147 Years in Dog Years

That's 21 years for you humans. Our anniversary was yesterday. If our marriage were a person, it would just now be able to drink legally.

In 21 years we've done more than most people do in a lifetime. The really interesting thing is that most of the stuff we've done was accomplished in the first 11 years of our marriage. The last ten years have been spent in the same place.

We have lived (in the first 11 years of marriage) in

1. Indianapolis, Indiana

2. Bloomington , Indiana

3. Garrisonville, Virginia

4. Pensacola, Florida

5. Kaneohe, Hawaii

6. Morehead City, North Carolina

7. Naples, Italy

8. Lexington Park, Maryland

We have traveled internationally to

1. Japan

2. Australia

3. Italy

4. Spain

5. Austria

6. Ireland

7. Germany

8. China (three times!)

9. Mexico

10. Lots of little Caribbean islands

Jay has been to lots of other places, but these are the places we went to together.

Tidbits of info you don't really care about:

We have had five cats. Three have died, one is MIA --still unaccounted for and presumed dead, and one is still present and yacking on the carpet. The longest-lived cat died this spring and would have been 18 years old this summer.

We have had two dogs. I am not a good dog owner. I was glad when we got rid of them. The second one, a stray in Italy, had a cancer of the vagina. It was gross and I had to take her to get chemotherapy until her tumors shrunk. Blech.

We've had lots of fish. The last ones were outside in a little barrel pond. A snake ate them. We're done with fish.

We renewed our vows on our tenth anniversary in Naples, Italy. Seemed like ten years was a long time to be married back then. We haven't renewed them again. I think they stuck the second time.

Combined, we've spent at least four years apart while Jay's been deployed or on travel. That's actually a very good rate of togetherness for 21 years, as far as the military is concerned.

Our honeymoon was a cruise. We've taken two more cruises since then.

We've never gone camping together.

Jay was a guinea pig in a government experiment when I met him.

I always make Jay sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door when we're in a hotel.

We don't cook or do dishes together. Jay hates having me help him in the kitchen if he's in there. He'll quit if I try to help. We need a much bigger kitchen with more elbow room.

Since we've been married, between the two of us we've had a Ford Mustang, an Oldsmobile Cutlass, two Chevy Blazers, a Chevy Silverado, two Honda Civics, a Volvo, a GMC Yukon, a Jaguar, and two Honda Odysseys. I think we've had eight cars in just the past 11 years.

We've climbed Ayers Rock in Australia together.

We were both certified scuba divers when we lived in Hawaii.

It's been a quick 21 years. It seems like a long time, though, because we've done so much. When we get through our next 21 years, we'll look back and think the first 21 years was so long ago and our marriage was so young.

Love you, Jay. Here's to many wonderful years ahead of us!

Love,

Petrie