And a Jam-Packed 3 Years It's Been!

I'd like to start by saying that I'm not your typical male and I didn't miss my anniversary with Chana. In fact, I had this really creative idea for a blog post to celebrate "our day", but ran out of time to pull it off before going out to dinner with her. Does it count that I told her all about what could have been? Well, it counted in her books, and she encouraged me to go ahead and do it anyway. But, since the whole idea was to surprise her, I think the moment has passed. Instead, I figured I'd do a "Day One of Our Fourth Year Together" post.

Here we go.

I can believe that we've only just passed the 3 year mark... It feels like a lot longer than that... and I mean that in a good way. With everything that has happened since we met, all the places we've gone, all the memories we've made together, it feels more like we've been a couple for a decade! Never before in my life have I ever had so much fun as I've had since I met Chana! In the short time I've had the priviledge of calling her my girlfriend we have:

• Spent a weekend in Radium... Her very first trip to British Columbia.
  
• Driven 7 and a half hours to Kelowna and had our caricatures drawn in the park.
  
• Spent a romantic weekend in a Polynesian Fantasy Room at the Fantasyland Hotel in West Edmonton Mall.
  
• Watched our kids play together in Sylvan Lake while spending a weekend in a cottage.
  
• Made countless trips to the mountains and Banff National Park so she could visit her favorite waterfall.
  
• Watched Killer Whales swim within a few feet of our boat off the San Juan Islands.
  
• Marveled at genuine Egyptian artifacts at the Royal British Columbia Museum.
  
• Taken pictures of our feet in almost every place we've visited together.
  
• Hunted down 2 street signs: Chandler St. and Bing Ave. ("Friends" fans will get it...)
  
• Had our portraits drawn in Stanley Park.
  
• Tried (unsuccessfully) to get good pictures at every one of our kids' school concerts.
  
• Collected many turtles (her) and chess boards (me).
  
• Worked through her near-blindness following laser eye surgery.
  
• Walked along the main streets of little towns near our city, just for the sake of doing it.
  
• Left the house at 4:30 in the morning on a weekend, just to go see a sunrise in the country.
  
• Used binoculars to find our neighborhoods from high atop the Calgary Tower.
  
• Introduced me to platanos fritos... Yum!
  
• Shown her every house I lived in as a child (and there are 16, spread across 3 cities and 2 provinces!).
  
• Spent 3 magical Christmas' together with our 6 kids.

That is by no means the entire list, because there's just no room or time for it all! But I think it gives you a good idea just how awesome the last 3 years have been for us!

In all, it's a great feeling to have finally found someone that I can truly call a "companion"... Someone I can share life with (ups and downs) and never get tired of doing it. I can't wait to see what kind of memories we make in the next three years!

I love you, Chana.