Rocky Mountain High

John and I usually exchange gifts together, no matter the occasion, but this year John asked me to open my present from him on Christmas Day.... without him. He finally had to stop asking & just TELL me to do it because I was not having it whatsoever. The reaction is the best part! He made me promise him that I would open it with all of my other presents from my family on Christmas morning; no earlier, no later. So of course my mind immediately starts going a mile a minute trying to figure out what it could possibly be. When the present finally arrived 3 days before Christmas, I still had no idea what it could be. I was even more clueless when i actually SAW the present wrapped up. Honestly - my first instinct was "it looks like a calendar....."

SPOILER ALERT.....

.....it was not.

So on Christmas morning, I chose to open his present first (duh), partly because I am about to die to know what it is. Thus begins our "photo narration" (thanks to debbie being a little too trigger happy with the camera).......

Yes, we often call each other by our first & last names....

At this point I could tell it was an old record.... I just was unsure of which record it was.

Notice how confused I look because I still do not recognize the record. I was also very concerned that this was some vintage-worth a ton of money-type thing and he had taped the paper straight to it.... there goes our chance at getting rich because this thing just went way down in value.

This would be the point when I am saying "I don't get it....... at all"

It was a record: Rocky Mountain High by John Denver.

I know the singer, as well as the song, but John & I have never even mentioned John Denver or this song in our 2 years & 9 months of dating. It has no sentimental value & does not register in my memory was significant. I actually have no memory of it at all. I start saying "He must have gotten John Denver confused with someone like Bob Dylan", whom I really like.

Then I open the record cover to find an envelope taped to the inside.

On the envelope John had written the following lyrics from the song Rocky Mountain High:


"He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see."

I opened the envelope to find two slips of paper.

Plane Tickets! It was TWO PLANE TICKETS TO COLORADO!!!

One ticket has my name on it & the other has John's name on it!

I was so excited about the tickets that I had forgotten to look at the date....

JANUARY 14th!!!!
This is my favorite picture from the series.

SO EXCITED for so many reasons!!!

1. I have never been to Colorado & I have wanted to go since I was in high school. Every picture I have ever seen from there has been BEAUTIFUL, so I have been asking John for a while if we could go. Our friends Jessie & Calvin moved out there last July and my first comment was "can we move there too?!" John's response was "you have never even been there." So i began begging if we could go visit because I was sure I would love it & stay forever. He appeased me by saying "Maybe in the spring."

2. We have spent the past year and a half of our relationship going to and from airports, to pick each other up or say goodbye. We have never flown together though. One of the first things I yelled after coming out of my state of shock was "We get to go through security together!!!". We spend a lot of time in airports, but we have never been able to go through security together for the obvious reason of you have to have a boarding pass. I am VERY excited that we get to fly together! I never like sitting by strangers on a plane... too much small talk and awkward brushing of arms.

3. We get to see Jessie & Calvin for the first time since they moved last July! That is why we are going specifically to Denver! It will be so much fun to stay with them and catch up on everything. They are such a fun couple and we were so blessed to both be a part of their wedding in Maine two summers ago.


4. I moved to DC on January 9th and we leave for Colorado January 14th. BEST WEEK EVER!! This is a great way to begin this next chapter of our lives together now that we are finally living in the same city.


I am hoping to see something like this when we are outside of the city.....


but I dont know if we will get THAT lucky!



So that was the story of the best Christmas surprise EVER :)



{ The End }

Comin' home to a place [s]he'd never been before.

-John Denver, Rocky Mountain High