and Cindy Updyke suggested that we get a copy of the material that we were using in our pre-marital counseling and give it to her dad, and we should essentially not take no for an answer from her dad; even if it meant getting married without his blessing. Praise God we did not have to go that route. Somehow I managed to meet all of his qualifications, and Katie and I are both very thankful. Thank you Dad. Now that I had the permission to ask Katie, when should I ask her?

Everything was in place, I had the ring, I had permission. But now I had another problem. The stone in the center of the ring was to commemorate the month of our wedding which originally was going to be June 6th - 6 months after we had started dating. That was not going to work anymore since we were now going to get married just after Christmas. What was I going to do? Then it hit me - commemorate our 6 month anniversary of dating with the engagement ring. But as I was to find out that was not to be

either. We had a wedding to go to on June 6th. Now what was I going to do!

I was pondering and pondering how I could incorporate the stone into an event, and the Holy Spirit interjected yet again with a great solution. What He laid out was something that I would not have thought of on my own. I was born in June. The reason that I originally liked the stone was its ability to change color due to changing light conditions. An engagement ring is a promise from the giver to add a wedding band.

So the Spirit told me "You are giving her a piece of your heart. That is why there is an Alexandrite stone in the center."

Okay now I had a reason for the center stone. I needed a place for the event to occur. I was thinking of a place that Katie and I had visited several times before. It required a hike to get there, but the reward at the top was well worth