Future Mrs. Wiedeman

It's happening. I'm going to be THAT girl who posts about her engagement. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear the details, but then again if you didn't you wouldn't be here anyway. I'll keep this as short as possible.

Who is he? Daka Wiedeman is an amazing man who loves the Lord. He's from a family of 9 (5 sisters 1 brother). He's a student who has persevered through a lot to get to where he is today. He is incredibly respectful of me and has, from the very beginning, proven he can be a leader.

How did we meet? Well it was almost three years ago(Sep. 2010). He came to the apartment Alyssa and I shared for a get to know everyone in CRU hangout. We met and talked briefly and I thought nothing of it because I was not a single woman then.

The Interim between being friends and dating: We became friends. I became single, and he became interested. Our friendship grew through chatting and hanging out. Surprisingly I always felt comfortable sharing deep things with him (though looking back on it I should have protected our hearts better than I did.) Daka made his feelings known (I believe around Feb 2011). At the time I only saw him as a friend and turned down his offer to take me on a date. We tried the friends thing despite his feelings for me and it didn't really work. Eventually his unreciprocated feelings caused him to step back from our friendship. We still interacted but barely. Early in 2012 we started to get to a point where we could be around each other more often. Then in Early May (still 2012) some friends and I had a brilliant idea to celebrate the end of school by watching all the movies Tom Hanks had ever had a decent role in. Oh Summer. One of the friends who co-created the TomHanks-a-thon was Daka's roommate. All of the movie watching ended up commencing at Daka's apartment. And we started to rebuild a friendship. Daka and I ended up being the ones to really keep the movie watching going ( I didn't know it then but mostly because he wanted an excuse to hang out with me). I began to become interested in him in a way I hadn't been before. I saw potential for something more than just a friendship. BUT I figured I needed to stifle these feelings because a guy who has asked you on a date once and was rejected wouldn't ask again right? I wanted him to be the one to initiate but I figured he wouldn't, I doubted he felt the same way. It started to get to the point that my desire to know him outside of the context of friendship was too distracting for me to have real friendship. I talked it over with a close friend and decided I needed to tell Daka that I was interested in him as more than a friend and because of that needed to set boundaries to keep my heart guarded since he didn't return the feelings(so I thought). A few nights before I was going to tell him, he kept me back as our friends left another showing of Tom Hanks' masterpieces. He asked if I would go on a date with him and I accepted this time.

Our First Picture as a couple....and well ever.

Fast forward to the proposal already!
We dated near each other and far from each other (Though not as far as many). I grew to respect and love him. He just cared for me so well! I knew I wanted to say I love you to him around month 8 of dating, but the verbal commitment needed to come with more. We decided as soon as we started dating to wait to say those words until there was a bigger commitment of marriage. 3 months of waiting to speak that to him with the expectation of waiting much much longer came and went by. On June 10th after 11 months of dating he asked.

How did he ask?
Once while we were dating I took Daka to one of my favorite places, the train trestles in kickapoo state park. He loved it and I loved sharing that secret place with him(as well as friends). My friend Leah and I had been wanting to go there this summer and Daka also brought it up. So I decided to get some friends together to make it a day. My brother, Daka, my friend Leah, Daka's sisters Adriel and Sabriah, as well as Sabriah's fiance Eric all decided to go. I had frequently in the past few months hoped that he would propose but had to continually fight to enjoy my time with him and not have expectations. When you go hiking you don't put on make up, you don't try to look cute. I had a brief moment as I had many times in the recent past where I thought....what if he proposes and you look like this, but I put it away. I wasn't going to have any unrealistic expectations. So sweaty from cleaning, ponytailed and makeup less and I was off.
Besides Daka is so sentimental he'd NEVER ask in front of anyone. Josh and I drove out to the little nugget to meet the rest of the party coming into town from Blo/No. They followed us into the spot where we could park our cars and start the hike.

Side note:Eric Floberg is an amazingly talented photographer, I guess it should have tipped me off but I really expected him to bring his camera, I mean this spot is amazing of course he'd want to capture some photographs. 

Once we hiked up and through the over grown path we made it to the Trestles(train tracks suspended 80ft over a small river). Eric is not a fan of heights, and there is nothing to keep you from falling off the edge. We started to walk across, Daka in the lead the Eric Sabriah and I following close, with Leah, Adriel, and Josh following a ways behind. I figured the slow pokers were just having more trouble with the heights. Daka sat down and asked me to sit beside him Sabriah and Eric continued ahead where they sat and took pictures.
There were NO signs anything would happen. Daka opened his backpack and......grabbed a bottle of water. He started to drink and we chatted a little bit. Then he put it away and pulled out a plastic bag, handed it to me telling me it was a gift.
Was he being sweet since it had been 11 months? Why was he doing this in front of people? Looking through the bag I saw something red and square like a large box. My thoughts went to engagement, but as I opened the bag to see a journal I put those thoughts away once again. Then he told me he wrote something to me in the journal and that I needed to read it. 1pg in to the 5 front and back pages and I knew. I started to cry. Oh how he showed me his love for me as he commended my character, and told me why he cared for me. The last few lines said..."I guess what I am trying to say is..." then an arrow on the other page. I thought the arrow was pointing to him leading him to pop the question. He just sat there and smiled, so I turned another page...and another...and then I skipped a BUNCH(31 to be exact) to see a cut out box through the pages where a picture of my ring lay and the words Will you Marry Me? were written. I asked if he was serious....silly question I know. He said he was and I said yes!
Daka handed me a pen to write in my answer and then for the first time told me those sweet words. "I love you." Gosh Daka I love you so much. I am excited for the time ahead. I know that because we are sinners there will be trials, but I'm so glad to work together through life with him.

My ring is on it's way. It's just a symbol so I'm not too concerned about it. It's being handmade and though it was ordered 5 weeks before he proposed I may not get it until August(at the latest). I'm just so grateful that this man can deal with my insanity.

I love his sneaky face here.

Daka Wiedeman, I love you.