Meeting my husband.....

I promised some of you a story about how I met my Dutch husband, Sander, so here goes.....

My roommates and I decided that we were going to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in a big way in the year 2001. We were living in a 4 bedroom house in NoPo (North Portland) having a blast hanging out as single girls. You could say that we were living it up. The place to be in Portland for St. Patrick's Day is Kell's Irish Festival downtown. Since it was on a Saturday that year, we decided to get there early....

We were there when the gates opened at 9am to get our wristbands (otherwise there would be a three hour wait...some friends did that with us for our five year anniversary). We then hit Denny's for breakfast, home to get ready and were back to Kell's by noon. My favorite Irish folk band, the Clumsy Lovers, had a set scheduled for 1pm. I couldn't miss that!!

The day was magical. Spending time with friends, meeting all kinds of people and just having fun! One of my roommates, Dede Dickow (sister of Laura), got a shamrock balloon hat from our other friend Joanne. She was of course wearing this said balloon hat all over the festival tent. It certainly allowed us to meet many different guys :) Dede was determining each perspective match and passing them off to the appropriate roommate.

When Sander approached Dede around 10pm (yes we had just a few beers....) she immediately said..."Janell loves European men...you have to meet her!"

I remember seeing him approach me and it was like words were not needed. We had an instant connection. I do remember telling him that "Sure, I will show you Portland...." He had been here for a few months for work at Intel (he works for a Dutch company). His co-workers had just left him and he was by himself here for another few months.

We immediately started dating (after I wrote my number on his hand). He ended up getting transferred after 3 months to Taiwan. We were able to meet in Hong Kong twice (I was working there on an adidas project) and the Netherlands once during our 5 months apart. In November of 2001 he moved to Portland on a year visa to work and the rest is history!!! We were engaged on 01/02/03 on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and we married in August 2003. What can I say, love comes in very unexpected ways!