As I was reflecting this morning on what an amazing year 2008 was for me (and what an even better year 2009 will be), I scrolled through my old blogs and realized...I never formally announced our engagement! How could the most exciting part of my year have missed deserving its own blog post?!

How we met:
Ektor and I met on Halloween night in NYC at a party in the East Village. I was 5 days away from taking my GRE's (graduate school entrance exam) and was really wanting to sit home and study but my pesky roommate insisted I assist her out for an evening of Halloween debauchery. So here I was, not dressed up, standing in a dark club and kinda irked about being there when I spotted this cute guy dressed up like a Greek God (how ironic :). I tried to introduce myself by talking to the group of guy friends he was with (resulting in one of them buying me a drink!) but the cute Greek God really wasn't paying me very much attention. Frustrated I decided to take matters into my own hands and initiate conversation with him which worked out to my benefit because I finally got up the nerve to ask for his number and a week later we went on our first date.

Our First Date:
We met for "coffee" at Starbucks around noon in the East Village and proceeded to walk around lower Manhattan getting to know each other. We stopped and had an early dinner, walked around some more, the sun started to set, we had a few drinks...before you knew it we had been on our first date for 10 hours! I guess we really were meant to be!

How he proposed:
Ektor arrived into John Wayne airport Friday October 31, 2008 at 10:30 at night. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to wait to open my birthday gifts he casually asked if I wanted to open them that night or wait until the morning. At first I tried to be good but eventually caved and started in on the pile of gifts. All of this happened so fast and in such a blur but I remember the first gift was a hardback copy of The Catcher In The Rye which I had really been wanting. The second gift was a really nice thing that hangs with a quote from the Dalai Lama (hard to describe this particular gift). The last gift was a beautiful scarf wrapped around an equally beautiful little jeweled box. I looked up at Ektor with a racing heart wondering if this was the moment and opened the box....inside was a ring that Ektor had taken to get my size. Confused, I looked at him and he responded with "I think you can have that back now." At this point my mind was tumbling over itself and I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, I mean honestly I thought it might happen but probably not for another day or so so that he could drag out the anticipation. Right when I was in the middle of protesting that this game wasn't fair Ektor reached into his pocket, went down on one knee, and pulled out the most beautiful ring of commitment I have ever seen. I am going to save all the details about how I sobbed and he proposed with the most romantic story (that I'm sure was well practiced) and how I kept interrupting him by yelling "yes, yes, yes"...but I will save that for just for our memories.

So yeah, we are engaged and that means WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!

So when's the big day?
Good question, we are thinking of saying our "I Dos" in Spring of 2010 at the Regency Garden in Mesa, Arizona. We will be reaffirming that commitment in the late summer of that same year in Athens, Greece. All of our planning is still in the very beginning stages but we are so excited for our families and loved ones to join in by celebrating the beginning of our life together. Both of our weddings will be very small and cozy, trying to mingle traditions and romance as best as we can. This day is about us and trying to make everything be formal and upscale is just not our style. We look forward to things coming together and our plans becoming more concrete.

So with that, I announce the sister addition of my blog...our wedding website. I am enjoying blogging about what a wonderful experience this is in my life and look forward to sharing all of my experiences during this time with all of you. I will be updating the website more often as things come together so feel free to check it out at www.mywedding.com/ektorandheather

Thanks for reading!