Met: 3/7/2003 | Engaged: 8/5/2003 | Wedding: 5/1/2004.

Our Meeting as told by Mary Beth

We met on March 7th 2003 at an office dinner for Rick's work. My friend Terri Barker asked me to join the group because she thought that I and her boss Rick would make a good pair. Rick was late and arrived with a woman. I wasn't at all surprised by this as this is basically how my adult dating life had always been. Naturally, I presumed that they were dating but was pleasantly surprised to hear that they were friends. While we sat next to each other the whole night we didn't get to talk much as Rick had spent the day having to fire an employee and this was the talk of the table. We did however get to exchange numbers and Rick did know that Mary Beth was scheduled to leave in 2 1/2 weeks for Mombasa, Kenya two weeks latter.

Two days latter Rick called me and asked me out on a date. We went to Anna Marie's an Italian restaurant on Connecticut Ave in Washington DC. We met at 7:30 and I didn't look at my watch again until 11pm. A week latter we met again and went to the Lebanese Taverna. Rick put together an entire binder of information on Kenya and cameras for me and gave it to me that night. Although this was the night that the war started neither of us knew it. We were too engrossed in our own conversation to notice. The war caused my trip to Kenya to be cancelled so I asked Rick out. We went to my favorite local restaurant Chef Geoff's. We like to say that since then we've been together.