Mark and Lina are engaged!

Hey all!!!

... We are engaged! On July 11, 2008 and took Lina up to a romantic little spot up in the Baldy Wilderness area called Ice House Canyon and asked her to be my wife. It was a spectacular day. Lina had just gotten in from Armenia the day before on a trip visiting her brother, Dominic. While she was gone I flew up to Woodland and talked to her folks and asked for Lina's hand in marriage. I had been planning to pop the question and was looking for the right time to do it... We had a good walk up the trail. I'll have to admit that I was pretty nervous. I came to find out later that Lina as a little hurt that I didn't even ask her how her trip had gone. I just had too much other stuff on my mind I guess. As we walked I could feel the excitement and nervousness rise in me. But Lina says that I covered it up pretty well. When we got to the top of the saddle we had a nice little cuddle time. At one point I looked her in the eye and told her that today was the first day of the rest of our lives. She kind of looked at me funny and thought I was just being weird. On the way down my pulse began to rise as I knew the moment was coming. We finally found this little quiet spot with a stream and little waterfall to "take a rest for a while." Lina started to take her shoes off and dip them in the stream. I instead called her over to a little rock and asked her to sit down. Now up to this point she did really not have any idea what was going on, but when I got down on one knee, her mouth dropped open and she realized that something big was happening. I told her some very intimate things that can be summed up in, "I can't live my life without you" and then asked her if she would marry me. She quickly responded with "yes, yes, yes!" We had a good hug and a good cry ... tears of joy! So now we are engaged! The journey has begun!!