When I pry my memory open and start digging around, memories of Amanda go almost to the bottom. I can never actually place meeting her... my brain just skips right to the part where I had a crush on her. The shared love of the great outdoors and dirtbiking is what brought our families together. On weekends we would find ourselves in Idaho City, covered in dust, not a care in the world. You read that right, even our families have known each other for many years. And then we got older. School, sports and social cliques pulled us slightly apart, but we always kept each other in peripheral view. Albeit both being too incredibly shy to do anything about our little crushes, or so I thought. Sophomore year of high school, we attended the Harvest Dance together. This is a girl-ask-guy kinda situation, in case you were wondering. Once again, as we graduated and moved on with our lives, different paths were taken. We both moved away from home, Amanda to the East and Austin to Wyoming. Many years went by with little communication. I've never been one to get too carried away with the existential questions of the world, I don't know why the heck we're here, but we are, and that's good enough for me. However, fate did eventually show its beautiful face and made me an instant believer. There I was, visiting home for Christmas, standing at the base of the climbing wall. I was staring 60 feet up at all the colorful plastic sticking out, in the most artistic way. I heard something next to me and when I brought my eyes back down to earth, there Amanda was, standing right in front of me. Little did I know, Amanda was also visiting Idaho from her home, at the time, of Portland, Maine. From that day on, we were nearly inseparable... spending every long weekend flying back and forth between Maine and Wyoming and filling our days with every type of adventure you can imagine (check out the gallery for a recap). I don't have to bore you with the details, but I'll just say life ultimately brought us back to our roots in Idaho, which brings us to here and now. Now the voice in my head on that day at the gym may have been outta line, but the first thing it said to me was "you're gonna marry that girl."