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Hi! We are Gary and Alla Jenkins. We live in San Rafael, California, about 15 miles north of San Francisco. I ( Gary) have lived in California all of my life. Alla came here in 2004 on a fiancee visa, and we married in early 2005. The story of our meeting and marrying, as well as the challenges for both of us in regards to Alla’s getting to America and adjusting to life in America is full of serendipity, revelation, frustration, and excitement. We look forward to sharing our story with you and hope that through our example you will be empowered to bring magic and fulfillment into your life, with ease.  

So, Welcome. If you’re at all interested in the facts of having a Russian bride, check in with us frequently, and benefit from what we’ve learned and how we’re growing.

Gary and Alla.
       

******* updated on 03-03-07 by Gary with Alla *******

O.K., - - in response to a request for more info about us, here we go. I’ll start with how we met.

First off, please note - - all the photos at the top of our page can be clicked for an enlarged view. Yes, I know, the expansion ratios on a couple of them need adjustment and I’ll fix it soon. But for now, the bridge photo next to the photo of me is of the Golden Gate Bridge between San Francisco county and Marin county. Alla and I live in San Rafael in Marin county about 15 minutes north of the bridge. So this incredible bridge and the even more incredible city of San Francisco are practcally in our backyard.

And the snow scene next to Alla’s photo is a picture taken from the door of her parent’s house. It looks across their backyard and vegetable garden with a path leading to her sister’s house. This is where Alla grew up, in a small city called Kiselyovsk which is in Siberia and very close to the geographical center of Russia.

So I am a native of the bay area in California. And even though Alla is a native of Siberia, we met in Ukraine. And yes, we met on the Internet, but it was not through the services of an agency or “Russian girls” web site. It was through the method I wrote about on my January 3, 2007 post. Here’s what happened.

I had been working closely for a year with a Russian woman named Elena in a personal growth seminar series where we functioned as assistants to the seminar leaders. But even though we worked so closely together, we never learned about each other except through what came up in our class situations. Then one day, circumstances put us together for dinner at a pizza restaurant. We chatted at length over some wine after dinner and then she abruptly said to me “I want you to meet my very best girlfriend”. Since I didn’t just fall off the back of the turnip truck, I knew as a single man, that when a woman you trust and respect, offers you her best girlfriend, you listen up. So Elena proceeded to tell me some things about Alla to which I responded “I’d like to meet her; give me her number and I’ll call her”. Then Elena said “well it’s not quite that simple; Alla lives in Ukraine, but I have her e-mail address”. (Observe here that I was not actively seeking a Russian woman. It just “happened”. And had I known then what I know now, I would have been actively seeking one. But that would probably have resulted in a different story, and I’m quite happy with the way things are now, thank you.)

Well I wrote that first “hello I’m a friend of Elena” e-mail to which Alla responded. And I could just say here “the rest is history”. But many things took place after that first set of e-mails until my return from my third trip to Ukraine with my fiancee at my side. Some things I have already written about in individual blog posts and many more I will write about in the future.

I’ll also add more to this “about us” page. In particular I’ll expand on our usage of the previously used term “serendipity” because I’m still amazed at how this universe “clicks” and would like to share it with you from the perspective of how it relates to Alla and I.

Thanks for visiting and we’ll share more later.

Gary and Alla

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