Our first date was at Common Grounds coffee house, off Douglas in Wichita. The morning of our first 'date' Barbara's printer decided to have a mind of its own as she was attempting to print out a report she was delivering after our coffee date. I was early but I was willing to wait all day till she got there. I hadn't seen her before so I anxiously sat at the front curiously inspecting patrons as they walked up the sidewalk and in the door. After a few "is this her?", "here she is", I sat down thinking to myself, you look like a high schooler, stop, just let it happen. And that's when the door opened and she walked into the house, when I saw her I thought no amount of caffeine will give me as good of a jolt of me seeing her for the first time; I got us some coffee and we sat down and just talked...and the rest, is history.

Our first trip together Barbara and I decided we would do the Pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayo. It is an Easter week tradition where thousands of people from all over the United States would walk to this ancient church in the hills of Chimayo, New Mexico, some would walk from hundreds of miles, but we decided we would walk from Santa Fe to the church, roughly 26 miles. All I could remember leading up to leaving was, "what if I snore too loud?" She's gonna leave me, then this will all be over, oh the agony! At the same time Barbara was concerned about walking 26 miles, at altitude, with minimal preparation time, you know, stuff that involves safety. But we decided to drive halfway to Chimayo and walk around 13 miles to the church, I didn't snore too badly, and we survived and enjoyed each other and the adventure. (editors note: ask one of us about how we got back to our parked car)