Not our first date, but pretty important to our life story... However, we first met during the first week freshman year of college at MS&T. I was hanging out with my brother, Duncan, who was two years older and went to MS&T too. I was in my brother's fraternity room playing video games when Phil walked in. He saw that I was playing Pokemon snap, a really kitschy Nintendo 64 game very nostalgic to our childhood, and he wanted to play too. We played that game for hours and became close friends after that. Phil was a part of my brother's fraternity too and we got to know each other well when I would come over to hang out with Duncan. I enjoyed hanging out with my brother, but it was also an excuse to see Phil as well. We got really close over stupid video games, similar interests, and really bad late night game show network television. We didn't realized we both liked each other until a year and a half later.

When Thanksgiving break rolled around our sophomore year, Phil told his family that I was his girlfriend before he even asked and I was aware. He just knew. I am a Chicago Bears fan, and he a Green Bay Packers fan. So we made a bet over that Thanksgiving break that whoever's team lost had to get ice cream we we got back to school. I think the Bears lost, because I’m sure the let me down once again, so I had to get the ice cream and our first date became and ice cream date and a rented movie. We became a couple short after coming back from thanksgiving break.

When we knew... 

The proposal

We had been planning a trip to Italy ever since we were still in college. After working for a year we finally saved enough money to go. Phillip loves to plan trips and make an itinerary for us. I just tell him what I want to do and works a way to fit it into a schedule. He really enjoys it, plus that's one less thing I have to worry about, so I’m fine with it.

On the literary for one of the days, he had put down "5 am sunrise champagne tasting". When I read that I thought to myself, "5 am champagne tasting? That's really early. Well I guess you got to start sometime." It didn't even phase me to question it. We got up for the morning and Phil arrange a private driver for the whole day's activities. Marco was our drivers name and he was so nice. He was the first Italian to actually do the stereotypical double cheek to cheek kiss. True Italian charm. He was mentioning that it would take an hour to get to the location so I thought, “I’m pretty sleepy, so I'll take a nap.” He kept saying that I didn't look so excited to see a see a balloon/go for a balloon ride. Said it a couple times. I was so tired and his accent was pretty thick so all I picked up was the word "balloon". I was thinking "what the hell is he talking about....balloon? Are we going to see balloons when we get there? What do you mean balloon?" Not knowing what Phil had planned for the day, I didn't think too much off it and dosed off. We started slowing down, so I woke up to us being in the middle of nowhere Tuscany at the break of dawn. Marco says we're here at the balloon, and I look out the window and see nothing. I'm thinking again, "what does he mean we're here? I thought he was taking us to a champagne tasting. There is nothing here. Why is he saying balloon again?" I look further and see a giant hot air balloon getting inflated. I finally piece it together. Phil says "SURPRISE!!!!" Oh... I get it now... balloon. I asked him are we really going on a ride, because I couldn't believe it. This was a fun surprise.

We finally take off and we shoot up pretty high. I'm pretty fearless when it comes to heights, so the sunrise Tuscany views were just breathtaking for me. Phil is acting a little out of character and extra clingy, but I figured it was just because he thought I was gonna drop my phone since I'm clumsy like that. Phil had said he wanted to do a compilation video of our whole vacation and had already taken a ton of videos of the trip so far. So, after I got a ton of pictures, he wanted a video of us. Phil handed his phone to the pilot and he took a video of us. When our pilot was about to had it back Phil says, one more video. I audibly said "another video?" and I look back at him on one knee. My heart dropped, I couldn't believe it. I dropped everything that was in my hand in the basket. I was thinking, "right here? oh my gosh it's happening..." The water works began and I was ugly crying real bad. His speech was very thoughtful, but I am pretty sure I blacked out for a moment and came to when I heard the words, "Cailey Samantha Baker, will you marry me?" As fast as I could I said yes, but I could barely get the words out I was crying so hard. Next thing I knew he was kissing me and slipping this stunning ring on my finger. I heard the pilot say in his very thick Italian accent "It's good! No cry! This is good!" He must of pressed the wrong buttons on the phone though because he got just before the proposal (you can actually see me drop my camera), and directly after when I've finished crying. I'm pretty glad because that makes the moment more special that is a memory and not documented. Besides, no one else needed to see me ugly cry anyway.

When we landed I noticed that they had a picnic table set up for us with breakfast, flowers, and you guessed it real champagne. So, all in all, Phil wasn’t a liar about the sunrise champagne tasting, he just left out a few key details. I later learned why he was acting so odd on the ride, part of it was that he was nervous to propose. But also, he lets me know when we land "thank goodness we are on the ground, I am a slightly afraid of heights and that was pretty terrifying." Ballsy move to be afraid of heights and propose on a hot air balloon ride. The whole thing was a total surprise and he did a really good job about keeping the secret too. I love being able to tell the story because I really never saw it coming and it's a pretty unique story.