-wow this was really fast! And yes it is, we got engaged exactly 3 months after our first date. And for those of you who thought Brett was going to my family's Thanksgiving so he could ask my parents to marry me- you were indeed correct!)

This was actually before he popped the question out on McAdams Creek road. I wanted to take this picture for my Christmas letter and now I am really glad I took it! The snow got several inches deeper before the evening was finished.