The view from our Lanai

10 years ago The Lovely Anna and I took a trip for our 10 year anniversary (at least that’s the excuse we used) to the island of Maui, Hawaii and basically fell in love with the island. We bought a timeshare week there and have traveled to Maui every year since, usually just the two of us but occasionally with close friends with whom we were able to share the charm and beauty of this Hawaiian island.

This year for our 20th anniversary we finally brought all our kids (including Elizabeth!!) along as well as lots of family and friends to watch us renew our wedding vows on the beach at sunset tonight. After we will have a reception at a fantastic Maui restaurant and then spend the rest of the week enjoying the island. The Lovely Anna is in 7th heaven.

Blogging will be daily but light this week. Aloha and mahalo!

Today marks 20 years since The Lovely Anna and I were married in St. Paul, Minnesota on a beautiful Friday autumn evening. I remember it being one of the best days of my life… surrounded by family and friends… embarking on a new chapter in life with a woman I still find hard to believe agreed to marry a poor art student with little going for him and less in the way of promising prospects of a career. I was devilishly handsome, however. Actually she says I made her laugh, and that’s how I hooked her.

“An ARTIST?!?” her friends said to each other. “Poor Anna.”

Well, it didn’t work out so bad. If the next 20 are as rich and full of love, laughs and life as the last I will be writing about our 40th anniversary before I know it. It’s been a wild ride at times, but there has never, ever been a moment even among the many challenges that any couple in this day and age face that I ever had a moment of doubt that I did not love my wife with all my heart, or that I could imagine myself with anyone else.

… not even Salma Hayek or Carla Gugino. Well… yes. Not even them. I’ll bet they snore. Or their feet stink.

Sadly the best we can do today is a nice dinner out, because I am leaving for Germany on Sunday for that NCS trip I mentioned sometime back, and my little freelance dry spell ended with a vengeance yesterday when the phone started ringing and I have several jobs on the board with tight deadlines. Fear not, however. The Lovely Anna is not being deprived! Next month she and I are taking the kids with us for a week in Hawai’i (Maui to be specific) where about 20 of our friends and family will meet us as we renew our vows at sunset on the beach. Flowers, photos, musicians, minister… the works.

You see, I have learned something after 20 years of marriage: when The Lovely Anna is happy, everybody’s happy.

Hard to believe it’s been two years already since the first post on The MAD Blog. Thanks to leap year and a (very) few multiple post days, this is post #791. Just when trying to come up with something new to write about or when writing a post begins to seem like a chore, I get another e-mail from someone telling me how much they love the blog and how much they get out of it, and they thank me for doing it.

As I’ve said before, it’s a kind of therapy for me to put down the drawing pen and write for a little while each day, so I get something from it as well. Thanks to all my regular readers, and welcome to the new ones.

For some highlights from the past two years, check out the links to my tutorials and some of the posts people find to be of continued interest.