my girlfriend.

[ "i'm glad we're connecting right now." was what she said to make everything alright. ]

my girlfriend is someone special, i tell ya. we beat all odds in the beginning and we’ve persevered our way into a life that cannot be beat. God is good. i know i blog a lot about my boys, but they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my wife. we’ve been going strong now for almost ten years — so long, that i had to scan the pictures from our beginning. in light of both our parents’ celebrating their 40th anniversaries this year, i have a lot to look forward to.

march ‘99, i took kristy back to my old backyard, trafalgar square.

then we backpacked through europe. starting with paris.

where we kissed for the first time in a hole-in-the-wall club just doors down from the “moulin rouge” windmill. i’ll never forget the iron-barred, gothic Metropolitain subway entrance in that seedy part of town.

i knew she was mine when she didn’t mind sleeping in the attic of an old hotel just a few minutes from Gare du Nord. we were even above the housekeeper’s linen rooms. so high, the slanted ceiling housed windows to the sky. my kind of penthouse — no running water, just a mattress.

these were the stairs we had to take to our “penthouse.” the lift didn’t go that high.

the year 2000, somewhere around haight and ashbury, sf.

march ‘01, tied the knot in lake arrowhead. yeah. i cried.

and today, my girlfriend. my best friend. my wife.