How We Met

Believe it or not, we met at a bar.

Of course, there's a little more to it than that. When Kyle first came to Seattle, he joined a volunteer organization called SeattleWorks thanks to the advice of Mr. Kristian Lau. He met a bunch of great people through that organization (in fact, several SeattleWorks people will be at the wedding), and one of the best was his very first team captain, Andy. Andy and he became friends, and he invited Kyle to a function where he was able to meet some of Andy's college friends. One of these friends was Sarah Wurzburg (yes, another Sarah!). After the function was over, Wurz and Kyle went to meet up with some of Kyle's friends at a bar in Fremont. Well, it turns out Kyle's friends bailed on him, and it was just he and his new friend Wurz hanging out in Fremont. To add to the spice, Wurz invited her roommate, another friend from DePauw. And yes, that person was none other than Sarah Korelin. The three of us had fun that night. So much fun, in fact, that we agreed to meet up on Sunday to watch some football.

Sunday rolls around, and Sarah & Sarah are exhausted; they did NOT want to get up and drive to the restaurant to meet up with this new guy. After a heated bed-to-bed arguement, they eventually decided to go (watching the Bears is never a bad choice) and faithfully showed up on time. The mysterious new guy, however was nowhere to be found. The two Sarahs eventually gave Kyle a call, and he was definitely sleeping. Realizing he had overslept, Kyle quickly hurried to the restaurant and met up with the girls. Despite his tardiness, Sarah K decided she liked Kyle, and she informed him that they were going to be best friends. Pretty good intuition. We were friends for several months, then finally started dating on the fateful date of the 13th (after Sarah had been impressed by Kyle's flan-making skills). Our luck held out though, and just over two and a half years after we started dating, Kyle asked Sarah to marry him.

How We Got Engaged

The engagement itself was a multi-phased process. Kyle went back and forth on how/where to do it, but decided one weekend that the plan was less important than just asking.

• Phase 1 - Kyle and Taters appear to Sarah as lobsters. I think the picture speaks for itself - this phase was awesome.
• Phase 2 - Kyle asks Sarah to marry him, then presents her with a choice of engagement rings. She did have a lot of choices, and it literally took her about 10 minutes to decide on a ring. Ultimately, the diamond one narrowly edged out the butterfly. In hunting for the ring, Sarah completely forgot to answer the question Kyle asked her. So, he asked again, making sure he got an answer this time. Clearly, she said yes.
• Phase 3 - Kyle made biscuits and gravy from scratch. The biscuits weren't really worth the trouble (Bisquick makes a pretty darn good biscuit without much effort), but the sausage gravy was amazing.
• Phase 4 - Kyle had saved a bunch of items from their dates/trips (like ticket stubs), so we looked through all that old stuff and remembered all the fun we have had together already. In the spirit of full disclosure, there were several things in the box that Sarah had never done with Kyle. Turns out, they were from things that Kyle and Kristian had done together. Figures...
• Phase 5 - Sarah and Kyle had a productive day of house hunting. The process is definitely challenging, but it is a fun couple-y thing to do.
• Phase 6 - Sarah and Kyle went to Ray's Boathouse for a nice seafood dinner on the water. Kyle really wanted lobster to be on the menu so the theme could stay alive, but alas lobster is hard to find on the left coast. At this point, it's worth noting that Kristian had been obsessively watching Deadliest Catch, the show about fishing for Alaskan king crab. Well, all those episodes served as an inspiration to Sarah, who decided to order the fresh Alaskan king crab legs that night. For all of you that haven't had fresh king crab, you really should try it. Costco will give you a good price on it too.

Six phases later, Kyle and Sarah were stuffed, exhausted, and engaged. All in all, it was a good day.