All about how we met… OR Congratulations you are a WINNER!

I have been answering lots of questions about how Mike and I met lately. People want to know how we managed to find each other and ultimately fall in love.

Here is my story…

I, being the computer savvy person that I am, created a Wiki for my credential program cohort. In gathering information to post on the Wiki I frequented a local San Diego radio station page for local events, volunteer opportunities, etc. I was on the radio station home page one morning, procrastinating on finishing the kitchen project Charles (my brother) and I were working on. I happened to catch a blip about a guy who won a contest I had debated entering myself. The contest was to create a set list of music from the Smashing Pumpkins catalog. The winner would present their set on the Sunday evening coup d’état, and also have a round-trip all expenses paid trip to see the Pumpkins reunite in San Francisco.

The blip that I caught was the winner’s explanation of how he became a music fan, or his first experience with music. His story made me laugh, really laugh out loud and I decided to congratulate this guy who to me was a very deserving winner.

I copy and pasted Mike Moore into a friend search on myspace and found the same picture. I perused his profile and laughed some more at his comments on life and growing up in Fresno California etc. I sent him a message congratulating him on winning the Pumpkins contest, it was short and sweet and I added my own first concert experience, which was the Monkee’s at Jack Murphy Stadium.

Mike wrote back the same day thanking me for my nice note of congratulations. He added some to his story of seeing Alvin and the Chipmunks live; again making me laugh. This exchange led to frequent exchanges on-line, which led to chatting, and eventually meeting in person.

Our meeting for the first time is a whole other story… ;)

Mike Continues:

It really was a true case of happenstance. The promo director at the radio station emailed me, and wanted me to write a blurb, for them to put up on the site, about myself, so people could get to know, and I guess become insanely jealous, or in some cases (see above) infatuated with the guy who won the contest. I had NO IDEA what to write. I mean, all I did was compile a list of songs to win a contest. What did they want me to say? ‘Yeah, my name is Mike, and I was more creative than you, I’ll be thinking about all of you while I’m in San Francisco, witnessing quite literally, a once in a lifetime event?’ Certainly, not. I also doubted that they wanted me to give out some long 5 page essay on my life story, which some of you know, that if I were to write my life story it would be about 2,000 pages, especially if I chose to go into longwinded rants about various points in my life sort of like what I’m doing write now… hahahah… I accidently typed ‘write’ instead of ‘right’ but now it comes off as punny, so I shall leave it…

So I decided to be covertly sarcastic, and go for the complete obvious, which is to talk about my enjoyment of music. So I did some little 100 word rant (The radio station was smart enough to hold me to 100 words) about my beloved Fisher-Price record player (Queen, and Elvis Presley, The Chipmunks and the Cars on very heavy rotation), and my first concert experience which was Alvin and the Chipmunks at Selland Arena. Before I knew it the Promo guy emailed me back saying ‘Perfect’ and some random girl was claiming I was funny, (a claim, I know I now force her to question every now and then) and congratulating me on my good fortune…

Stay tuned for our next episode: “Sir Guinness, meet Stella.”

Lord of the Rings, or How we met our Ring Master ;)

So Mike and I had been talking about marriage for a while, of course there is a ring involved in the process. I had been thinking about using my Grandmother’s engagement diamond as the center piece of my ring. One day while at work, relaxing in the shade of palms at the bay, I started drawing what I would want my ring to look like. The drawing was simple and I was happy with it.

I shared my doodle with Mike and we decided to look for a Mom & Pop jeweler as opposed to the enormous diamond galleries that are advertised 24-7 on San Diego radio stations.

Fast forward a few weeks later: We were in Ocean Beach of the annual street fair & chili cook-off, collecting signatures to get Ralph Nader on the California ballot and eating various chilies. Mike suggested looking into the jewelry stores and inquiring if they did custom work. The first shop we tried did not do custom rings however they suggested a little hole in the wall across the street called “The Golden Seashell”. I have been to OB on many, many occasions but this was the first time I had ever seen the Golden Seashell.

Upon entering the store we were greeted by a hearty “Hello There M’ Lady, and Good Sir”. I was a bit surprised, thinking this guy is just being silly. It ended up however, that he was not being silly; this was just his natural demeanor. He continued referring to us as M’lady, and Good Sir throughout our conversation, and when all was said and done, we could not refuse his charms, and decided that this would be the man who would assist us in making Rachel’s design a reality.

A couple weeks went by and we returned our Lord of the Rings, with Rachel’s design in hand, and he assured us he was up to the task. Exactly one week later (3 days early!) Mike received a phone call, letting him know that the ring was finished and ready to be picked up. He snuck off, claiming he had to pay for his car insurance (which he really did have to do!) and went to pick up the ring. He was completely shocked when he saw the ring. It was EXACTLY how Rachel had it drawn out. He thanked the good sir a thousand times over, and had to wait another few days before giving it to Rachel, which proved to be VERY difficult, as he was very excited over how well it turned out.

The proposal story will follow.

Welcome to our blog!

If you are here than there is a great chance that you got one of our unique announcements. Horray! We spent a lot of time perfecting, and REperfecting, to get them JUST the way we liked them.... you know, simple things like NOT having the border block out half the lettering, etc.

So, why have an engagement blog, you may ask? Because we have loved ones all over the world, quite literally. Our announcements traveled to places such as: Dublin Ireland, Ghana Africa, Vancouver Canada, KL Malaysia, Brighton England, and beautiful, AMAZING, Fresno California! So having a blog makes perfect sense. We want all of you to be a part of our experience. Feel free to leave comments,and if you are having issues with our blog please email us.

-Mike & Rachel

We're Engaged!