After our first date, I knew Kalahan was someone I was very much interested in getting to know more. I wasn’t much of a “phone conversationalist,” until day after day we had to call it a night at 3am because we couldn’t stop talking to each other. I’m a pretty goofy guy, and something I really valued about Kalahan from the start is that she truly loved me for who I was. Having recently gone through a tough breakup, I was open to dating, but I was still a little on the cautious side. It didn’t take long however to figure out that Kalahan was someone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. As a guy I kept thinking, “Gosh, am I taking this too fast? Do I need to slow my thought process down?!” But everything just felt…. right. They say “When you know, you know,” and in my case…. It was true.

Fast forward two short months from our first date (which seemed like forever though), it was time to talk to “Mr. Estoos.” On a cool Thursday morning over IHOP pancakes, I received Michael’s blessing to have his daughter’s hand in marriage. It was so reaffirming to know he was as excited as we were about our future. Now it was time for me to do some ring shopping. 😀 I knew what Kalahan had wanted based on a pair of earrings she wore everyday, and when I walked into Shane Co her ring was the very first one I saw. I was encouraged to look around some more, but I kept coming back to this particular ring (and I’m so glad I did because she loved it.)

For those of you who know Kalahan, you know it is hard to surprise her without her figuring it out beforehand, so I knew I had to be stealthy. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to propose along the hiking path up to Pittock Mansion as that was our first date. With the help of my younger sister, who is also a fabulous photographer (check out her work here: BriAnne Elizabeth Photography), we scouted out the perfect location, with the most perfect light. Little known fact about our relationship, when Kalahan and I began dating, we decided to save our very first kiss for engagement if that were to be in our future. It was quite difficult as my sweet little lady’s love language is physical touch and asked me on a daily basis to “just kiss her already.” I told her whenever she asked that she could anticipate us being able to kiss under a mistletoe (aka before Christmas.) That’s all she knew. I had the ring, I had the plan, now to put it into motion.

December 8, 2013 was the day. After spending that Sunday morning with my family at a Christmas cookie bake, I casually asked Kalahan if she wanted to do some shopping at Cascade Station. I threw out the idea of going on a hike to Pittock Mansion, however, Kalahan was in her Sunday best, wearing heeled boots, so I definitely had to do some convincing. Little did she know at this time, my awesome sister was scoping out the location we previously chose and hiding behind a bush with her camera. While Kalahan was looking at scarves in Maurice’s, I received a text from Bri’Anne, “Losing light, come quick!” I basically dragged Kalahan out of the store haha!

We finally made it to the designated location, and the setting as perfect as I had hoped. The sun was just setting, the lighting was that perfect magic glow (which you all know is Kalahan’s favorite thing). I stopped and told Kal to look up, “Oh what’s that?” I said. She looked up to find a mistletoe hanging from the tree, and by the time she looked back at me I was down on one knee.  I pulled out the ring from my pocket and asked, “Kalahan Kayla Estoos, will you do me the honor of being my wife?” She immediately said yes, and we shared the most perfect first kiss. And then I proceeded with one of my many puns… “Hmm… Kalahan Kayla Parkin, that sure has a nice ‘ring’ to it.” 😉