Happy Anniversary Amanda!

So this is the first digital photo that exists of Amanda and I....everything else before this was taken on this thing called 'film' or something. This is from the summer of 2005, when we were visiting Seventh Lake in the Adirondacks, staying with Brian on his family's island.....

Notice the location of Amanda's arm? yeah. me too.......

Not our actual WEDDING anniversary....something even cooler: The anniversary of our first date!

Thirteen years ago today it was a Saturday and I was living at 21 Edgewood Road with Brian and Josh. Brian, a member of the UNH woodsmen team, was hosting a woodsmen's meet on campus, and the 'after party' was at our humble abode. It was absolutely FREEZING outside, and we had MOE, our old ALL NIGHTER woodstove, cranking. Josh and I had put together perhaps one of the finest chicken soups ever known to man, thinking that when all the hick-redneck-dirty-old-woodsmen came back from their little games they would have something good and hot to eat.

That particular day was also the the date of an awesome concert bill that I really wanted to see in Portland: The Samples. Check them out if you have never heard them. A wonderful, chill, catchy band.

I had asked this girl Amanda, with whom I worked at CFAR, if she wanted to go. She said yes!!! And then she said no..................because she had forgotten that that evening she had a 'gig' of her own with the UNH Wind Symphony. And what a gig it was. The phone call went something like this: "Hi Jared....umm...I hope you arent mad...but I cant go to the concert with you cuz I am playing in a pre 1800 French opera commemorating the construction of the palace at Versailles.....but you should totally come.......if you want."

Oh. The. Joy.

I had other options that night--options I wont go into because they will make me sound like an even bigger jerk than people already think I am. But I just knew there was something about this Amanda girl that was really special. So I went. I left the warmth of the wood stove hearth of 21 Edgewood...with more beer than I cold shake a stick at...with a bunch of fun lumberjacks...and I walked about a mile to the Paul Creative Arts Center, in the freezing cold, to see my future wife play oboe in a dreadfully boring opera about some arrogant French dink who built a big house for himself. But the look on Amanda's face when I walked in was priceless....

After the opera, I waited while she did all her nerdy musician things like clean her oboe or put her handcarved reeds away; then, we walked together the The Licker Store (get the pun...it was an ice cream and coffee shop????) and sipped hot cider outside in the cold. It was perfect. Then we walked together BACK to the PCAC and, on our very first date, on her request, I played a few of my original songs for her in one of the piano studios. One song, "Sunporch," really seemed to bring her joy. "Jeesh," she said. "I could only wish that someday someone would write a song like that for me."

Well Amanda, I am sure someday someone will....

haha

The night came to a graceful end when she drove me back to my lumberjacked (is this an adjective?) house in her 1978 White 240 Volvo and I invited her in for chicken soup (if there was any left) and hot cocoa with Bailey's Irish Cream in it. The 'lumberjack party' was essentially over, as most folks had passed out. But one wonderfully groomed and delightfully corpulent man awoke from his resplendent slumber on our couch (dont even know who he was) and yelled "Dude!! Sorry! Didnt know you brought a chick home!! Want me to go downstairs so you guys can hook up on the couch??" #Grace.

Thirteen years!! Time certainly does fly by, huh Amanda??? Our next and second date before we got engaged (joking) was to go see Will Ferrell's ELF together in Newington. But that is a whole other story....

Happy anniversary Amanda. And Boo to you!!! #insidejokeseven