To start my story, I need to explain that I have two brothers in the Marine Corps who both fly helicopters. To Bill's surprise, I'd never flown in a helicopter, even after working for the Helicopter Association International!

I am from Arizona so I was spending Christmas at my parent's house. Bill's from Maryland so he met me in Arizona after Christmas, and then we both headed to Las Vegas for New Years, where Bill's family was already checked into hotels to enjoy the New Years festivities.

New Years Eve we woke up and Bill suggested that we take a stroll down the strip and that I should put comfortable walking shoes on. That sounded like a fabulous idea. So, we departed the hotel on a beautifully sunny morning. Before I could put my sun glasses on, I heard, "Mr. Smith?" coming from a parked limo.

It was for us!

We climbed in and all I was thinking was... "okay, what's going on here??!!" After about 20 minutes of anticipation, the divider window slid down and the limo driver said, "we're about 10 minutes from the heli-pad!" The HELI-PAD!

We were dropped off and registered for our helicopter flight. I was thinking to myself how sweet it was that Bill was gifting a first helicopter flight to me for New Years! Little did I know what was to come!

The helicopter flew over the Las Vegas strip - and started flying east ... over and INTO the Grand Canyon. Then, our helicopter perched in the canyon, allowing Bill and I to walk around and take pictures of the amazing scenery. There were cliffs above and below us, we were perched half-way down. It was amazing. I was kneeling down, capturing cacti and the canyon scene when Bill took my hand and led me to a secluded spot.

And right there amidst the immense red rocks – with canyon wind twirling through my hair, and with the sun rising over the cliffs, Bill kneeled down, took off his cap, and proposed. I was so excited, I fell to my knees too!

Upon walking back to our helicopter, our pilot was uncorking a bottle of champagne for us! And on the helicopter flight back to Vegas, he kept joking that my ring was blinding him and that he was having a hard time flying the helicopter!

As you can imagine, Bill's family threw a huge celebration for us - and I felt like a princess the entire day. To this day, no one has 'trumped' my proposal story!

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