the History of Ima Le Arba part 1

I was just your typical american growing up in East Texas when I met my husband. I worked everyday by driving into Dallas and then driving back to Greenville every work day. My stress outlet was the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) which is a renaissance reinactment group- kinda like a ren faire but held almost every weekend and we try to live life as close to period accuracy as possible. And that is where I met Ori, an Israeli- as out of place as one can possibly get :). He came here in 1997 from Israel with a successful Israeli startup who sent him from Israel to Silicone Valley and then to Arlington, TX to start their customer service dept. Now how did he end up at an event in East Texas, let alone ever heard of SCA? Well- he left his job and went to be a student at University of Texas Arlington. There was a fairly strong group on campus and that is how he got involved, he says it was to meet women- well, it worked didn't it?
It was close to my 29th birthday and I hadn't had a date in 3 years. Ori wasn't really my "type" but I got a surprise of my life when at a SCA meeting he walked by me and my knees got weak. I had met him before, What? So cliche- but I literally got all weak over him walking by.
So I got brave and asked him out (first and last time ever) Our first date was at an Indian Food Restaurant in Dallas- but Mapquest gave the wrong intersection and where I stopped and asked directions- not Ori. He wasn't really good at driving and Dallas traffic made him nervous- so he parked and got out at that Intersection (Preston and Arapaho) and walked all 4 corners. He didn't have a cell phone and so he was an hour late and to this day I don't know why I was still there. He came rushing up to the restaurant with 3 Gerber daisies and full of apologies. So we went in to eat. He did most the talking and at the end of the date he said to be honest he just didn't feel a spark. I said I appreciated his honesty and hoped that we would be good friends and that we would always be honest with each other.
Now remember- I had an hour and a half drive home and somewhere between the restaurant and home I decided he couldn't just decide something like that in 1 hr so when I got home I sent him an email that said "I demand a recount!" and other stuff but mostly the gist was that I didn't think he couldn't make such a decision in 1 hr and that I wanted a 2nd chance. He wrote back and said this was good- he thought I was too quiet. Hahahahahahahahahaha.
He knows better now.
We actually had our first date Sept 7, 2000 (the day before my birthday) and got married January 2001 in Las Vegas- but then we had about 5 ceremonies, lol. First we got engaged, it was a snowy day and we had just closed on our new property in Campbell (further known as the Pomeranch) and I didn't want to go back to work so instead we bought a ring- and he proposed to me at the corner of 3202/3204 overlooking our property. Next we were Hand Fasted in the SCA. We got married in Vegas, We had a engagement party in Israel that summer - because Ori didn't want to tell his parents we got married before they even got to meet me, not to mention that I am not jewish so he was concerned how they would take it. and Lastly we had a Renaissance Wedding at the Japanese Gardens in Ft Worth, where I grew up and his parents flew there to be with us and surprised us by renting costumes and dressing up for our wedding. The Renaissance wedding was gorgeous- nice clothing, good friends, good food, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Cool enough that we didn't swelter in our Ren clothes but sunshiny and comfortable temperatures. and then we went to the Zoo for the fun of it- in our Ren clothes.
So that is the end of Part 1, I will post part two tomorrow.