A Tribute to my Husband

Today is Kevin's and my 20th wedding anniversary. (I tell everyone we were married when we were 13.) I wanted to share with you a few of the many reasons why Kevin is so special to me. We met as neighbors in San Luis Obispo, where we were both in our second year at Cal Poly. His roommates, my roommate, and the group of girls downstairs from us became very close and we spent the next three years hanging out together. During that time Kevin and I were good friends. I would call him up early Saturday mornings (around 10 or so) to drag him down to Avila beach with me, where we'd spend the day bodysurfing and shivering on the beach.

Here is our group of friends from Cal Poly. You can see Kevin and I, but not together... yet.

Sometime in our third or fourth year, Kevin and I both had overlapping internships at IBM in San Jose. We lived near each other so we decided to commute together. After three months of commuting and hanging out together he became my best friend. When I returned to school before he did, I couldn't wait for him to get back too. A few months later we became "an item".

After Kevin graduated he proposed to me on the cliffs of Big Sur. It was beautiful! 4 months later we were married in San Luis Obispo, and then living and working in San Jose. This was 1988. Don't we look young?

We lived in an apartment together for a year and half and then bought a tiny shoebox house on a mound of dirt in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We raked rocks, scraped and saved for four years. We started our family by getting two puppies and eventually 3 cats.

We built a house together on that mound of dirt and are still here enjoying it and filling it with family and friends. This was 1994.

During the past 20 years, Kevin took up running and became an accomplished runner. Here he is finishing his first marathon in Napa Valley. He went on to run several more marathons and half marathons, as well as every local race. His favorite race of all time is the Dipsea, run in Marin County. He doesn't run much any more because raising (and lifting) the twins herniated a disk in his back that running aggravates. But this did not stop his passion for exercise as he now is an avid bicyclist and rides up and down these crazy hills on a regular basis.

After we built the house, we took six weeks and toured through Ireland and Europe with our bikes. Here is Kevin with his cousin Michael in Cavan, Ireland in front of the house where his grandmother Katie was born. The house was abandoned when the Typhoid fever came through and is now occupied by grazing cows. His grandmother emigrated to America where she met his grandfather in San Francisco, amazingly also from Cavan, his family only a few miles away from hers.

Later in the trip we spent our 7th wedding anniversary in Salzburg, Austria. It was also the anniversary of St. Stephens (?) cathedral and the whole city was having a huge festival. It was a lot of fun, and the beer was great too.

Kevin is very handsome here, as we ride the train through the Austrian Alps at the end of our trip.

After our trip in 1995, we started thinking about having children but nothing was really happening yet. Then my grandfather died in 1996 and my grandmother moved in with us. Now there is a saint of a husband to welcome my grandmother into his newly built home and give her the master bedroom suite for 10 years. He and my grandmother became very close and we shared many trips together. If ever we went somewhere (not backpacking, however) we brought her and she shared every experience with us from a wheelchair's view. Kevin pushed her many miles (and dumped her once too!).

By year 2000, we were very frustrated that we hadn't been able to have children yet, so we brought out the big guns and got serious. By October we were finally pregnant, with twins!

Here is Kevin with C, on one of the best and worst days of his life. You can't really tell from this photo, but Kevin endured the most grueling event of his life this day. He watched me nearly die on the operating table after the twins were delivered by emergency C-section, and he watched K suffer through breathing trauma and be taken off to the NICU. In this photo he is quite relieved that we all survived. (Me too.)

Here is another one of the happiest days of Kevin's life, the day he finally brought K home from being in the NICU 10 days. We could finally all be together!

Kevin's absolute favorite thing to do is to spend time with his kids outdoors. Here we are on our 18th anniversary camping and fishing at Woods Lake near Carson Pass. Kevin is the most amazing dad. He loves his children deeply and would do anything for them. His love, patience and endurance inspire me.

Here too is a momentous day for us! We have our newest daughter, M, and Kevin was the proudest dad in all of Russia to be able to take this photograph with her at Red Square.

So here I am, 20 years later, wishing my husband the best of all days. I want him to know how deeply I love him, even though I am not very good at showing it day to day. He makes me laugh. I am so proud of his accomplishments in his career and his personal life. He has admirable integrity and strength. He has saved me through the darkest moments of my life. He has patiently waded through all the confusion and frustration I have thrown his way. He is a rare find.

He is mine.
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