Christina

Christina and I celebrated our second anniversary on August 18, 2009. Our romance had humble beginnings in the summer of 2006 when I charmed her during the course of her summer visit to Louisville, KY. We bonded over serving children in our neighborhood, reciting lines from Michael Card songs and The Princess Bride, and picnics with tree climbing. We still roll pretty much the same, but with Christina now 8 months pregnant, there's less tree climbing.

So, for our second anniversary, Christina surprised me with a special "daycation" to Cincinnati, OH. We left mid-morning (we're not punctual leavers) and spent the afternoon exploring and picnicking at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. It was great and afforded us some awesome pictures, including many of me mounting, subduing, and imitating animal statues scattered around the premises. Christina was a real champ, enduring 5 hours of pregnant park walking with breaks on the train and tram.

From the zoo, we traveled out of town to the nearby 1861 Inn, a bed and breakfast in Batavia, OH. The house and setting were gorgeous, and the hosts were exemplary. We got the home tour and history, poolside drink and snack service, our bed turned down and our pillows "truffled" while we went out for dinner, juice and coffee delivered to the room in the morning, and a breakfast including a warm peach / blueberry dish, blueberry scone and English muffin (for me), and baked eggs with spinach and ham before we hit the road. Wow! You seriously can't get a better deal than that. We highly recommend the stay and are already plotting to take friends back with us. (We also loved the comfy bed, claw foot tub, and movie selection... we watched Hitch. )

On the way home, we couldn't help stopping by the West Chester IKEA store just north of Cincinnati. We picked up an Expedit storage unit for Eowyn's room and managed to fit the box in our trunk. The drive home was happily uneventful, and now I'm plugged back into the internet and almost hard at work. We were very excited to find our "blog tour" copy of North! Or Be Eaten waiting for us when we got here. Christina's already half way through it and I can't wait to dive in, too. For those interested, this is the second book in the Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson for which we are building a fan site called The Wingfeather Wiki. It rocks!

Many thanks to my bride for a wonderful trip! I love you.

I love it when I get in bed after a late night of hacking and Christina curls up next to me in her sleep.

As the title suggests, Christina and I are now entering our second year of marriage. However, we won't do it without first celebrating our first anniversary, August 18, 2008! I'm looking forward to the day (which officially starts in one minute) and to dinner and conversation with my wife tomorrow evening. I believe it's going to be homemade (gluten free) pizza with some wine from the Biltmore Estate (where we went on our honeymoon) and some cheesecake for dessert. Ahh, yes... the cheesecake. Apparently, someone at some time thought it was a good idea to save wedding cake to eat on your first anniversary. I like my cake to be fresh or at least recent. A year old??? I'm just not sure how that'll go, but I'm willing to try. You learn to just do things like this after being married for a year. ;) We'll have a quiet celebration here at home followed by a celebration in Budapest, Hungary next week before heading down to Drupalcon Szeged 2008. We're very thankful to God for such a wonderful opportunity on our first anniversary. We've had nothing but blessing since our marriage... and that itself was a HUGE blessing. So, it's now officially my anniversary, and I get to go set out the new coffee maker I bought Christina. Hopefully that will put her in an even better mood in the morning so that anticipation can build for making that pizza a little extra special. Dare I ask for grilled chicken??? Mmm... 8) My wife is patient, kind, and encouraging, and she loves me more than I deserve. She's also adorable: I love you, Christina. :)