Twenty-odd years of living in New Hampshire can't erase the fact that Sarah was born a Maine'r and will always be one. Early in the evening of August 14, 1972 she was welcomed into the world by her parents Clara and Harold (aka Whit Sr).  Her dad was so excited he went on and on about her and forgot to tell her uncle and grandparents whether she was a boy or a girl!  Two years later, her rule as an only child came to an end with the birth of her brother, Andrew.  Which wasn't really a problem until he grew bigger and stronger than her.

Just before Sarah started second grade the family moved to the coast of New Hampshire (yes, New Hampshire does have a coast - all 12 miles of it!). The next decade was a flurry of camping trips to Mt. Katahdin, canoeing on the Saco, Girl Scouts, swimming, summer camp on Pine Mountain, canoe trips to the Allagash and Canada, and youth group. 

The Maine connection came back into play when she decided to go to Bates College. As luck would have it, she was placed in a triple on the 3rd floor of Rand Hall. Which happened to be where a certain Steve Peters was the JA (Junior Advisor).  But more on that later. 

College was fantastic combination of hard work and fun. Clambakes, hiking trips with the outing club, AESOP, summers in the mountains of New Hampshire, swimming, midnight trips to Range Pond, streaking the quad, and a NOLS trip to Chile were all highlights.

Sarah spent the two years after college figuring out what she wanted to do with her life (or at least the next decade or so), besides winning the contest for living in the most number of places in the shortest amount of time. Eventually she decided to head back to school. After graduating from Yale with a master's degree in forestry in 1998, she worked for the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Assocation. 

This past spring she moved to Michigan to be with Steve (though if you told her 10 years ago that she would move halfway across the country for some guy she never would have believed it) and is now working for the Great Lakes Commission, a regional natural resource policy group.

Steve was born on May 30, 1969 and spent the first few years of his life in Glen Cove, New York.  When Steve was two, mom and dad brought home a second bundle of joy, John. Steve didn't like this new creature because he was stealing all the attention.  Steve promptly socked him one, right in the face.  Needless to say, Steve's younger brother got back at him for about 10 years after that because "he hit me!  he started it!" suddenly became a lot more believable.

Steve was an adventurous little tot. He liked getting outside and played continuously on the beach at Amagansett.  The connection with the ocean was firmly entrenched in this young boy, and persists to this day.  There also seems to be this connection to beer that persists through photographs from early childhood. 

When Steve was 5, the family packed up and moved from Glen Cove to Port Washington, NY, where the family remained through high school.  Always the inquisitive one, Steve wondered one day if he could start the electrical outlet the same way his parents started the car.  So...  he found a set of car keys, and stuck one into that little slot thingy in the wall.  The net result started Steve more than the wall outlet.  Maybe it jump started his brain, (or maybe killed a few too many cells) because from this moment on, Steve started a conquest to understand how things work.

Steve's junior high school science teacher, Mr. Jones, turned him onto the natural sciences and the subject matter seemed to keep his attention better than any other.  Summers during high school and the first few years of college were punctuated with a number of various summer jobs, including working at a marine retail store, a marine parts distributor, in a sweepstakes mailroom, an assistant to a farm manager, waiting on tables at a ski resort, and finally as a research intern for the AMC.

Steve started off at Bates taking one Geology class, and was bit by the natural sciences "bug" once again.  On the weekends, Steve enjoyed Outing Club trips, the AESOP program, editing and taking pictures for the Bates Student.

After graduating from college, Steve continued to work for the AMC for several years, and then decided to return to graduate school to pursue an advanced degree in the geosciences.  In 1995, Steve moved from North Conway, NH to Hanover, NH, and entered a PhD program at Dartmouth College with Doctoral Advisor Joel Blum.  After 4 years of study, Steve's advisor received an offer he couldn't refuse from the University of Michigan.  Steve was asked if he wanted to come along with Joel, and after a number of long discussions with Sarah, he agreed to go along.

Because of similar interests, Steve and Sarah participated in many of the same activities in college, the most prominent being the outing club.  They even had the same jobs in the outing club, just at diferent times.  In fact, at one point Sarah thought she was going to follow Steve through all the jobs in his life, as they both worked JA's and RC's at Bates, as coordinator's for the AESOP program at Bates and for the Appalachian Mountain Club collecting clouds on Mt. Washington. 

They started dating in December of 1994 (but don't ask them when, as neither of them are sure of the exact date).  Steve was living in North Conway, NH and working for the AMC, and Sarah was living with her parents in southern NH and looking for any excuse to get out of the house.  Sarah went up to visit and go hiking, and the rest is history.  The only difficulty was that Sarah was leaving two weeks later to go work in Hawaii for six months.  Between all the holidays they still managed to see a great deal of each other before she left.  Sarah's parents didn't think anything of the fact that Steve kept showing up at the house, and Sarah had to break the news to them that something might be going on.

Before Sarah left for Hawaii, they agreed that if things went well over the next few months they would drive across country the next summer.  Many letters ensued, and Steve went out to Hawaii for a visit. Things were still going well when Sarah returned to the east coast in June, so they headed west in an overstuffed Blazer (the problem with packing a vehicle in the Whitney driveway is that Clara unearth's a wide variety of  items "you must take" - such as a collapsable trowel used to dig a ditch around the tent - which were never used on the trip).  Highlights of the trip included camping in a very old tent that was big enough to stand in, eating fresh crab and oysters on the San Juan islands with friends from college, backpacking in the Tetons, Nutter Butters and chocolate frosting, hiking around Glacier National Park and visiting the Corn Palace.

So as to not bore you with the details of the next four years, fast forward to "The Proposal" in 1999.  During the time lapse Steve worked on his master's and PhD in geology at Dartmouth College, and made plans to finish his degree at the University of Michigan, and Sarah got her master's in forestry from Yale.  There were several trips to Hawaii to visit Muffie and Ron, a trip to Aruba with Sarah's family, living together in Hanover, a long distance relationship and lots of trips up and down Rt. 91, to name a few.

And that was all that was said about rings.  Until July.  Sarah and Steve had been planning on going backpacking the weekend of the 17th, but temperatures were predicted to hit record highs.  Instead, they chose to stay close to water and go kayaking on the Connecticut River.  They got to their site and set up camp, and decided to take another paddle, as the paddle to the campsite had been pretty short.  When they got back from their paddle, there was a family finishing up a swim at the campsite.  Sarah got out and pulled her boat up on shore, but Steve stayed in his boat, saying he wanted to practice his eskimo roll.  Sarah noticed he still had on his sunglasses and t-shirt, so she waded out into the water to retrieve these for him as they would impede the rolling process.  He wasn't making any motion to get ready for the roll, and Sarah wanted to know why.  "I want to wait until this family leaves," he said.  So, Sarah waited patiently, thinking it was a little strange that Steve was being shy about it, but not having any idea what was in store next.

The family finally left, and then Steve asked Sarah to open the front hatch of his boat, as there was "a rock or something in there" that was rolling around and driving him nuts (Good pun Steve).  When she opened the hatch, she found a bottle opener, a wine bottle, and a small tupperware container (Steve wanted to make sure it would float) with a silver wrapped package inside it.  When she opened the package and took out the ring, Steve said "Will you...".

Now here is where their stories diverge.  Sarah swears that Steve stopped talking, so she said Yes.  Steve says that Sarah competely interuppted him with her Yes, and wouldn't let him even get the whole line out before she answered.  And, since there were no witnesses, I guess we will never know the truth.

The next morning (after suffering through a night of loud, obnoxious, drunk people at the next campsite who were up until 3 AM), the two packed up their site and headed back to Hanover.  They tried calling Steve's family (in New York and Florida), but neither set of parents was home.  They finally got ahold of Jess to share the good news.  Because Sarah's parents live in New Hampshire, the happy couple wanted to tell them in person.  And, because Sarah's parents are always up for a meal with their childen, they agreed to meet them (not suspecting a thing) in Concord for a late lunch.

When Clara, Whit and Sophie arrived in Concord, Sarah was wearing the ring. She made a big point of petting the dog with her left hand, but no one noticed.  So they drove to the restaurant.  And Sarah made a big point of driving with her left hand on the wheel.  But no one noticed.  In the restaurant, Sarah made a big point of pointing things out on the menu with her left hand.  But no one noticed.  Except for Steve, who thought she was being way too obvious.  It wasn't until the food had arrived that Clara noticed the ring and screamed.  Loud enough so that the waitress came over to see what the problem was.  And when Clara screamed so out of the blue, Harold quickly realized what had happened.

An interersting aside to this whole story is that Steve actually had the ring (and the bottle of wine, complete with opener and glasses) in the tent the weekend before, when the two attended a kayaking symposium in Maine.  They even had a conversation with Joan Fink (Whitney family friend, one of the organizers of the conference, and kayak distributor with her husband, Ken) about how she thought it would be neat for a couple to get engaged and register for a kayak or two.  Sarah had no idea how close they were to taking them up on the idea!