utah new year

Burns was going to go to Utah to be with his brothers for Christmas and we decided that I would drive down with Kobe to be there for the New Year. We eventually decided that it would be best for Burns to stay in Calgary for Christmas and we would travel with Denise down to Utah on the 28th.

Monida Pass is almost always sketchy in the winter, but we made it through alright without even having to slow down. And it made for a good picture:

I was such a grump when we got to Matt and Steph's. I was tired and sore from snowboarding, so I took a nice bubble bath and felt way better. Sam, Burns and I waited up for Matt to get home from work at 11:00pm. Right after I said hi to him, I went straight to bed.

On Saturday, the 29th, we didn't have much planned. All I wanted to do for sure while I was down there was to go to the Temple Square Christmas Lights. We decided we would go that night. After a day of Costco shopping and eating out at Cafe Rio, we had supper and we were on our way to Salt Lake!

The rumours were true, the Christmas Lights are fantastic!

My favourite lights are the tree lights and there were no shortage of them there. I was in Christmas light heaven!

Burns and Rhett being superheroes:

We walked around for a little bit and then Sam told us that their Aunt Nancy would be joining us soon. As we headed over to where we were to meet her, Burns bought me some hot chocolate from a street vendor. It was delicious. While we were waiting for Nancy in a bookstore at City Creek Mall, Sam came in and told us he just saw some guy propose to his girlfriend in front of everyone at the mall!

We found Aunt Nancy and went back to the lights.

We saw this huge tree of lights and decided to go see it and get a family picture.

Aunt Nancy, Steph, Denise, Sam, Me, Burns, Rhett, and Capri.

Then Burns said we should get a picture of just us together up by the tree. He handed my phone to Sam to take the picture and we marched on up.

After the picture I was going to go back, but Burns was just standing there still. I was pretty sure I knew what was coming. He turned to me.

Pulled out a ring, and got down on one knee.

Then, with tears in his eyes, he asked me to marry him.

I nodded and couldn't stop smiling. I guess I was what they call "speechless". I didn't even say "yes" out loud, I just gave him a long hug. I think I might have whispered "yes" or "mhmm" or something but I vaguely recall hearing cheers in the background from his family and random people walking by. It was all so surreal.

We stood up and hugged even more.

Then I put the ring on and we went back down to his family.

I have a weird expression in this pic, but Burns looks so happy and cute.

Apparently Denise knew the whole time and was trying to get Burns to walk somewhere private with me to propose haha.

Showing off my new bling.

Yes, I was expecting it, but I was expecting to be proposed to on New Year's Eve. Good job, Boonie, you sure got me! And yes, I picked out the ring. Burns really wanted to completely surprise me, but everything just fell so perfectly into place when we went ring shopping for ideas that he just had to get it right then and there. I love it!

My feelings right after he proposed were kind of the same as before he proposed. It was just so surreal and I was almost disappointed with how he had proposed. Don't worry, Burns and I talked all about it afterwards so he knows all about my weird emotions on the matter. The more I thought about it, though, the more I loved how he did it. He was so sincere and the lights were so romantic! Even as I think about it now, I love it more and more. He's a keeper for sure.

I spent the next morning calling home and texting people to let them know the big news. I'm glad it was so close to Arianne's announcement that she is pregnant because we kind of had a little inside joke. I asked her about a year earlier when she was getting pregnant. She then replied that she would announce her pregnancy when I announced my engagement.

We haven't picked a date yet but we want to get married some time in the summer. 2013 is going to be a big year for the Leishmans and even the Harris'! Both Mandi and Steph are pregnant so I will have 3 new nieces and/or nephews by the time Burns and I get married.

Other than the engagement, the rest of the trip was quite uneventful in a really good way. It was so relaxing. It was also very nerdy. Sam got Burns the game "Pandemic" for Christmas and we learned how to play it on Sunday night. New Year's Eve morning we headed over to Luke and Mandi's for some crepes. We spent the day just hanging out and eating a bunch of great food. We visited a couple gun/hunting stores and it was crazy! Because of the recent shooting, people are going nuts and everyone is buying a gun! Scary.

When we got home we ate even more great food and we stayed up for the countdown. Luke even lit some fireworks on his front lawn. That was pretty cool.

On New Year's Day we all went to see "The Hobbit" and all of us thought it was pretty awesome. The next day we did a whole bunch more of nothing. Sam and Matt made a pretty great Hobbit dinner though. Then on Thursday Burns and I hung out with Matt and his kids. We got some "scones" at Sill's diner. Massive and pretty good until the last couple of bites when you want to throw up.

Matt and Rhett

We even learned that Elvis is not dead! We saw him! He's right there behind Rhett...

I wish we could have taken a better picture of him but there he is again behind Matt.

That night I was the nerdiest I've ever been. We played Dungeons and Dragons (the Drizzt Do'Urden edition) and it was actually pretty fun!

On Friday the 4th, Burns, Kobe and I headed home.

We made a stop at Burns' father's grave close to Blackfoot, Idaho. It was nice to finally see where his dad was buried. That must have been so hard for Denise to go through. She raised some pretty amazing boys though. I'm sure Rhett would be very proud of all of them. 

I had such a great time and I can't wait for our next trip down there! Hopefully we'll actually get some nice summery weather because I haven't seen Utah in its summer state yet. Thanks so much to Matt, Steph, Luke, and Mandi for feeding us and sheltering us. We love you and I can't wait to be officially a part of your family!