Seized!

So, I just remembered: 1 year, 10 days, and about 6 hours ago or so Tiff and I got married. That amounts to three-hundred-seventy-five-and-one-quarter days of wedded bliss. Can you believe it? I hardly can, I know that about eight-hundred days ago I figured I'd probably live my life as a lonely, half-shaven, hermit with a Winchester and a rocking chair on his porch and suspenders to keep my pants up. My how things have changed! In the last year (somewhat out of order) we've gotten married, climbed Angel's Landing, celebrated my graduation and took a job with
Caterpillar, went to Alaska, smelled the breath of a hump-back whale, canoed to a glacier, eaten a spruce tip, saw a glacier cave in like you see on the Discovery Channel, only in person, drank a quail egg, lived in Springville, made peach cobbler, played with bull-mastiff puppies, moved to Illinois, slept at a rest stop, have seen more bald eagles in real life than I ever thought possible, bought a giant bean bag for furniture, had a futon but got rid of it when we realized that having only a futon and a giant bean-bag for furniture made us hippies, sat on our patio and watched the fireflies, got attacked by red-winged blackbirds, gone biking in the woods, went to St. Louis,
saw the Mississippi from the top of the Gateway Arch, drove through the flood plane and realized just how bad it was last spring, got lost in the country roads and corn-fields and felt like a mouse in a giant green maze, Tiff learned to make delicious lemon merengue pie on a whim

and taught me to cook, I introduced her to the Demo-Derby and Mud-Drag Racing (and realized it was good we went after we'd been married), went to Japan, snorkeled, drank fresh coconut, zip-lined through the jungle, realized how much family really means, ate the best beef ever, patted a water buffalo, learned to say thank you very politely in Japanese ("Domo aregato gozimas-ta"), wore a kimono, swam in the East China Sea, got threatened by a wild moray eel
while snorkeling, ate an eel later that night for revenge, Tiff blew chunks for the first time since eighth grade, I caught those chunks in my half-empty Nalgene bottle to avoid a scene on an unusually quiet bus-ride through Tokyo, touched a wild frog, lived through an ice storm, have awoken at night to the severe weather siren feeling lucky to have someone to hold on to, learned to make and live on a budget, trying to learn how to make a good picture (a good self portrait is
still tough, but what do you think of the rose?), gone on scooter rides, plugged up a vacuum, dismantled a vacuum, bought a new vacuum, figured out how insurance actually works, fed the coyotes outside of Nauvoo with the deer that committed suicide by our bumper, re-upholstered a couch, made hash browns that could easily be mistaken for roadkill, came out victorious in a
battle with mold, realized that just because windows are "energy efficient" doesn't mean that ice won't form inside your room, put together a puzzle of Tigger so mind-numbingly difficult that could only be accomplished because it was too cold outside to do anything else (seriously, the
only puzzle more difficult would be one that was entirely one shade of blue and a circle), I grew a beard, Tiff's growing a baby, roasted marshmallows on the patio over the hibachi, still haven't
killed our cactus (maybe we'll be able to handle this baby thing yet!), got a library card, made peach pancakes, learned that shopping at Wal-Mart is a
lot more bearable if you don't do it on Saturday afternoon, made our own taco-seasoning, saw a real live cardinal, built an end-table in the kitchen with a hand saw and a drill, and the list goes on.
It's been an awesome year, we truly are blessed and I think we can consider it seized. The next one should be even more fun 'cause there's gonna be three of us. Now I just gotta scrounge up two rocking chairs to make sure that first dream can still come to pass... I love you Feet!!!