A Love Story

I was recently asked how I met my husband and it is a Love Story perfect for Valentines Week.
In fact it is more like a Movie or a Romance book.

I went on vacation to Greece for 4 weeks during the month of October 2006, the first week I was by myself and then I met up with several friends and we sailed the Aegean Sea and visited some of the Cycladic Islands.

For my fourth week I traveled by myself again and went inland of Mainland Greece, visiting a place I had seen at the IMAX theatre called Meteora, it has huge rocks springing from the Valley floor and looks truly spectacular, you can see them at the end of the James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only".

I had made reservations to stay at place but when I arrived he was full, but he called a Rooms to Rent nearby and they had a room available (I have since learned that this is a very common practice for this particular place and it really is a shady business, but that is Greece for you, lots of seedy and untruthful people).  I was greeted by a older women who showed me to my room, she asked for me to sleep on the single bed and not on the double since I was a single traveler, I agreed a little humorously because it was a little funny then I asked her where I could eat since I was starving and it was pretty late at night.  She said "downstairs, I make best lamb" okay, I'm not much of a lamb fan, but she had me interested in the fact that she claimed to have "the best".  And it was delicious along with the Greek Salad and the wine graciously offered by the other guest at the table next to me.  A Greek women and her date were sitting next to me and she wanted to have a conversation with me, but since her English was limited she had the waiter translate for us.  We had a nice chat and drank a bit of wine, she invited me to go out dancing with her later, now in Greece the "party time" is around 2 am when it gets started not when it ends, it was only a little after 10 and so I had a bit of time to kill before going out.  I chatted some more with the waiter, who turned out to be the son of the women who showed me the room and also the owner of the Taverna and Rooms to Rent, KokaRoka.

KokaRoka, under the rocks.

So there I sat hanging out with this guy, waiting for a girl that never showed up (she was pretty drunk when she left so she probably forgot or went to sleep), I was a little bummed having stayed up and being tired myself, so Arthur (the guy) said he could take me to a club, I was like sure, I'm awake and dressed, let's go.
We drank and danced till dawn, having a great time, not really talking to much, since it was pretty loud but it was fun.  The next 3 days we hung  out together and on my final night he proposed.  CRAZY RIGHT!  Well I thought it was crazy, I just thought he wanted to get in my pants, if you know what I mean.  (and yes Greek guys and probably other guys will do this).  I gave him my number, e-mail address and mailing address and told him he should keep in contact.  Thinking to never hear a word from him again.
Boy was I wrong, he e-mailed me daily and called me almost daily, then he asked if he could come visit.  Since Thanksgiving was coming up I told him he should come and celebrate the holiday with me and my family and he AGREED, wow, that blowed me away especially since it was like only 10 days away.  He worked very hard to get to the States in 10 days, he got a Visa by having an interview with the American Embassy in Athens and then he got the plane tickets and he was there visiting me in California, THIS GUY WAS SERIOUS.
He proposed again this time with a ring and a pretty bracelet, so I was like sure why not, a great adventure and a new chapter in my life.  I put in my 2 weeks notice at work, called my landlord and moved out a month after he came to visit me for Thanksgiving.  I arrived in Greece on New Years Eve 2006, ready to spend the new year 2007 getting to know him better.  We married 3 months later on March 21 and decided to start a family (I thought that would take a while since I have a lot of friends who have had a hard time getting pregnant, but not me) yup I was pregnant when my Step-Mom came to visit us at the end of May, she could tell since I was getting car sick after picking her up from the airport.
And that's how I ended up here, a vacation turned to a lifetime with a beautiful family in a beautiful place.

Ignore his pose, he is showing off his new Native American jewelry- Grand Canyon 2013

Both pictures at the Grand Canyon, USA, another fantastic place with big rocks!

Or how about Monument Valley, great rocks.

And Now 10 Years later after meeting here at the Rocks of Meteora, October 2016

One of the Monasteries behind us, Varlaam.

Our house behind us, ignore my hair it was very windy day :)