It was a cold December night...I was with my roommate, Chas, and Blake was with his old best friend, Mo. Chas and I had stopped at a friend's house and were hanging out waiting to head to the bar. As I was standing by the front door inside the house, Blake walked in (it was like a movie). I literally thought, oh my goodness, WHO is that and was immediately drawn to him. Chas and I asked to hitch a ride with Mo and Blake since they told us they were going to the same bar. When we got to the bar parking lot, everyone exited the vehicle, but Blake and I were still inside. He had a bottle of Jameson and a bottle of ginger ale. For some reason I was feeling brave and said, "may I have some?" He proceeded to only hand me the ginger ale thinking I only wanted a sip of soda (what the heck lol). I smiled and said no silly, "may I have a shot." The rest of the night I actually made most of the first moves; taking him to the dance floor and giving him my number (which was very out of character for me). One of the wildest parts about that night is the fact that Blake had tried to tell Mo that he didn't want to go to the house and said he could just take him back to his truck; but Mo insisted that it would only be a few minutes, so Blake agreed to go. Similar with me, I never went out. This night I finally said alright, let's go out. I truly believe the stars aligned that night. The connection was instant. From the moment we met, it has felt like we have known each other our whole lives. We have been best friends ever since then and our love has only continued to blossom. ~Shasta

This is Blake typing now...we were up in Tahoe at the cabin for a 4-day weekend in February and I had a whole plan to take her down to the dock (where I asked her to be my girlfriend) on Friday for sunset. I briefly mentioned to her earlier in the day that we should go catch the sunset and we both had a few things to do (her - homework and me - look busy). Time flew by and when I looked outside, the sun had already set. It was at this moment that Shasta said, "Oh man I guess we won't catch the sunset tonight." I frantically tried to persuade her to still go even though she explained to me there was 6ft of snow to get through, it was about 20 degrees outside, and the sun had clearly already set. With loving words, she said, "babe, we can make sure we see tomorrow's sunset". Being the Cancer I am, I couldn't hide my disappointment and anxiety, and quickly Shasta picked up on this; proceeding to ask me why I was so upset and trying to make me feel better, even though she was very confused why I was upset, yet also knowing how I can be moody out of nowhere. I was doing all I could to let it go and not let all my emotions show, but I also had her mom wanting a play by play and numerous text messages asking why I hadn't told her she said yes!! So sunset on Saturday was the new plan. Saturday came, it was a whiteout blizzard, and it had snowed 3ft outside all day long. Trying to hold back my now insufferable angst but failing miserably I said, "I really wanted to go out for a sunset and now twice we haven't been able to". At this point, Shasta is not really understanding why I am so upset because sure we get bummed if we miss a sunset, but it's not the end of the world, and this felt like THE END OF THE WORLD. She proceeded to say, "well babe, how about we wake up super early and make the hike down to the dock for sunrise?". GREAT IDEA!! Welp, we woke up to our alarms, it was still blizzarding and we both decided to just go back to sleep. F*** lol! We woke up, waited for the snow to stop, grabbed some Modelos, I put the ring in my pocket, and we headed down to the dock at 5pm. The sky was white, the ground was white, and there was no sun to watch set, but I am asking this girl to marry me! I was getting nervous and when I get nervous, I get quiet. Shasta took the lead again and said, "we should put on some music!". GREAT IDEA! Why didn't I think of that lol. I set up the camera and said, "let's take some pictures". I put the camera on record. I hadn't opened my beer yet and she had already started on hers. As she was dancing to the music and being silly, she noticed me with no beer and asked, "am I drinking alone here?" I replied, "I'll celebrate with you after."...then I got down on one knee and asked the love of my life to spend the rest of her life with me. And FINALLY, we were engaged! Oh, I must add the next morning was the most gorgeous blue bird skies you could ever ask for. We went down to the dock and took more photos!