Wanderluster

July 4th - the Hermitage and Petrodvorets (peterhof)

well maybe everyone already knows the story by now... I'll start at the beginning of the day anyway. It was another perfect morning and we decided to do a little shopping and head over to the Hermitage. The Hermitage museum has five buildings - one of which has 1057 rooms in it - and can still only display 10% of its collection at any one time - what more can be said about that!?! It's a crazy palace with not only art but all kinds of things and the rooms themselves are as interesting as anything in there. It's quite bedazzling.

several of the more over-the-top photos are in the July 4th album on Shutterfly.

After being stunned by the Hermitage and having a little ice cream in a park as a quick snack we decided to splurge and take the Hydrofoil over to Petrodvorets (aka Peterhof), one of Peter the Great's summer palaces and a truly gorgeous place.

Little did I know...

In we went to get some photos of the fabulous fountains, sculpture, and gardens. We walked around for about half an hour and as it was already almost 5pm the fountains were gradually being shut off. The crowds began to thin and we found a noce quiet bench to sit on in front of the dragon waterfalls to relax and enjoy the gardens for a while.

As we're sitting there Jeff reaches into his camera bag and gets up and down on one knee - to propose to me. It was the best setting I can imagine and I totally didn't expect a thing. I guess I was onw of the few who didn't either expect it or actually know Jeff's plans.... it was really a magical moment and couldn't have been done better. The ring is gorgeous and just the type of thing I love, a beautiful Saphire ring with leaves along the side that Jeff had made for me at Halloween in Philly. truly amazing..... oh, yes, even though I was quite speechless, I did say 'yes' obviously.

How can you top a day like that? only later did we realize that it was actually the 4th of July... go figure!

posted by Wanderluster @ 11:12 PM