Karl Proposed on Buckaroo Trail at Winter Park
on February 19, 2005

Karl had been planning on the perfect, unexpected day in which he would propose. Kelley Marie was thinking it just might be Valentine's Day, but Karl had better plans. So the Friday after Valentine's Day, Karl, Kelley Marie and friends went to the DU hockey game, a kind of going away for their friend, Stephen. Stephen wanted everyone to go to a bar after the game, but Karl kept saying "no we have to get up and ski in the morning". However after a lot of pushing, they all went to the bar. Karl kept insisting on only having one more drink while Kelley Marie kept telling Karl that this would be one of the last days to spend time with Stephen. Finally Karl had to remind Stephen that the next day, he was going to propose so that Karl and Kelley Marie could leave.

The next morning, Karl got up very early, gased up the car, packed the car and woke Kelley Marie up. There was no way he was going to let Kelley Marie talk him out of going up. So off they went, up to Winter Park to ski. They arrived about 1 hour before the lift even opened.

After about 3 hours of skiing, Karl kept working his way over to where he wanted to propose. Kelley Marie started getting tired and was standing in the line to get on the lift one last time. All of a sudden, as they were ready to get on the lift, Kelley Marie fell over while Karl got on the lift. Of course, the lift had to be stopped and many people had to help Kelley Marie get up. Karl started laughing and announcing "that girl is not my girlfriend". Once everyone got on the lift and it started up again, the laughter continued.

Once off the lift, Karl kept trying to get Kelley Marie to go on this one particular ski trail, Buckaroo Trail. Karl was skiing in front of her, which was not uncommon, so Kelley Marie didn't think anything of it. All of a sudden, Karl stopped and faked an ankle injury. Once Kelley Marie got to him, he had his skis off and knelt down to "check his ankle". At that point, Karl came back up with the ring box and asked "Kelley Marie would be my wife." Shocked as ever, Kelley Marie said "YES!" Karl knelt down on his knee and put the ring on her finger, and about six skiers ran by them and started hootin' and howlin'.

Of course, when you want perfection, something always goes wrong, Right? Well the batteries to their camera were dead and had no backup. A man who had seen the proposal from the chair lift, skied down to us to congratulate them. Asked if he could take their picture, and we sorrowly said our camera didn't work. The man asked them if they had email and proceeded to take several pictures on his own camera, promising to email the pictures to them. And as you can see above, they received the pictures and were so very pleased.

After Karl and Kelley Marie settled down, they skied back to the car to call their parents. On their final lift up to the top of the mountain, a F-15 fighter jet flew over Winter Park, making an exciting finish to this wonderful event.