We're Engaged!!! (with a new point of view)

So as you might have noticed from the previous post... Brittany and I are getting married in the not so distant future... (Our Wedding Website) what you don't know: the rest of the story.

We'll go ahead and stick with the day of for this one, because if I talked about the planning at all it would lead to rambling, and nobody wants to read that. So...

Sunday, February 14, 2010 - I had packed the car up the night before so I just had to bring down the flowers, place them elegantly in her seat, and pull up the car to wait to pick her up from the dorm. She saw the flowers and started smiling... and hadn't quit smiling when I left at 10 that night. We went to church - special music was a guy singing a love song to his wife... everyone else in the congregation felt like they were intruding on their own moment they were having together - then after church we headed off to caribou.

Up to this point the only thing I had told Brittany about our Valentine's Day was that we would go to church and go to Kobe Japanese Steak House and that the rest would be a surprise. She was so delightfully confused. We got pretty close before she figured it out...

If you've met Brittany, you know she's not exactly an "outdoors" person... she loves nature, but experiencing it first hand on Valentine's Day wouldn't be her first idea... so I was nervously confident in my decision. My secret weapon that kept me confident? Ducks.

My secret weapon. Adorable hungry ducks.

And I was right! As soon as we pulled into Lord's Park - and the ducks swarmed around our car - she was at least as smiley as she was when she got her flowers. So we ate the finger foods I'd brought... cheese, crackers, olives, and a big box of candy for dessert! Then we fed the ducks and deer and got back on the road... And ended up walking on the bridge we walked on when we first started dating and would walk and talk. So nostalgic!

Valentine's Day Dessert!

So now off to Kobe, even though we tried to eat light for lunch, we barely finished one plate of chicken and five pieces of sushi. We had our own private table practically - hidden behind a wall from the other guests eating and enjoying the live cooking shows.

 

Our sushi appetizer that arrived after our entré.

It seemed to me like our food vanished in an instant... so I got out "dessert"... a heart shaped chocolate box with my ipod in it. On the ipod was a video I had made using songs taken from Brittany's "Favorite Songs" playlist and pictures from our whole relationship... from modeling for Megan's picture book story when we had just started dating to our first Christmas pictures. If you want to see it, Brittany is willing to share her Valentine's Day Card with all of you!

 

Brittany watching the video.

So she starts watching the video, and the waitress comes with the bill while she's watching! So I tried to keep my cool and pay the bill and calculate the tip (I've never been so bad at mental math!) and get the ring out before the video ended. Luckily I made it in time! The whole world melted away and it was just me and the girly and I got on my knee and asked her to marry me... and the rest is history!

We're Engaged!!!

The LOVE of my life proposed to me today.  It was the most romantic date ever :-)  It started with a bouquet of daisies and ended in tears of joy.
I walked down from my dorm room to see my boyfriend awaiting my arrival.  He open the car door and the most enormous bouquet of daisies (my favorite flower) was sitting on my seat.  They are absolutely gorgeous!!! and take over our entire book case in our dorm.

Anyways then we went to church... I think the church we want to get married at actually!  I was all smiles the entire day and my man was all I could think about.  He is so good looking!!!  I caught him just staring at me soo many times today!  I never have felt like such a princess in my entire life or so attractive for that matter.  Next we went to Caribou Coffee and I got my favorite drink.  A CARAMEL HIGH RISE! .... well you know he got it for me... while I was frozen in the car still stumped  about where in the world we could be heading.  He was telling me clues like... we've been there before... we are going to eat there... but we've never eaten there before... o boy was I clueless... We went to Lord's Park!!! SO much fun!  He brought us a picnic lunch :-) all finger food... WE FED EACH OTHER in near silence until someone gave the other a huge bite or something funny it was super romantic!!!

Then I fed the ducks our crackers:-)  the picture say more than I can say other than Ben has promised me if we ever have the means I'm allowed to have pet ducks!!!

Then came the gorgeous deer...

We fought over my new found love of raw broccoli

Then we went on a walk on our favorite bridge :-)  Took some pics!

Then off to KOBE which is a Japanese STEAKHOUSE!!! UGH SO GOOD!!! Ben actually took me there for my birthday... before we were dating.... and payed!!! So it meant something special to us... we attempted feeding each other again with chopsticks... that didn't go so well either...

After dinner I was given a heart shaped candy box I was like what are you up to Ben?  He's like just open it!!! and so I did and there was a satin pillow inside... and on resting!!!


YES... you guessed it!!!


An IPOD!!!

hehe... he handed me earphones and said...  PRESS PLAY!!!

I did and it was a montage of all our pictures and clips of all my favorite love songs that were cut up into my favorite parts!!!

they are promises that 
he will always love me,
I'm his queen, 
I'm his best friend, 
He never saw the birds winging until there was me, 
His feet are ten feet off the ground when he's with me, 
I'm his sunshine (something I always have longed to be called every since I wore the perfume SUNFLOWERS as a little girl), 
I'm the one he wants(grease), 
he's got a feeling in his soul, 
he's a fool for LOVE, 
he intends to hold me for the longest time, 
he'll be my crying shoulder,
won't let anyone hurt me, 
he cannot wait he's mine, 
he wants to be my last first kiss, 
it's a fine and natural sight to dance with me in the moonlight,
he knows that he wants to take me home, 
Then he asked when I feel in love with him and let my heart run free....

Then It said
Happy Valentines day
I love you Brittany Raye
I just have one question

(by this point I'm bawling)


WILL YOU BE MINE?

He got down on one knee!!!

The rest of the world was gone!

He gave some awesome speech about how I'm his best friend...
grabbed the wrong hand.. (so I put the right now there too)
and opened the box!!!

I exclaimed...

IT'S GORGEOUS!!!

YES BEN!!!

YES!!!

He then said you wanna get out of here?  I said YES PLEASE and was flustered for at least 20 minutes!!!

I'm on cloud nine!

That's my side of the story!!!
I could not have asked for anything more perfect :-)  Especially since it's my ben!

Send us your email!!! Our wedding website is...  www.theknot.com/ourwedding/BenWeltzin&Brittany Loikets 

Ho! Ho! Ho!

That's what it said on the hat Brittany almost bought for me last night.  I've been told repeatedly that I look like a creeper when I wear my current one (that's what I get for spending 10 dollars at target) so I've been looking for a new hat all of break. The first one I bought was way too small... so we went shopping for a new one... and found a few other things.

Technically speaking... we made a killing at Kohl's last night. As you can see, we should have spent $523.65 as compared to spending merely $193.81. Actually, we only spent $163.96 since Brittany works at Kohl's. She also has a 30% off of everything you buy coupon... then, since we put it on her Kohl's charge, we got her associate discount of an additional 15% off. In addition, for every $50 we spend we get 10 dollars of Kohl's cash to spend after Christmas day. (we earned another $30 there) For anyone interested in the percentages involved there...

We spent 133.96 after all deductions... that's only 25% of the value of the items.

That makes us happy.

Beanie Baby Bash!

Ok so this is the first time Brittany is writing a post.  Ben is a lot better at making things interesting!  I'm just going to say it how it is... Today we were lazy bums!  Well Brittany was... (because I'm feeling a bit under the weather...)  But let me paint the picture... we slept until 10:30... Ben hasn't showered in two days, we took all the blankies and put them on a couch and cuddled, we ate lunch on the blanky couch and we've been playing with beanie babies we found in my closet all morning!

Ok so maybe not exactly playing.  We are trying to get someone to take them off our hands!!! I have over 139 beanie babies in a large basket.  About 50 of them are sellable bc they are still in mint condition but yeah... the other! Either I'll use them in my elementary classroom one day or will be donated to Good will and Aubs!
bbshot!

To Do Lists

One of the many things on our to-do lists for the break was to select 75 photos to get free 4x6 prints. Mission successful! With a full 20 minutes to spare in the day, we ordered our prints free of charge... only having to pay for shipping. We tried to organize them into sets or series that would look good together. Here are three of them. Feel free to comment on them or if you want enlargements (digital or print) of anything we can do that too!

Today we are delving into our library of pictures (extensive enough that Brittany's iPhoto has slowed down considerably) and trying to find our 75 best (or at least 75 most cohesive and matchy-matchy) pictures for free prints courtesy of Shutterfly.

In the process, we discovered this gem: the first picture ever taken with both of us. We were bowling at Elgin Lanes and Brittany was certainly beating Ben at this point and you can tell by his face that he's trying to figure out how to graciously lose to girl. Even if she is a very good looking girl.

First Post of the Rest of Our Lives

We are Brittany Loikets (ladies first) and Ben Weltzin. We recently deleted our facebook accounts so as to enable rather than inhibit our prospective job searches. Not to mention the constant news feed checks and facebook gaming addictions were getting out of control.

However, we didn't want to shut ourselves off from the world, especially our friends and families who this blog targets. For Brittany this is just a hobby, but for Ben his career is going to be centered around photography and videography. Almost all of the pictures we will share are taken by him, but most of those are creatively inspired by her.

So here's our blog... feel free to comment on our captures, shoots, and reports.