it's been official for three years...

but this november we will have been together for 10.

yesterday was my three year anniversary with my lovely wife, jenn. but we've been together since november of 1995. some adventures in those ten years:

-the south by southwest music festival for spring break, 1996. we caught over 30 bands in 4 days. i have a photo of jenn smoking a huge cigar in the back of a burlap sack coffeehouse where we listened to a band that sounded like rusted root's poor cousin.

-jenn visited me in aspen in 1997 and tried snowboarding for the first time. she was bruised and tired, and didn't like me very much at the end of the day.

-in the middle of our americorps year in new mexico, we went up as a crew to taos in april of 1998. we cleaned that community's acequias - centuries old networks of ditches that help the landowners share water for farming and ranching. every spring the town comes together and cleans the ditches. the work took us through pastures, down back alleys, across backyards. i have a picture of us walking out that evening - the sun setting, snowy mountains in the distance, jenn and our americorps friends walking tiredly down a dirt road with picks and shovels slung over their shoulders.

-in the fall of 1998, i was accepted into the graduate school of library and information science at the university of illinois. jenn drove down from the quad cities and met with an advisor. she was allowed to take a couple classes that spring, and became a full-fledged student the following fall. i was more proud for her than for myself.

-in the summer of 1999, we drove out to phoenix to see trent and dawn get married and to hang out with timmy. we went on to san diego, where we rented longboard surfboards and tried to learn how to surf from a guy named kahuna bob. the ocean handed us our asses that week - i've never done anything so difficult. but we car camped on a bluff overlooking the pacific in cardiff by the sea, discovered really good sushi together, and played in the tidepools in the early morning when the tide was out.

there are more adventures, but i have to start my day. perhaps i'll recount more next week.

i love you, jenn. here's to more explorations together.