The Story

Well, I figured I had better explain a few of the comments in my last post, especially the one about being engaged! Let me start with the shorter story first though.

The short story is the one about the moose. So, I am in Alaska now, the last frontier, where the moose outnumber the people by quite a lot, and some town have more huskies for dogsleds than they have people. I live in a fairly quiet apartment in the middle of Anchorage, which is a sprawling city of 280,000 people. Despite the populated nature of the area, the moose are still quite well represented residents of this area as well. Yesterday evening, as we were all relaxing at the end of the day, one of my roommates, Robert, came in and asked if we wanted to see a moose. Seeing as we are not from here, all of us wanted to see one. We grabbed our cameras and followed him out the door, and around to the back of the building. As we came around the corner, there was a moose, kneeling in the grass, and just eating. He was quite aware of us, but really did not seem to care. He was hungry, and just kept munching on the grass, despite being the target of quite a few cameras. The neighbors, who are natives to this area, found our excitement over the moose rather amusing. It sort of gave away the fact that none of us are from this area. I will post some of the pictures we took at a later date.

Now I will tell the engagement story. It actually starts several weeks ago, when Karen started asking me what was going on with Rachelle and me. I was startled the first time she asked that, and told her not to worry about it. She kept asking me from time to time about Rachelle and me, and I kept telling her not to worry about it, or I would change the subject. Finally, Karen threatened to ask Rachelle, since I was not giving her any information. I left before Karen did, and flew to New York, and then took the train on to Boston. I stayed in New Hampshire for a few days before Karen got there, and in that time I had the opportunity to talk to Rachelle. By this time, Karen had arrive on the train in New York. As I talked to Rachelle, we talked about how Karen was suspicious of something, because she kept asking about us. Rachelle then mentioned to me that Karen had indeed asked her about it, as she was boarding the train in Provo. Rachelle had just changed the subject and did not really say anything on the subject.

Well, Karen caught up with me in New Hampshire, and kept asking me about it, and I kept telling her not to worry about it, or I would change the subject, just as I had done before, and she threatened to ask Rachelle again. I guess that did not bother me, because I knew she had done it before. I was actually at lunch with Karen and Steven and Mom with all this went down. I guess Karen asked Rachelle again via text message. Rather than change the subject or avoid the question, Rachelle decided to just tell her that we were actually getting married. She then sent me a message to give me a heads up of this. I actually did not get that message until after Karen asked me about it. I just agreed with Rachelle, and then got that message later, telling me that we were getting married. Later that afternoon, I was talking with Rachelle, and we decided that November 22 sounded like a good day, and we would do it in Manti, Utah. Upon looking at a calendar, we realized that the 22nd is a Sunday, so that will not work, so we moved it to the 21st. Since I have arrived in Alaska, Tim has also been asking what has been going on with me and Rachelle, and I pretty much answer him the same way as I do Karen. Without me telling him anything about marriage plans, he has pretty much decided that we are getting married. He thinks we talk quite a lot on the phone, and text all the time, which we do I guess. That is the story. I guess if I really wanted to make it official I would need to get her a ring and get down on one knee, but I don't think this is serious, and I am 3,100 miles away from her now!