Tag: Anniversary

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6 Things I’ve Learned About My Bride

Liz on a Horse

After 6 full months of travel here are 6 highlights of what I’ve learned about my beautiful bride, Liz:

1) Girl Can Eat an Apple

Apple results

She has the most amazing ability to methodically eat every last edible bit of an apple. Quite quickly too, she can turn a perfectly whole Honeycrisp to into nothing but seeds and stem in under a minute. I knew she liked apples going into this trip but had no idea she had such a scientific approach to eating them. I was also unaware of how gracious she’s been with sharing bits with me over the years; my bits clearly didn’t fit into her scientific approach, and were never in the right spot, or the right size. She’s since shared her approach with me and shown me how the appropriate time to ask and take a bit of someone’s apple who uses the Liz method is at the very beginning, that way they can work with and correct your incompetent bites.

2) She is a Terrible Hitchhiker

HitchHiking

So recently we tried to hitchhike. Liz was gung-ho about it and thought it would be a huge boost to our budget. I on the other hand wasn’t real optimistic about the our possibility of our success considering we were looking at a 1500km journey, but thought it would be fun to try and a great experience if we succeeded in getting picked up. I knew it could possibly be boring just standing on the side of the road waiting for a ride, but what I wasn’t counting on was how quickly Liz would be over it. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe the wind. Maybe it was that there was nothing we could really do to be “better” at it. Maybe it was the ADD. We lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes before one of us threw in the towel. Maybe we’ll try again down the road.

3) She is the Perfect Date

I kinda knew this about Liz but it’s been on display a lot in the last 6 months. She can fit in any situation. Black tie gala? She’ll be joking with the celebrity Emcee by dinner. Hostel Kitchen? She’ll have a family style barbeque planned for dinner with a bunch of gap-years kids she just met. Fine dinning? She’ll be the one whispering which fork to use (Thanks Cotillion). Ska-Punk Halloween Concert in Bangkok? She’s in the front row singing along. Boardroom? Trust me, you want her on your side. Knife-edge of a mountain ridge in the remote backcountry? She can find a trail.

4) She is Super Thoughtful

Liz

Over the last 6 months I learned often just how much she puts me before herself. She’s always thinking about me. She is constantly concerned with my preferences and making decisions in light of what she thinks I would like. It is amazing to be loved like that.

5) She is a Loser

Not that kind! She loses stuff. Surprisingly often, especially for how few things we have with us now. She’s not allowed to hold anything important for more than a minute or two. She gets her passport from me when we walk up to the counter then it goes back in my pocket. She’s gotten better lately, but it is still funny because she still thinks she losses stuff all the time and will get so upset with herself when she just forgot which pocket she put something in.

6) Her Attitude is Weather Dependent

If it’s overcast or rainy you can pretty much count on Liz to be a bit of a grump, or at least fighting off the urge. Blue sky and she as happy as can be. This was a bit of a challenge in Patagonia where the weather changes every 10 minutes. And there is almost nothing you can do to change her attitude in bad weather… except putting her on a horse.

After spending almost every second of the last 179 days with Liz I can’t imagine spending a day without her.

She is Perfect for Me.

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6 Things I’ve Learned about My Husband in 6 Months Traveling Around the World

Rick Challenging himself

Mountains to climb

1) I Can Trust Him

That is absolutely NOT to say that I didn’t trust him before! I definitely did. Maybe it’s just that given more opportunities to put more trust in someone, you build even more trust? I don’t know. But my trust in Rick’s abilities and intentions has grown ten fold on this trip. Rick can figure out and take care of anything thrown at him. And he is always looking for how to put me first. He’s incredibly diligent and dedicated to making sure we’re all taken care of – from doing all of the visa research and logistics, to the biggest challenge, managing our trip budget! Which brings me to my second thing….

 

2) The Man Can Rock a Budget

If you knew us before the trip, and especially before we were married, you may be laughing or in shock right now. But it’s true! The first week of the trip in Nepal, Rick told me I had to stop worrying about the budget and our daily tracking, it was taking too much of my energy and enjoyment away, he was going to be in charge of it from then on out. I was reluctant (me being the saver, and him the spender). But it has turned out to be the best thing he could have done. He is meticulous! Every dollar (or rupee, baht, dong, euro) is tracked, tallied, averaged, analyzed. He stops us when we’re over spending. He manages to balance out the spending when we have a big unexpected expense (hello, $80 cab ride to Krabi!!). He reworks the big budget to compensate for us going rouge and going to four countries we never planned to, two of which were more expensive countries than where we’d plan to be. And six months in, we are EXACTLY on budget. I’ve managed $100 Million+ marketing budgets, and I have to say, this travel budget is just as complicated, if not more so! (“hmm what category do we put bribes in? and do we spread that over the month long budget for this country?”)

Rick with a Hat3) He Doesn’t Know All of the Words to Any Song… Or Joke

But he’ll repeat the few he does know OVER and OVER. I think he hopes that the other words will hear their cohorts and magically fall out of the sky. It doesn’t ever happen and it kinda drives me nuts. But after six months of 24/7 together, it’s become oddly endearing.

Rick Climbing mountains4) He Loves to Challenge Himself

…just for the sake of taking on the challenge. If there is something to be climbed up and balanced on, he’ll find it. Which is not something that comes naturally to me… I require a reward, something to make it worthwhile to take on the challenge. I’ll climb the mountain if there’s going to be a really awesome view from there, or it’s a pretty trail. I’m constantly asking “why? Is it worth it?”, infamously asking “is the juice worth the squeeze?”. Rick climbs the mountain because it’s going to be a hard mountain to climb, even if it’s not pretty or interesting or has a good view. This is true for just about everything we do. I love that he loves to take on big challenges… maybe that’s why he married me?

Rick Challenging himself5) He is a Magnet for the Most Diverse Set of People

As we’ve traveled I’ve gotten to watch all kinds of people become enamored with my husband, and it has been so cool! He doesn’t just get along with everyone, but seems to draw them in. And they immediately become Rick Fans, just like me.

Rick and the Guanaco6) He makes up the best goofy voices and characters

…to get me out of a bad mood, up a tough mountain or through a cold night of sleeping in a tent or 30+ hour bus ride. There’s Kurt the Turtle, the ferret collector from Craigslist, the guanaco (pictured above)… the list goes on. It probably sounds weird, but it makes me so happy and brightens my mood even when we’re in the crappiest of moments. And the fact that he’s in the middle of the storm with me and takes the energy and creativity to come up with something to make me smile means even more.