she said...

 so Mark and I have been keeping a little secret...now that the family knows we will out ourselves to the facebook world and let you all know we are happily engaged ♥

 ~facebook message

we are back from an absolutely fantastic trip. not only did we have a delightful time, we had even more delightful news to share with our loved ones, both family and friends alike. it occurred soon after my last post.

we were hiking the kalalau trail. a hike i was later told is one of the top 10 hardest hikes in the usa, and rated 9/10 in difficulty. sigh. needless to say the reviewers were right. the combination of inclines, steep drops and (myself) dropping the camera in a creek, left us pretty weary (me a little worse than mark). things started to brighten up near the end of the day as mark set up camp in a nice solitary spot and we had supper under the sunset. we even saw some humpback whales breaching in the ocean.

the next morning being relaxed and feeling MUCH better, mark and i sat on a part of a wall that composed a heiau built by hawaiian natives long ago (mark wrote that bit...totally doesn't sound like me, he he he). i have to admit (although i really hate being a mush) it was an absolute perfect day. huge blue sky, sun shining, ocean in the background (with more whales surfacing) and being totally isolated from much of humanity. we sat there taking it all in when mark got up and said "tracey i love you, if you are willing to come here with me, then i will go anywhere with you. will you marry me?". then he got down on both knees with a ring in one hand. i wonder what my answer was...;)

YES! a very happy day. nothing more to say. pure bliss!

i later told him jokingly that i would be more than willing to go on more hikes if i have the promise of more shiny things in my future...we shall see about that one!

i hope you enjoy our mushy story, i promise i won't get totally mush on all of you in the future. however, mark did say we are allowed to be like this since we just got engaged!

love