Exactly what is wedding preparation?

When I think about wedding preparation, wedding rings, wedding gown; reception, ceremony; wedding photographer, flowers; guest list, etc. came to my mind. But there are other aspects of wedding preparation that I think most people neglect, yet it's an integral part of preparing your life together with another person. And it's the most time consuming and should be treated with great care. I haven't written a post for awhile because we've been busy dealing this particular item.

One of our preparation items, the largest one, is to get his house ready to sell. In the ideal world, we'll have his house sold, then buy a house, Rob would move in first, then I would move in as soon as we get married. Rob has done many amazing remodeling to his house but it's not quite done. Our goal is to get it all done and have his house on the market by Jan. So every weekend and many of the evenings during the week, we roll up our sleeves and do whatever that needs to be done. We are making good progress, and I think if we don't hit our goal, it would be just a week delay or something like that.

So exactly why this is so important? It's not just a work item, it's about dealing with each other and work together as a team, it's about integrating each other's lives together. Remodeling work is a good emotional project. Men usually take pride in handy work. Many of them want perfection, they see 1/2 centimeter spots on the wall that needs to be touched up after painting. Women want to do touch up work but men want to put one more layer of paint to the entire room. Just minor things like that, you get my point. Rob and I managed not to get mad at each other, we didn't even raise our voices. I try not to raise my voice because I hate that, and it happens that Rob is the same way. It's good that our temperament match nicely this way.

When Rob jokes and plays around, he acts like a kid which is good because we have a lot of light heated fun. When he deals with me emotionally, he's so stead and mature and always providing me with safety and security. When we were working on the house during Thanksgiving break, I was also PMSing (can't wait to go into menopause). One day, I just started to cry because we haven't done anything but working on the house and making trips to Home Depot for days. I would wake up, shower, then put on work clothes, then... I looked in the mirror, I just started crying. Rob came and just held me tight and asked me what's wrong. I said, "I look like a bag lady, and the house is a mess because of the remodeling. I can't live like that." (More crying) He didn't think it was a bother and that I was a whiner or anything, I just told me that everything was ok. Then he was right, everything was just ok after that. I noticed that he worked extra hard that night WHILE FOOTBALL IS ON. He tried to get more done so it wouldn't be so messy because he knew that would make me feel better. He didn't say anything to me to get my praise, seek my approval, or make me feel bad, he just quietly worked. I told him I knew exactly that's what he was doing, then we hugged. I can't even find words to describe how appreciative I am. He really loves me, can you tell?

During Thanksgiving break, Rob also passed another big test. Gone with the Wind is my favorite movie of all time. I always joke that if the man I'm dating can sit through that movie in one go, yes, almost 4 hours in one go, I'll marry him. I didn't test him before we got engaged. Dannah, my daughter, told me that I shouldn't dump him even if he couldn't. I think she likes him a bit. So during the break, I brought Gone with the Wind to his house. He sat through the whole thing, and actually didn't think it's all that bad. He was waiting for the famous line that everybody knows even they've never see the movie, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!" Well, I didn't tell him that that line was in the last 3 minutes of the movie. Maybe that's what kept him going. So, he passed the test, and I have absolutely no reason to call off the wedding now.

Another integration that is going to take some time, are our pets. They are not like my daughters who can verbally express what they want, what they like, what they don't like. The cats certainly don't like the barking but there was a remarkable process happened a couple of nights ago. Clio, one of the cats actually came downstairs while the dogs and us were sitting on the couch watching TV. The cats usually hide in the deepest corner of the house when the dogs are around. For her to come down openly was a great step. The dogs didn't bark either but they might not realize the cat was there.

Rob had a 18 year old cat Pyro. He adopted me pretty much the first couple of time I came to Rob's house. So I told Rob that Pyro was my cat now. About a month ago, he became really sick and ended up that he had Lymphoma, and it's spread throughout his abdominal area. Since then, his condition deteriorated very quickly. We are going to HK for about 11 days leaving next Tuesday, we knew he wouldn't survive at the boarding place while we are gone. We didn't want him to be alone when he went, he actually had stopped eating for a couple of days. During his illness, I remember he lost a lot of weigh quickly and every breath he took was in agony. The situation actually reminded me of my father before he passed. So with great sadness, we took him to the vet yesterday and walked part of the journey with him to kitty heaven. There were tears but he looked peaceful and relaxed like before he got sick, we know that he's in a better place, and we both were there to say goodbye.

In memory of Pyro,  Oct 3rd, 1993 to Dec 11th 2010

Engagement Photo Session

It's fall in Seattle, you never know if we are getting rain or the gorgeous sunshine. Chances are, weather doesn't usually look that great in the fall here; especially when it's already in Oct. The worse thing is, it usually manages to have a few days of sunshine during the week and pouring rain on the weekend. 


After we came back from Maine, we secured a really good photographer for our wedding. We decided to do the engagement and wedding package, so we could have good photos for our invitations. After we signed the contract, we were trying to work out a date and time for the engagement session, we tried to find a sunny day, hummm... I finally accepted the fact that it's hard to find a good day between our work schedule and Rob's race schedule, I thought whatever the weather condition was, it would be fine. If it rained, we'd have love and water both in the air.  And that's exactly what happened to us, we got a full meal deal of the Seattle weather.

The session was scheduled on Sat afternoon. We had a gorgeous Friday and woke up to really promising weather in the morning but weather mood changed faster than a drama queen. By 10 or 11am, it was pouring. Our photographer called and wondering if we wanted to reschedule but I thought, by Oct, it's probably not going to get better so I told her that we would go for it. 


Rob showed up in jeans and a sweater with a nice dress shirt underneath, he looked great and seemed excited for the photo session. We met Ning, our photographer, at the Half Price Book in downtown Redmond. I personally loved that place. It's one of the older buildings with brick walls and lots of books. So we decided to take some photos inside, the only thing was that we weren't sure if they allowed photos to be taken there. So we went upstairs because we could hide a bit there. 


When we first started, I think Rob was a bit uneasy, so I tried to just wrap my arms around him, and asked him to smile. Ning, had her camera and flash, just trying to capture our goofing around. More like, I tried to get Rob to goof around. He eased up a little quickly. We then went down stair toward the back of the bookstore but we finally got caught, so we decided to meet at Redmond Town Center (RTC).


There were some lights on the tree on the main street of RTC already which created a good background for our photos. Then we went to the upper level and found some empty tables and chairs, we sat on one of them. Ning was shooting Rob and I separately with the other person's back facing the camera. When the camera was pointing at Rob, I started crossing my eyes and making faces, Rob started laughing, and I think Ning captured some good shots from it. The rest of the session involved a lot of walking around and kissing. By then, Rob was so comfortable that he initiated these full on public make out sessions. :-) I went with it, why not, I was marrying the guy anyway.


We got kind of wet and a bit cold, I had low heels on but we walked around a lot, and I think I ended up having a bit of sore toes. The most important thing was, the photos turned out great. We were very happy with the photos, and we both agreed that this session was one of the things that we considered fond memories.

Food, Flowers, Photograph

While we were in Maine, I got a phone call from the Chinese restaurant where the reception is going to be held. The manager reminded us that we were supposed to pay part of the cost soon. So we asked them to charge the amount to the card we used for the deposit. Nope, nope, nope, check or cash only. Right, I forgot, it's a Chinese place, it's all cash transaction. I thought, yes, credit card company charges merchants, it's wise of them not to accept credit cards to keep the cost low. WAIT, I forget again, they are Chinese and so am I. There were more than a few of my Chinese friends whom had their own businesses wondered why I paid so much taxes every year. They said that there were "ways" to maximize my income, paying taxes smartly was one of them. OK, I am always able to sleep at night, I think not maximize my income might work better for me, I don't mind being a bit "not smart". So I looked at the contract again, they'd take another check for half of the total cost the month before the event date. Then on the event date, they would only accept cash. Humm, I don't know about you, I think they definitely try to minimize the amount of taxes they need to pay.

I was always wondering about flowers. So the nice Chinese owner in the restaurant gave me a brochure of this place that was very good with flowers. Then she said, "yes, they are good, they are cheap, they are Russians." OK, is there a double meaning to this statement? I'll be sure to contact them because they always deliver to the restaurant. But then, is this another way for the restaurant to "maximize" their profits? But then, the world is indeed very small, today, I went to lunch with a few very good friends of mine, one of them told me the owner lady went to high school with his mom, he said he might be able to get a good deal for me. You can never underestimate the power of Asian connections.

When we were in Maine, we tried to have some photoes taken for our engagement but it was too hard to get the shading and the lighting right even though it was absolutely beautiful there. We'd been shopping for wedding photographer for awhile now, we got some recommendations and looked at their websites. We knew we found the perfect match. We really liked her work, she priced very resonably, the name of her business is called Black Cat White Cat Photography. . :-) We set up an appointment with her before we left for Maine. After we got back, we met with her, and I like her even more because she's Chinese who speaks both Cantonese and Mandarin, just like me. I don't know about Rob but I really think it's meant to be. One of her packages included an engagement session, we thought, we should just "dewit". Our session is this Sat, so I'll see how I'm going to glam up Rob. Just kidding, I like him just the way he is. I think maybe the next post, I'll post a photo or two of our engagement photo session.

Thankful

This blog is about Rob and I's wedding, and it's been 39 days since our engagement. We've been a good team and knocking work items down swiftly and decisively. Through this process, other than the excitement of getting marry, I've also learned a thing or two about myself and my wonderful fiance. I also learn that I have so much to be thankful for. To spare your time, I've summed it up to the 4 things below:

1. My daughters - Their big job that they do so naturally well was just to be there. I'm just happy that I have them with me. A lot of times, though not physically here because they live with their dad, little gesture they made that I noticed really warmed my heart. Like clearing out their schedule to go dress shopping with me. It sounds crazy, they have so much homework, it's unbelievable.
2. My friends - The outpouring support and well wishes from my friends make me understand that all these years being here in America without my family around, I actually have a great big family right here in the US.
3. Rob's family - I was very nervous in the beginning, I wasn't sure if I would fit in, I wasn't sure how they feel about me. Just like Rob, I don't think they have any expectations of me. I can just be myself, and I really feel like they take me in with open arms.
4. Rob - Love of my life. Through years of going through and struggling with life, I have forgotten at one point, I really had a list of attributes I would want in the man whom I would share my life with. When Rob and I started dating, these qualities I once wanted starting to appear again right in front of me.

I thought about being 43 years old, I'll turn 44 next year, one step closer to mid 40's but there is nothing to be afraid of or worry about anymore. Next year this time, Rob and I will be married and we are starting our lives together, we are counting from 1 again.

Rehearsal Dinner!

Seriously, I had no idea what rehearsal dinner was the first time I got married. I don't know if it's got to do with being 23 or being married in the LDS (Mormon) church, it does have a different culture, there wasn't much to rehearse because everything was in a particular order, there was really no deviation. Then, the first time I heard the term "Rehearsal dinner", it was from the movie, "Freaky Friday". In the movie, there was a big wedding and the rehearsal dinner looked just as big as the wedding. I thought, humm, that was weird, they didn't rehearse anything in the movie, it seemed like it's an extra dinner before wedding, maybe only really rich people do that.

Then my big brother Eric was getting married. Eric wanted me to sing a duet with a very nice gentleman  from his church at his wedding, so I was part of the rehearsal party. It was at a park, he had a barbecue place cater to the park. It's not big, nothing like the movie, and we actually rehearsed. Basically, who's going to walk down the isle first, and the order of the steps taking place at the wedding. It was really good, I knew exactly when I'm supposed to be standing by and getting on the stage. And the dinner was small, just family and people that had a job at the wedding. I saw it as a great opportunity for immediate family to get together and visit before the wedding day.

So, with the actual wedding venue and dinner in order pretty much within the first week after we were engaged, we knew it's time to take care of the rehearsal dinner arrangements. Since we were going to have a Chinese wedding banquet, we should have a western flare rehearsal dinner, so we picked Willows Lodge http://www.willowslodge.com. It's a beautiful hotel/spa in Woodinville, WA; event catering is done by the adjacent restaurant, the Barking Frog. The chef, chef Bobby is a usual, featuring in food magazines; Rob and I have dined there before, and everything we had was delicious. I sent a mail to them a couple of weeks ago requesting a proposal. They sent back the venue rental cost and a set of menu. Like most places, you could choose between buffet or plated dinner. Rob and I preferred plated dinner. I was, however, confused about the plated dinner price and menu, there were so many options to choose from but I wasn't sure how the cost map to different options. We also would like to see the place as well. There were different rooms accommodate different party size, we had our sight set on the library.

We arrived a bit early, Rob started taking photos of the place, by the way, the photos are on Facebook, check it out, it's a beautiful place. The event manager came and showed us the library, it's just as I imagined, Rob seemed to like it as well, though I didn't know if he had any expectations of the library. He did notice one feature, there was a big flat screen TV on the wall. He asked if we could put football or baseball on if it's a game night. I gave him the "look", and he just started giggling.  Eventually, we did settle for no talking about putting any kind of games the night of the rehearsal dinner. I also asked the event coordinator if she could put something up to hide the TV, just in case, so nobody would be tempted. :-)

After that, we set down and the coordinator explained how the plated menu worked. Everything just fell into place, we paid the deposit, signed the contract, and we had a place for our rehearsal dinner. The only thing that's left is wait until Nov when their menu for Nov to May comes out, we can send that to our guests and have them choose their main course, then we'll be all done. We are looking forward to rehearse. :-)

Tending to the Details -getting Rob 's house ready to sell!

As you can tell by now, we are getting our wedding planning done in lightening speed. We have everything on the list, now it's time to actually tend to the list. 


This week, we met with our realtor so that he could give us tips on what to improve/fix for Rob's house to be on the market. Nik, my realtor, was great. He's sold 2 places and found 2 places for me. If you need good realtor, I'll give you his info.  I was a bit worried because the first time I went to Rob's house, my GPS took me to a wrong house. I didn't think Nik could find the house. But he sure was a professional. He showed up fashionably 3 minutes early. Rob was unloading my bike from my car as he pulled in. 

A quick tour was in order. Rob's bathroom and  kitchen were beautifully remodeled. There were just minor details we needed to tend to upstairs as we expected. Downstairs was what we worried about. Good  news was, after meeting with him, we realized that we didn't need to do a few things we planned on doing in the basement, or just needed to do a water down version of what we planned. That's good! But then, we also found out that the market was a bit worse than we thought. Fortunately, our price point wasn't the same as our competition, ours was lower, so that might give us an edge. Ours was more affordable for sure. So we planned on getting things done and put it on the market mid-Jan. Rob had a lot of experience with home improvement, he knew that there were many dependencies so he's not as optimistic about the Jan timeframe than I was. I knew it would happen on time. I just somehow knew.


 I think getting his house ready to sell might be the biggest test of our relationship thus far. Life will throw many things at us but we'll be ok. I think we are seasoned (old?) enough to figure things out. We've talked about work items and timeline, etc. We are petty much in agreement. So this is one of the interesting item that's worth for everybody to follow. Let's see if we make it with laughter Or anger. :)

The Perfect Dress

Wedding Dress shopping... I'm excited; however, there is a show called, Say Yes to Dress, it seemed to be such a long and painful process, some brides had lots of drama as well. But what girl wouldn't be excited about choosing a wedding dress. It's sort of the once in a life time chance that you get to really dress up like Cinderelle, going to an amazing party, and dance with your prince charming. It even gets better because you don't need to lose a shoe for the Prince to find you and marry you. He marries you right there at the party. You enter last and make a big entrance. :-) OK I feel weird to say that it's a once in a life time opportunity, I've done it once but again, it's totally different this time because we are planning everything ourselves, and we take the time to plan. Oh, back to the dress...

My wedding dress hunting crew consists of my two daughters and their friend Katie. I browsed around and found JCrew bridial. Their dresses are plain and simple, it's my kind of style. So I made an appointment with them. Then I thought I would go to a more traditional bridal shop as well, so I made an appointment with Amanda's Bridal Boutique just 5 minutes from my house in downtown Redmond.

On Friday, we went to JCrew. They were nice dresses but for some reason, none of the dresses I tried on wow me. I know the rule of thumb is, I need to "love" the dress. They were very simple and cute but I looked at myself after putting them on, I didn't feel like I was getting married. There was one that had potential but they only had 4 left that's my size. By the time I made up my mind, it's probably already all gone anyway. They measured me and told me I'm a 2 or 0, I am not a 0, they don't do alteration there, I started to worry about the fit as well. I was thinking that maybe we'll be going to 10 bridal places before I could find something.

On Sat, we went to Amanda's Bridal. I didn't have high hopes. I thought that maybe they have gowns only for big huge church wedding, like princess Diana's 12 feet in diameter gown or something like that. Anyway, we walked in there, it's a very small shop. The sales lady told us to look for dresses that we might like, and she would hang them up outside my dressing room for me. We started looking, and many of them had too much beading and laces, and they just seemed so huge and heavy, I thought, oh no, this certainly was not my thing. But we decided to split up into two teams, Dannah and I, Jesse and Katie, then we started going through the mountain of dresses. The girls had pretty good eyes, they started finding dresses that had more slender skirts. We ended up with about 9 dresses. One of them looks like a Cinderelle dress, I didn't want it but the girls insisted that I needed to try it on so I complied. :-)

There  was no mirror in the dressing room which made me nervous because I didn't even know the dress look on me. How if it looked reallly ugly on and the girls would laugh at me. :-(  The first dress I put on had lots of beading on the bodice and a more simple skirt. I walked out of the room, I saw smiles on the girls' face, then it was a "wow". I stepped on the platform in front of the 3 way mirror, I smiled. I thought I looked like a fairy tale princess. So we put that as a definite candidate. I then put on the others, we liked every single one of them except for the 2 mermaid dresses. Though they looked good enough on me, they were not as comfortable because the fit was tight from waist down. So we eliminated the 2 mermaid dresses, I still had 7 to choose from. I knew we were in trouble, they all looked good on me. Jesse said, "Mom, they all work, you need to get one that you absolutely love." Then the other girls said, you need to find one you can imagine yourself getting married in. There was one with beautiful laces, I put it on, I think I wowed myself but then another customer in the store said to me, "That's the best dress ever, I put it on and that was it." I thought, great, I'm not going to pick this one now. I'm sure many brides pick same dresses all the time but with somebody right there telling you the dress is her dress as well, it's a bit weird.

After closing my eyes, imagining at our wedding, wearing my wedding dress walking toward Rob and his smiling at me, I had two dresses in mind. So I put the two dresses back on again. It's the first dress I put on and another one. I picked the other one. The whole process was a lot less painless than I imagined. The only problem was that I had too many good choices, I guess that was a good problem to have. I put the deposit down, it's not a pricy dress, and it's going to arrive in Feb. The shop will do all the alterations, and it's going to fit me perfectly. :-)

I'm just so thankful to have Jesse, Dannah, and Katie helping me out. They were very honest to me, I definitely have a winning dress shopping team. Big thanks to you team. :-)

Making a List and Checking it Twice

1. Living arrangements - need to put finishing touches to Rob's house so that he can sell it and get another house with Ronit.


2. Pick a date - March or April? We realized that it's more complicated than just pick a date, so we made a mental "list".

• We should give us enough time to prepare for the wedding and time to sell Rob's house and buy another house.
• It needs to be on a Sat.
• My daughters need to be with me, their dad is flexible but I don't want to cause too much trouble for everybody, though the selfish child inside me says, "You should have your way, you are getting married." But I really don't want to incur bad Karma.
• Preferrably around the opening day of baseball so family can go to a baseball game together (Rob's wish list). 
• Rob mentioned that there was some game sometime during the week of the April 4th, he prefers to watch it but if 2nd is the right date, he can record it. I give him credit because he says it's not a must, though I gave him the "you wanna schedule our wedding around a game" look adoringly.

Initially, we came up with April 2nd but we decided to move it to April 9th. So you have it, we are getting married on April 9th. 


3. Size of our wedding

So far, we decided on a medium size wedding.. Took us two different days and about 30 minutes each time, we have the "list", Rob seems to know exactly who he wants to invite on his side. But poor Rob had to suffer through my going back and forth with who to invite without losing patience, what a swell guy. I know that we might end up adding more people.

4. Who's going to marry us?
My old madam priest, Rev. Whitney DeVine is going to marry us.


5. Where should we get marry? 
We'll get marry the same place as the reception. Rob said that he hadn't been to church since he was 12 or 13, he didn't want disasters happen when he walked into a church, like lightening strike him down or the entire church fell down on his head, etc. But I made him go to church with me a few weeks ago, my church didn't fall down on him, and it became sunny during the service. All jokes aside, this way, our guests don't have to travel from church to the reception. 

Rob noticed that he's been sort of Asianized. He craves for noodles and Asian food more when compares to the past. OK, I'm turning him Asian, so he said anyway. He even threathened to grow a FuManChu beard thing for our wedding. I killed that thought of his very quickly. We figured that we waited 40 some odd years to finally meet and be together, saving the best for last and all, we might as well have a party, so Chinese wedding banquet is in order. This one is easy, there aren't many choices in Seattle for restaurants that host Chinese wedding banquet and good location, there is one.


Last Sunday, we went on an under cover mission to check the place and the food out. It's under renovation. Good! By the time we get marry, it will look brand new. I decided that the food is good. After dinner, we asked for the manager who's in charge of banquet reservation. She showed us the room that would accomodate our estimated party size. It's a corner room with view of south Lake Union. And the manager told me that for sodas, she would charge me $1 per can, it's usually $2.5 per can. I'm Chinese enough to know that she tells everybody the same thing. I smiled and thanked her. We signed the contract and paid the deposit.


While signing the contract, I was a bit nervous, I think I was actually having some kind of a rush. I was 23 the first time I got married. My ex-mother-in-law kindly took care of all the wedding arrangements which until this day, I was very thankful for. I only remembered showing up at the wedding. However, it sort of made the entire experience not real, the planning and working with your other half is actually a great bonding experience. We haven't fought about anything yet, I'm sure we'll at least disagree at some point but I think the collaboration really pull us closer together.


We still need to go back and determine which menu we are going to go with but that's minor details. I consider getting a venue done.

6. When do we let our guests know?
Done, I sent the Evite for Save the Date out on Monday night.

7. Where do we get our cake?
I don't think Rob cares, I mentioned it to him that I have my sight is set on Regent Bakery, and he's ok with it. They charge $4.75 per person, with minimum of 70 people, which fits our plans but I might change my mind if the Russian competition comes in with a cheaper price and comparable quality.

8. How about flowers?
The restaurant manager told us about this Russian florist they use who are cheap and good. Chances are, we'll just go with that.

9. Wedding gown and Rob's tux
I'll let Rob worry about his tux. I made an appointment with JCrew bridal and a little bridal place in downtown Redmond this weekend, I'll see what I find. My wedding dress shopping crew includes my daughters and Katie, who's my BFF Stephanie's daughter. She's been friends with my girls since they were like 4. She's more like my niece than anything else.

I stumbled onto JCrew's bridal boutique online awhile back. Their collection is simple and is sort of earthy, kind of right up my alley. However, the photos they have online, all their model slouch, I can't really tell if the dresses indeed look good or not. I just can't bring myself to order online and take that kind of leap of faith on a wedding dress. On the website, it says that they have bridal boutiques in some of their stores where you can go in and try the gowns on before ordering. So I thought, sure, they'll have them in New York, LA, Las Vegas, or San Francisco, I'm in sleepy Seattle... Then I looked at the list, there is one right here at the U-Village. I thought it's meant to be. But it took a whole week for them to call me back, and I can only find an appointment for Firday late afternoon. But we are going for it. Then Sat afternoon at Redmond, we should be all good.

10. Honeymoon :-) - Bora Bora
Have any of you seen the movie Couples' Retreat? I personally think it's funny, and it's filmed at the St. Regis on Bora Bora. Rob saw it and had his heart set on it. I think it's a good choice as well. My friend June and Henry went there on their honey moon and loved it. Henry sent me a bunch of info from their travel agent, it's going to be great. I know it's going to be expansive but as Henry said, we just need to look at it as a once in a life time sort of thing. Yes, it's my second time around but I know it's going to be the last. I don't think I was ever as sure about anything in my life before.

11. Invitations
We'll send it out when we have the details, hopefully in Jan. If we don't have most of the stuff ready by Jan, I might have a nervous breakdown. I'm the kind of person who usually get things done early. In college, I'll have my paper done 3 days before it's due so that I could take it to the TA to have him/her review it.

12. Musicians
Vidas from my church is going to play the guitar, or maybe a bit of piano for us. I'm going to have some kind of surprise for entertainment. All rated G though.

13. Photographer
I've sent out a mail asking for recommendation at work to a women chat alias.

14. Maid(s) of honor and best man
Checked. That would be my daughters and Rob's best friend Bill.

Are we missing anything?

How It All Begins!

Our story is not that unusual, and it's probably very much like most people's. Rob's version would be:
Boy meets girls, get together, not working out; then boy meets more girls, not working out; then Rob met Ronit, and everything worked out perfectly. :-)

Now, here is Ronit's version:
Ronit meets boys, married one of them, not working out but got two absolutely wonderful daughters out of it. Ronit meets more boys, not working out. Then after conversing with Rob through emails for a week, Ronit went to Gregg's Cycle at Bellevue. While Ronit was drooling over pricey beautiful road bikes, though she just acquired a beautiful Cervelo RS, a boy came up to her and said, "Are you meeting someone here?" Ronit smiled and said, "Are you Rob?" Then followed by one hour and 15 minutes of conversation at a nearby Starbucks. And that led to riding (bicycle) on a cold, sunny morning, and another ride on a cold, rainy morning; before they knew it, movies and dinners started to happen. Rob, like most men, didn't remember many details but when it came to things that Ronit told him, he always remembered. Other than Rob being handsome, Ronit found him gentle, confident, down to earth, easy to approach, with incredible amount of common sense, truly cared about Ronit and her daughters. Then... Ronit went to Hong Kong for 10 days to see her mother, that was the longest 10 days of both Rob and Ronit's lives, then they knew... There was no talking about the future, everything was put into actions and their future started to take its form. There was work but it was easy, there was never any negotiation, there was no struggle, only respects, laughters, and be there for each other.

On September 4th, 2010, Rob and Ronit went on a day trip to Vancouver, BC. While sitting outside a little cafe on Robson street, with Ronit's Chihuahuas, Nubie and Copper as witnesses, Rob proposed to Ronit. Ronit said yes, and Rob put the most beautiful ring Ronit had ever seen on her finger. Rob smiled and Ronit had teary eyes...

And that's how it all begins...