This letter is way overdue. We met on Elena's Models in February 2005 and got married in November 2006. Since then I've made several attempts to write about us but just couldn't finish for some reason. A couple of days ago my former occupation (marriage agency) caught up with me again and here I am, finally writing this. Oh, well, where to start? I guess from the very beginning. Which means Ekaterinburg, Russia, a life ago. Divorced, with a two year old girl, lonely and unhappy but deep inside still hoping that this wasn't my life for the rest of my days. Long, painful search for a Russian guy, disappointment after disappointment. That's how my life looked like at that time. Though, there was one good thing that came out of dozens of unsuccessful dates - I met not only typical Russian men, but good guys as well, who cured me with their attention and complements from the low self-esteem that I inherited from my first marriage. The thing that I understood later in my dating journey was that while you are still full of after-divorce negativity in particular and negativity towards men in general, you will never get where you want to be. You need to get rid of it for your own good and move on with your life. All this was happening while I was working in a marriage agency and telling our ladies to try Elena's Models website! I had a chance to talk to Elena's mom in person, heard from her the successful story of her daughter and about Elena in general. Aren't it ironical? Shoemaker without shoes making shoes and teaching other people how to make them. I guess you need to "ripen" to that stage when you are mentally ready for this major step in your life and to mature to a shoemaker who actually wears the shoes he's making. Two and half years after my divorce I said to myself "Enough wasting my best years on Russian men! It's not working! Do what women in our agency do - look abroad". I had professional pictures taken may be a year after my divorce. They were nice, I mean I looked pretty but my eyes were giving away the true story - lonely, wounded and afraid to trust anybody. Would you like to be with a person like that? I don't think so. I've changed a lot after all these dates with Russian guys. I've done some self-improvement by reading books, analyzing my experience and my behavior and by analyzing what I saw in our agency. I was different, I felt different and I wanted the best of it to be seen. I made a new set of professional pictures - a little bit inviting, slightly flirting, showing what I have in me. I wanted to look genuine and alive. But it wasn't easy at all! "Oh, I'm fat! Oh, I'm not as pretty as other girls! Oh, I'm short! Oh, I'm a plain Jane!" Oh this, Oh that... Good grief! I can't believe I was that bad at that time! If you think that I found my hubby right after that photoshoot then think again. For some women it works pretty much right off the bat - men start writing, something clicks with one of them, he comes for a visit, immigration paper work, marriage. With me it was more like "They write but nothing develops" type of a thing. My routine for couple of years was "I place my profile, get letters from kind of interesting guys, some letter writing but nothing happens, I remove my profile, recover, cheer myself up and start all over again". Honestly, try after try it drains you, it kills your hopes, it invites you to quit. They say "The night is the darkest right before the dawn". Oh, boy, it's so true! To tell truth, the last time when I place my profile on the web-site I was almost disappointed in the whole idea of the search. But I knew that if I don't try then nothing will ever happen, nothing will ever change. I grabbed myself together and started all over again. And guess what? That's right - it finally happened! And not just happened - he was the first one I got a letter from! That last time I got more letters from men than usual. I was looking at their profiles reading their letters, they were nice but I kept coming back to his picture and what he wrote about himself. It was really simple and nothing extraordinary as you might think. It just felt sincere and that's what kept bringing me back to him. After couple of letters I decided that we should start chatting in ICQ. I spoke English OK at that time but it was Russian English :-)) It was embarrassing sometimes to demonstrate it, but would you give up a good man for your fear of not having perfect English skills? I wouldn't and I didn't and it paid off! It was that once in a life time "click" that everybody is dreaming about! The more we chatted, the more interesting it was getting and I liked madly everything I saw! I saw a smart, simple and very open person, with a very good sense of humor that was matching mine perfectly, he had the same life values and identical point of view on certain things. He was just like me, only a male, 15 years older, born and raised in the USA. And another thing that was important - he was very happy that I had a daughter because he loved kids very much but didn't have any of his own. We were like an instant family for him, family that he wanted so much. You see it and you ask yourself - is it even real? Is it even happening to me? Believe me, it was real and it still is. Later, we switched to voice chats in Yahoo messenger and chatted almost every day. Very soon it became clear that we need to move to the next stage - meeting in person. He came three times and one of them was on January 1! It was a long flight on almost empty Lufthansa plane from around 80F of Southern California into a frigid -25C of Ekaterinburg! Before his trip I asked him to take pictures of what he was taking with him for my inspection because I've seen may foreigners underestimate Russian winter and doing express shopping for warm clothes and footwear. He did just as I asked and went patiently through all my critics with "Honey, who wears this? Honey, you can't wear that!". If it's not a man in love then I don't know what is! Six months between visits were unbearable... We missed each other badly! Every time when he was going back home I couldn't function, I was on auto-pilot for days and so was he. After going through things like this you see clear what your relationship means to you and you appreciate more what you have. Fiancee visa paperwork went through pretty fast and without complications. We had everything - we met three times, we have print-outs of our ICQ chats, we had bunch of pictures and even 800$ cellphone bill from his first phone call! For the interview I even had his tax forms - just in case. Two months after his third visit our plane was landing in LA airport. From the first snow in Ekaterinburg into palm trees and shorts with T-shirts in California. We were happy like kids! No more six moths of waiting, no more voice chats, no more awaiting for any visas! We were finally together! This feeling is hard to describe and even six years later it's still with us. We eloped to Vegas. Three hours drive to Nevada and "I do!". Well, everybody wanted us to get married, so technically it wasn't your classic eloping but it's fun, sort of an adventure to look at it this way. It was a small ceremony with two friends of my husband and one of mine who flew all the way from North Carolina to be there with us. It was very heart felt, very emotional and unforgettable night. I wouldn't trade it even for a top notch traditional ceremony with bunch of guests, cake and a white dress that so many girls want to have. It was that case when less means more. After first euphoria wore off it's been hard sometimes to get used to a new life. I was probably more prepared then many other women because of my marriage agency experience and because my husband did his best to explain things about life in US long before we moved here. And even after being prepared I was struggling a little bit. I was shy to speak to other people, order food in restaurants and sometimes even with my hubby. It was very overwhelming to hear English from everywhere and speak it all the time. Your sensory system gets overloaded and you feel irritation, depression and bunch of other unpleasant emotions. You need to make a conscious effort to fight that moodiness and keep reminding yourself that it's just a process of adaptation and it'll go away eventually. I know that many women get homesick but I was lucky and it never hit me. I guess that TLC that my husband surrounded us with made it impossible to miss the place where I came from and where I've been so unhappy for a long time. And did I mention my hubby has an enormous patience and a heart of gold? I only can imagine how much of it he needed at that time! As for my daughter, she barely spoke any English when we moved to US. But kids are like sponges and may be after eight months of homeschooling and constant practicing with both of us she spoke English so good that she went to a normal class in her school and didn't need any assistance or ESL classes. Our daughter is a teenager now. Thirteen going on thirty :-)) She spent the first half of her life not knowing what having a daddy was like. Fortunately, now she has a good one (and already well armed :-)) ) who has even more patience with her than sometimes I do. She picked up after him her music preferences, favorite books, the manner of joking and we've been told few times that she looks just like him. What can be a better thing to hear for a man! If what you just read is not lovey-dovey enough for you then I'll add one more thing. I have wonderful parents-in-law and the whole extended family of my husband accepted us very well. When was the last time, if ever, your mother-in-law wrote to you in a greeting card that you are an answer to her prayers about her son? Mine did and, honestly, I never heard things like that even from my own mother. I hope this story was inspiring enough for those who are still in doubts if they should do it or not, and for those who are already looking, both men and women. It can happen to you too. You can do it too. It won't be easy and it will require a lot of patience, understanding and working on your problems but it's still doable. I'm wishing you all good luck! It won't hurt to have some! Natalia & Owen (USA)