Twenty Years of Lust, Love, Hard Work, Arguments, Fidelity, Devotion and Happiness; Ultimately.

Today’s post will be rather short and sweet as my wife and I went out last evening, for a bike ride and dinner, to celebrate being a couple for twenty years.

On August 19th, 1995 we went on our first unofficial date together.  We met at a dance, danced the night away and went to a local boat launch to drink coffee and learn something about each other.  We talked for several hours, about Elvis and the Beatles, about Star Wars and sobriety.

As fate would have it, Jessica was the woman God made for me, as I was the man He made for her.

We’ve been through good times and bad.  We’ve been richer and poorer.  In sickness and health.  My wife has been my best friend since that day; my hot, smokin’ babymama (in the Elvis sense, not the seedy “mother of my babies”).

We would go on to marry, to make a commitment to God and have wonderful children and build a beautiful life together…  Through faith, hard work, and dedication.  Forsaking all others,  till death do us part.

Our successful marriage didn’t come easy though.  It took struggle, work, compromise, understanding and doing a whole lot of stuff for the other that we didn’t want to do – and it ultimately took making a conscious decision to be married, not two people living single but together.  As my good friend Mike once said, “Jimmy, sometimes you wanna throw ’em like a dart but you just gotta love ’em”.  Truer words have never been spoken.

Today is a good day.  Good times, noodle salad.

Or, in my case, good times, 14 oz New York strip, and cheddar mashed potatoes… Good enough for government work.

[ED.  Just in case you’re wondering, my drink is an Arnold Palmer – half-and-half lemonade and iced tea.  Also, an hour before the photo of my wife and I on our mountain bikes was taken, it was raining.  I was CERTAIN that I’d finally get a day off…  Well, it cleared up so we went for an easy 14 mph spin down the dirt road, ten miles out and back.]