Our Engagement Weekend - an Ooey Gooey Lovefest!

December 2004
J and I have been friends for about 7 months now.  We act like a couple, but I am not ready for another relationship. 

January 2005
I fit nicely in his arms.  He makes me happy.  We have a lot of fun together.  Okay, he can be my boyfriend now...but I'm not asking.

February 13, 2005
We take a little trip to Frankenmuth.  We plan to stay the weekend.  On this day he asks me to be his girlfriend.  I say yes.  I like him.

We carry on about our life together...as boyfriend and girlfriend.  A year passes.  Then two, three, four and five.  Wow.  Five years.  We act like a married couple, but he's not ready for a wife, I guess.

February 13, 2010
We take a little trip to Frankenmuth.  We plan to stay the weekend.  It's our 5 year anniversary and J surprises me and takes me back to where we first started dating.  He asks me to be his wife.  I say yes.  I LOVE HIM. 

Here is how it all went down....

We are just leaving our hotel to walk around Frankenmuth.  Aren't we cute?  I take a lot of photo's of us this way.

We walked and talked.  I mentioned the horses.  J mentioned the horses.  What girl doesn't want to go on a horse-drawn carriage ride?  We kept walking and talking. He brings up the horses again and I say that I want to go for a ride.  I wanted a white horse.  Oh please can we have a white horse?!  They have to go in order and to my delight, a white horse was next in line.  J is oftly chatty, asking one of the attendants about pictures and stuff.  I figured he was just being sweet, since this is our five-year anniversary and all.  We get in and the girl offers to take a couple pictures.

We're riding along, up a river-lined road.  I've never been on this quaint little road in all the times I've been to Frankenmuth.  I bet I'll visit it quite a few times in the future.  I'm happy and J seems happy.  I snap another photo of us.  It looks very similar to the first one in this post except our eyes are a bit glossier and our noses are red.  I lean in and tell J that I feel like a princess.

Our driver introduces himself (and also the horse, Ernie) and tells us to ask any questions along the way.  J  asked if we could stop along the way for a photo.  Our driver happily obliged.  As J exited the carriage I heard him whisper to the driver.  I was oblivious but hopeful...do you know what I mean?  He stopped me from exiting the carriage and he knelt down on the step.  He put his hands on me and I froze.  (I have tears typing this out.)  He looked me in the eyes and said....

"First of all, I love you...very much." .... insert tears...he pulls a little black box from somewhere..."Will you marry me?"

I can't even tell you what I felt.  It was such an amazing feeling.  I want to relive it a thousand times over.  I think every little girl dreams of this moment.  No matter how old we are, we all have a bit of that "little girl" inside.  I really did feel like a princess.

As you know, I said YES!  To be exact, I said "Of course! Are you kidding me? Oh my gosh, YES!!"  Then I said "let me out of here!"  I was still inside the carriage and he was outside.  This moment was followed by a lot of laughter and tears.  We hugged and cried and kissed and laughed.  Ernie (the horse) peed.  HILARIOUS.  That is our life.  I debated whether or not to include this, but yeah, it's our life.  We roll with it.  Our driver congratulated us and we carried on for the remainder of our ride.  I wanted to take it all in and enjoy the moment.  We snuggled.  We laughed.  We shouted out to this family walking by and waving to us -  "We just got engaged!!" 

At the time it felt like the longest horse-drawn carriage ride ever.  I wanted to enjoy it, but I also wanted to call my momma and my sister.  J knew that so he encouraged me to call.  I did.  "Momma, I'm ENGAGED!"  *sob* *sob* *sob*  She knew.  J had talked to both her and my dad prior so they knew that phone call was coming.  We enjoyed the last few minutes of our ride.  When we got back one of the attendants greeted us right away.  She knew too.  J told her before we left.  She was ready to snap some pics for us.

Our first pic as an engaged couple!

And our second!

 

Talk about giddy.  I could not stop smiling.  This was the case for the majority of...well... it continues.  Still smiling!  Before I even crossed the street I was dialing my sister.  I needed to tell my Beckey.  I stopped in the middle of the street and told her.  When something so great happens in life, you want to share it with the people who mean the most to you.  I was doing that.  I even talked to my niece and nephew. You know...the people that mean the most! My sweet 10 year old niece said "so..did you say yes?" Yes, Lovey Girl, I did! "Well, that's exciting!" Awe. Love her so! Here is the conversation between my 6 year old nephew and I.

Me: Hi buddy! Guess what?
Him: What?
Me: Uncle J asked me to marry him today!
Him: Okay
Me: You don't really care, do you?
Him: Nope..not at all. So, how many days can we spend at your house over summer vacation? 17?? 100??

Man, I love that kid!

We shared the news with some more friends and family. We squee'd and jumped up and down together, over the phone.  We called, we texted, we facebooked.  Okay, well, I did all that.  J shared it with a few and plans to tell people in person.  Um, I.could.not.wait.  We went back to the hotel and we continued to share the news.  We relaxed a bit before going back to town.    He pulled out the ring bag.  I thought it was silly, odd, cute that he had it all with him, until I realized the reason, and then I cried again.  He knows how I feel about diamonds.  Due to the conflicts in Africa and blood diamonds, I am not a fan.  I would have been happy with Moissanite or even Cubic Zirconia.  Instead, he sought out a conflict-free diamond.  He read me the certified guarantee and gave me a copy for safe-keeping.  That is love, my friends.  That is love!

The ring!

Here are some pictures of our night. At one point I felt like everything was worthy of a photo.  Believe it or not, I've spared you a few.

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Love was all around us, popping up everywhere to say hello!  J said it was because it was Valentine's weekend.  Um...it was because it was our ENGAGEMENT weekend...obviously!

So freakin' sweet.  Seriously. 

Day Two...

The Cheese Haus and the mouse statue are a special thing between us.  The two ladies that were taking our pics were so in love with our love.  It was such a joyful moment.  That's why I kept the second pic...even though my eyes are closed.

Even the taffy kisses!

What's a trip to Frankenmuth without a stop for fudge.  We sweeten up the entire family with fudgey goodness.

Are you sick of us yet? 

In one of the shops they had a shop kitty.  Her name was Diamond.  Fitting, huh?!  She loved J.  J loves animals and they love him.  However, when I tried to pet her, she scurried away.  Nice.

We ended our visit with a visit to the St. Julian Winery.  We tasted lots of samples, took a little tour, and had a special bottle made up just for us.  It was the perfect ending  to our weekend.

To Be Continued...