That Thursday evening I hid four puzzle pieces in Sandy’s living room and kitchen. But these weren’t just any old puzzle pieces. Keep reading to hear what they were. Despite hiding them without her knowing it, she found a piece almost right away. She didn't find the remaining three till the following evening. It was fun to have her find them. 

Each piece had lots of photos of the two of them over the last year on one side. On the other side were random lines and lots of fun messages. On the first pi

ece there were some instructions that read "Sandy, You have one of the first puzzle pieces of the 2012 puzzle challenge. Scattered throuhout your house are puzzle pieces. Find these to decipher the message. Love, Your secret Admirer." 

That weekend we went camping with my parents and another family. That Friday I hid several pieces, including in her Bible, in her jacket sleeve and under her pillow. It was fun having her find them, especially when she didn't expect it! At this point she was curious what the pieces were for, but she didn't know that I was going to propose to her this weekend! 

The following morning it was cold out. But I was ready to get out and run, so I did. I took along two puzzle pieces. I hid them while I was on my run. I came back and had breakfast. That day we had a fun time hiking around including out in the dunes. We decided to geocache, so I let Sandy find the first one. Geocaching is basically usings a GPS device to find a little box that someone hid (there's millions of them across the country). It's fun because the GPS gets you to the right place and then you need to poke around a look around to find it. Just like a treasure hunt. 

So, I gave Sandy my phone that would lead us to the geocache. It lead us to the top of a dune were she really quickly found this geocache. This one was different from usual since it was just a puzzle piece! It really surprised Sandy since she wasn't expecting to find something that had photos of us on it! This is one of the pieces I hid that morning. By this point she had almost all the pieces and we assembled the puzzle to see what the message was, but we needed more pieces to see what it said. It was fun looking at the front and seeing the collage of photos and talking about all the fun places and things we've done over the last year.

Later that night we went for a walk a bit before the sun was setting. We walked along the channel and out on the pier. As we got out there, I said we should go out on the rocks at the end of the pier so we can sit down and enjoy the sunset. As we did I helped Sandy (they're big rocks and a little hard to walk on) along the rocks and at one point I told her to make sure she has good footing and to look down. At that moment she looked down and found another puzzle piece hidden amongt the rocks. I had hidden that piece that morning, and despite the strong winds it was still there. Sandy was really excited at this point (and has said that she didn't have an inkling what all the pieces were for) and perplexed how I hid all these pieces around everywhere. So, I had her put that piece in my pocket, where she found the last and final piece. When she saw the back of that piece she could tell what all the pieces said. As she looked I got down and proposed to her, asking if she would marry me. As I did that I got out the ring (that I had nervously carried all day in my jacket pocket) and put it on her finger. She immediately and very excitedly said "yes"! What a happy and fun time. We were both all smiles, and very excited. We enjoyed the moment, took some photos and finished watching the sunset.