How it all began......

*Last night Mike and I celebrated the 20 year anniversary of our first date together. We decided to reenact some the past and it was so fun! We were able to find people to get the kids to and from their evening activities so we could head to Seattle where are relationship started. We first decided to hit the sorority house where we met. In the fall of 1988 Mike had recently come back to Washington (from New Jersey) to re-enroll at the UW and connected up with his high school friend, Matt, who had also enrolled at the UW that fall.

*Matt had come from New Jersey earlier and found a job which happened to be a house boy at my sorority, Pi Beta Phi. When Matt picked Mike up from the airport he told Mike about a job available at the sorority for a weekend cook. With suitcases still in the car, Matt introduced Mike to Don, the head cook, and Mike was offered the job on the spot. Mike having just arrived told Don that he would think about it and Don said "OK, but let me introduce you to the ladies." As we were in the middle of Rush at the time, everyone in the house was looking their best, so when Don said to all of us at lunch, "Girls, I want to introduce you to your new weekend cook.", we all said "yah!!!!!"....Mike knew he wanted the job;) (Weekends spent with over 100 young ladies....he wasn't crazy).

*A couple of days later while Mike and Matt were working I asked them both if they would like a tour of the "winter wonderland" that our sorority had created for one of our rush events. That was when our friendship began. Mike and I started hanging out at the coffee shop often while I was sketching for my art class. We would talk for hours and we instantly became the best of friends. We both were very cautious about making it anything more than friends but as the weeks progressed, I knew there was something very special about him (and he was thinking the same about me). Finally, on October 28th of that fall our relationship changed. We both attended a Halloween party together and hung out all night. When he took me back to the sorority, after we had a few minutes of that awkward gazing, he reached in for that first kiss:) At that moment we had moved from friendship to a romantic relationship and we both were happy for the change and have always been glad that we connected as friends first.

*A couple of weeks later we had our official first date as a couple at "The Deluxe" on Capital Hill in Seattle. At dinner it took us almost an hour to finally order because we were so entranced in talking that we kept forgetting to look at our menus. Our frustrated waitress kept coming back to our table asking if we were ready and we kept having to apologize for constantly being distracted.

*It was obvious to both of us that night that our connection was a strong one. We both proceeded very cautiously in the relationship over the next few months because we both had wounded hearts that needed healing from past relationships. As time went on we began to trust one another more and more and by the following summer we both knew that we would be together forever. We were both so young but our love was so strong!

So last night we decided to take a trip down memory lane. We first hit the sorority house where we had one of the current Pi Phi's take our picture outside the annex where we had our first kiss. She was so sweet and loved hearing our story too. The house looked just the same from the outside but unfortunately she said the annex next door was not being used anymore. Since it was still standing we were able to get the photos anyways.

The Pi Beta Phi house...still looking as beautiful as ever!!!

Right where we had our first kiss....20 years earlier.

*After we left Greek row we headed up to Capital Hill to eat dinner at the Deluxe, which was still there and hadn't really changed much at all. We were seated in almost the identical location as 20 years earlier and the waitress loved hearing all about our history as a couple and snapped another couple of photos for us. It didn't take quite as long this time to look at the menus and order our food;) For some reason we know each other a lot better now:)*I had so much fun writing about the past I have decided this will be a regular feature on the blog. I would love to have this history down for the kids to have someday and since my scrapbooking was non-exsistant during those early days....this is the perfect way to get the facts down. Hope you enjoyed some of "Mike and Elise" history;)