3 Years Later...

Once upon a time there was a girl from Nevada, who met a cute boy from Indiana at a wedding. Being the proper female that she was, she played the evening very cool and spoke few words to him - with the exception of commenting on how pitiful he looked sitting at the head table by himself eating cake. Nearly 2 years later, she inquired about him when chatting with her girlfriend, only to learn that he was indeed, curiously, still single. She bated her friend into casually suggesting that he email that sweet and beautiful woman he met at the wedding years before. She was thrilled several weeks later... when a message from the boy appeared via cyberspace. They emailed back and forth for a few weeks... and after the girl apologized for humiliating him and his cake, they agreed to go out on a date when she returned to the midwest for the holidays. This is the story of that date:

It was Dec. 29th, 2005. Eric had said it would be fun to get dressed up and try out a nice restaurant in downtown Chicago. I flew in the night before, and spent the morning at the mall with my mom desperately searching for the perfect outfit. 3 hours, and approximately $200 later... I was armed with my evening attire. We were roaming through Pottery Barn when I noticed a voicemail on my phone. The signal was poor so I stepped outside to hear the following message:

"Um, yeah, hi Meghan, this is Eric. Hey - I think I mentioned something awile back about us getting dressed up for dinner tonight... but I only brought jeans so I just wanted to let you know not to worry about anything fancy. See you tonight! Bye!"

Perfect. Thus began my race to return EVERYTHING I had just bought, and the new search for the perfect "hot-yet-sophisticated-and-casual" outfit.

The plan was to meet at the Italian Village.

Dinner was great - although it was noisy at first and awkward conversation was complicated by Eric's soft spoken nature. We shared a bottle of wine (neither of us aware that the other rarely drank)... turns out it really did help Eric at least, to losen up. I was just plain dizzy.

After dinner we walked around downtown enjoying the Christmas lights and decorations, and getting to know eachother. It was a really great first date... and you know the rest of the story!!

At one point that evening, we wandered into the Daly Plaza, where a giant tree is decorated. A man convinced us to let him take our picture for a $10 5x7 - and since neither of us had the nerve to shoot the guy down... we agreed (and of course I'm glad). Here it is:

(Note the polite and awkward distance between us as we both stand with our hands in our own pockets praying for the moment to be over quick. )

Last week, we headed up to Chicago a few days before Christmas to celebrate our Anniversary. Ella stayed with my parents, and Eric and I headed back downtown to re-visit "where it all began". There were a few differences this time... the biggest being that the windchill was somewhere between 20 and 40 degrees below zero.

Here's us at the train station freezing our BEHINDS off!! The train was over an hour late do to ice and signal issues... We huddled together in the station where it was a balmy 40 degrees... and I think the train temperature was lingering around 50.

By the time we got to the hotel we were frozen to the bone. They were having wind gusts up to 45mph, and you pretty much just couldn't breathe outside at all. Nevertheless, we were determined to have a good time - if only for memories and stories!

A quick footbath in the tub warmed our frostbitten feet right up and we even braved the half-block walk to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We were back at the hotel by 7pm however... and opted for football in HD over enjoying the lights of Michigan Ave.

Here's a shot of the INSIDE of our hotel room window the next morning.

A pigeon fire! Need I say more?!

The winds died down the next day and we had a great time shopping and just wandering around. We ventured back to the Italian Village that night where we both admitted the "sparks didn't quite fly" as they did 3 years prior. Rather than worrying about my hair, I ripped off the hat I had been wearing all day to expose a pretty bad case of "hat head"... we couldn't afford a bottle of wine or dessert... and Eric had me pay at the end of it all. Still... it was fun to be back and remember. Afterwards we wandered over to Daly Plaza... and I was happy to see the tree still there. We begged a stranger to snap a photo of us... and here you go:

This is now...

That was then...
In spite of it all we really did have a great time. It's so hard to believe how much has changed in just 3 short years (and I'm not just referring to my cheeks being a whole lot chubbier!)... Love you Eric... sorry I made fun of you and your cake - but you have to admit... it worked!