Bridal Showers

This past weekend, I had my first bridal showers! And they were both SO much fun! Andrew family threw us a pampered chef shower, and Andrew's church threw us a very fun, husker themed shower. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking... :)

The pampered chef shower was in Andrews home town of Milford. 

We put together a game with questions about Andrew and I, and the options of "Andrew, Kori, Both or Neither" for the answers. It was fun to see how everybody answered the questions

We made some sort of fresh pineapple torte? I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was good! And the pineapple was fresh from Hawaii! Yes, it was brought from Hawaii that day by our wonderful pampered chef consultant, Mandi. She and her husband had just returned from a mission trip.

As Andrew and I were cooking, Rachel asked us questions about ourselves, most memorable moments, how we met, etc....

TA DA! :)

The finished display! :)

We are so thankful for everyone who came to our pampered chef shower. It was a very fun evening and we are beyond excited to set up our kitchen with our new pampered chef items! :)

Anna Beasley, a friend from Andrew's church threw us a husker themed shower. :) Being from Florida, I am a BIG Florida Gator fan! So, she thought it'd be good to welcome me into the Husker family! :)

How well do you know Andrew and I?! 

After answering some questions that Anna asked Andrew, to get the 'prizes' I had to shoot different types of sports balls in to something. Like a basketball into a laundry basket.

a baseball into a jar! 

a golf ball into an empty coke box.

Soccer ball into a laundry basket.

Ping pong ball into a cup

Football into a laundry basket

And had to pass a ball into the laundry basket.

It was a very fun, and creative game! I missed quite a few of them, but luckily I got second chances for those! :)

The guest book

Liz Williams shared the devotional. She did a great job of incorporating the theme into it. She said that God is our coach. And my whole life my dad has been my quarter back, and he is a seasoned well-experienced quarter back. But now, I am switching to a rookie quarter back in Andrew, and while he is good, he is a rookie and will make mistakes. I really appreciated what she shared.

Another game-- How many miles exactly are between our houses?!

At the end of the shower, I got the best surprise of all-- ANDREW! My mom and I flew in that morning, but because Andrew was working, he wasn't able to pick me up so I hadn't seen him at all since I had gotten there. He showed up around 9:30 pm just as the shower was getting over, with a dozen roses. I was SO excited to see him! He is just wonderful, isn't he?! :)

Thank you so much, Anna and Beasley family! <3

We are so deeply thankful for the love and support of our friends and family. Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us. :)

For more pictures and a much better summary of the husker shower visit here. :) Mrs. Grady did a great job writing about all the details of the shower and they got some really fun pictures.

Meet My Family.

I got a comment asking about my family. So, here they are! :) 

I am from a family of four. My mom and dad are on the right. I have one brother named Bryce, who is 19. This was the most recent family picture we have, it also includes my grandparents. 

Wedding Website

Check it! :)
http://www.mywedding.com/koriandandrewswedding/

Secrets

During the incredibly fun reunion concert at Old Threshers, my adorable 3 year old, future little sister, asked if she could play with my phone, so, naturally, I let her.  About half way through, I hear "oooh! What's that?!" as my phone is being put in front of my face! In complete shock, I quickly pushed the phone down and looked around to make sure no body saw...especially a certain someone! I whispered in her ear "shhh. That's a secret!" 

Later that night at another concert, she had my phone again. She took pictures and played with it the whole service. Afterwards she came up and grabbed my hand and gave me the phone back. She then cupped her hands around her mouth, indicating she wanted to tell me a secret. So I bent down and she said with a huge smile as she nodded her head, "Don't worry tori, I didn't let anyone see your secret!" *Smile*

Don't worry, I have since deleted the picture so that somebody couldn't accidently see it! And now the only person besides my own mom who has seen my "secret" is Charissa! :)

Week in Pictures!

I spent the past week in Nebraska with my wonderful fian cé! We had a very full week planned, with a wedding, Old Threshers, lots of driving and spending time with family! I flew into the Branson Airport on Thursday and Andrew picked me up. As soon as he picked me up we drove up to Nebraska. We spent the first couple days in Seward with my Grandparents, and in Omaha for the wedding of some friends.

Yes, this is the beautiful place where he proposed to me! Not only do I have many wonderful childhood memories here, I now have the memory of the happiest moment of my life! :)

After the wedding Saturday, we stayed in Omaha. Sunday morning we left VERY early (5:30am) and drove over to Mt. Pleasant, IA for Old Threshers! Josiah, Abi, Dan and Bethany decided they were going to fly over and surprise the family. So Andrew and I drove over and picked them up at the airport in Mt. Pleasant, and then the 6 of us drove to where the family was for Church and surprised them! It was so fun! :)

The concert Sunday afternoon was so much fun! Since the whole family was together, the concert turned into a reunion concert. It was so fun to watch. You could just see the joy on everyones faces!

The boys did dueling banjos.

My handsome man! ♥

I think my favorite part of the concert was when they brought Bethany up on sang "Praise God."

 Alaythia truly is Bethany's 'twin!' She can sing it just as fast!

So happy! :)

I enjoyed getting to spend time with Bethany! It was wonderful to see her again!

Wednesday night, the family put on a concert with the Kingery family from Minnesota in Seward. It was a fun-filled night, full of great music! After the concert, we played some late night volleyball with friends in the back yard. It was so fun! I love volleyball! :)

The Kingery Family

It was a wonderful week. And I came home with so many memories and even more sure of the fact that I am marrying into the greatest family! :)

"Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;

his love endures forever."

Psalm 106:1

Life

As many of you have noticed... I have not updated since I announced the wonderful news of Andrew and I's engagement. Since that fabulous event, life has been very busy with wedding planning and traveling and work. And this fall I have been coaching volleyball at the school that I graduated from, so that has kind of filled in the rest of my 'free time' for now.

I know many of you are anxiously awaiting our story. I promise we are working on it! Andrew has been VERY busy and so it has been pretty hard to find a time where we can both sit down and write it together. But don't worry, we are working on it, and it's coming... someday! :) In the mean time, we appreciate your prayers as wedding planning continues and we prepare for our special day on

March 5th, 2011!

ENGAGED!

Yep! On July 4th, the love of my life asked me to marry him... and I said YES! We are so happy! The details of how the Lord brought us together will definitely be posted later, but for now, here are a few pictures from the proposal! :)

My AMAZING, beautiful ring!

My family has a barn right outside of Seward. We were in Seward all day celebrating the 4th, and after the preformance of "Let Freedom Sing" that evening, Andrew said he wanted to take me out to the barn to shoot some fireworks. So naturally, I went along, and honestly didn't suspect a thing.

When we got there, Andrew asked me to go put the fireworks on the black shelf under the window while he got some punks from the car. Our conversation went a little like this."

Andrew: "Go put the fireworks on the black shelf under the window, I'm gonna grab some punks."

Me: "What window?"

Andrew: "The one with the black shelf"

Me: "What? I don't see any shelves under the windows."

Andrew: "....just go put them in the barn."

Me: "I'm going in the barn?!?!?!"

Well since I didn't know what was going on, I put the fireworks on the black shelf and walked right back out, ready to do some fireworks. I didn't see the little black book sitting on the shelf about 2 feet from where I had put the fireworks. Andrew walked back in and grabbed one firework, lit it off, then walked back in to the barn. I followed him, and then eventually saw the little book sitting there. We looked through it together. It was a scrapbook of us, from the time we first met to present day. It was so beautiful!

When I got to the end of the book, I looked at him, and he got down on one knee and opened a box with the most beautiful ring I have ever seen, and asked me to marry him! And I said YES! :)

Afterwards, we went back to my grandparents house where his family and my family were waiting.

We got lots of hugs!

And text messages

and phone calls!

It was so fun! And I am absoultely thrilled to be engaged to the man of my dreams! We appreciate your prayers as we enter this new exciting phase of life and begin to plan our wedding!

"You have made known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with JOY

in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

Psalm 16:11

Crabbing

A high light of my child hood was going crabbing on the beach every night while we were on vacation. Andrew heard me talk about how much fun we used to have and said that he wanted to try it someday! So while he was here this past week, we went to the beach and stayed until it got dark so he could go crabbing.

Here's how it works....

• You wait until it starts to get dark, then you go out on the beach with a flash light, net and bucket.
• You have one person use the flash light as a spot light and the other with the net.
• The person with the flash light scans the beach for the little monsters.
• When one is spotted, the person with the net chases after it and tries to catch it. I should mention that they are extremely quick and change directions often. :)
• The person with the net slams the net down onto the sand, trapping the crab underneath the net.
• Then someone picks it up while it is still in the net and puts it in the bucket.....And then you repeat the process

We did not have a bucket along so we didn't get to keep any of the crabs Andrew caught. (I don't know that many of them made it through the slamming of the net onto the sand haha) But he did a great job at catching them! He even got pinched and we had a lot of fun! :)

Little Crab waiting by it's hole

His First crab

The Mighty Hunter with his first catch!

Andrew

Okay, so I've gotten many comments over the past few months asking for more details about my wonderful, wonderful man-- how we met, how long we've known each other etc... I'm not trying to ignore them... because I LOVE talking about Andrew! *smile* I just haven't found the time to put together a post about it. So I hope this little update informs you of some of the things you've been wondering about and I hope you are able to follow it... :)

My grandparents live in Seward, Nebraska, (the same area the Wissmann's are from) and I have been going there every summer and/or fall since I was 5 years old. The 4th of July in Seward was always a highlight of the year for our family (and still is). I spent weeks in Seward in the summers and would often come up in the fall to see the harvest, but I never knew or heard anything about 'the Wissmann Family'. Surprising right?! To think, he was so close all those years, but I never knew who he was.

But anyways, I shared that little bit of background that so you could understand where the connection of Seward, Nebraska and Orlando, Florida comes in.... In 2002, my grandparents and some family friends heard the Wissmanns sing at the county fair in Seward and invited them down to stay with us in Florida and sing. So in February 2003, the Wissmann's travelled down to Florida for a week and I met the love of my life... I was 14 years old.

His family has continued to come down to Florida in February for the past 7 years and I still travel to Nebraska in the summers. But as you can imagine, there are now quite a few more trips happening. And I have enjoyed every special moment I've gotten to spend with him and his family. :)

Andrew and I have been courting/dating/in a relationship (whatever you chose to call it) for the past year and are treasuring this season of life and praying for what God would have for us next. But being 1200 miles apart 90% of the time is very tough. We look forward to the times we get to spend together and are always counting down the days until we get to see each other next. (29 days!! *smile*)

....That's all I will share for now... details on how God brought us together will have to come in a later post as it is quite a long, yet amazing story! (I guess I am a bit biased!)*smile* And I need my other half to help fill in the details that I miss (because he remembers more than I do...) So you'll have to wait on that one....

Delight yourself in the Lord

and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Psalm 37:4

Best Valentine's Day...

Andrew and I were apart for our first valentine's day. But he was here about a week after valentine's day. While I was at work one day, he (with the help of his amazing sisters) put together this beautiful candlelight supper on the lake and completely surprised me! It was so wonderful!

We had Chicken Cordon Bleu, Corn, potatoes, salad and sparkling grape juice. And for desert, Chocolate brownie pudding!! It was delicious!

So romantic and so beautiful!

He is the sweetest and I am so thankful that God has blessed me with such an amazing man!

I love you, Andrew!!! ♥