We met online in 1998, when he was 24 and I was 31. We were friends only, very (very) loosely staying in touch over the years. I was super commitment phobic, especially because I had kids, and he had a girlfriend for most of that time, so it was nice just being friends. We would lose touch and then  pick up our friendship again, over the next 10 years

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2008

Hurricane Ike hit Galveston Texas in September of 2008. I remember that day. I lived in Northern Louisiana at the time, and we just got the back winds from the hurricane, and a tree between my yard and my neighbor’s yard, was bending in the wind, back and forth and I could see the roots getting exposed, getting more and more worried.

Thankfully, it didn’t fall, but the winds blew someone else back into my life.

Peter called a mutual friend, whose sister lived in Galveston, to check if her sister was alright, and I happened to be working with her at the time. She asked if he wanted to talk to me and handed me the phone.

That was it. We never lost touch again, after that. We talked and talked and talked (thank God for Skype) and he came for a visit about 6 months later. We went all over northern Louisiana, Arkansas and east and south east Texas. He proposed! I said yes! Woohoo!!!!

2009

In late August, I came to Austria. We got married and have had all sorts of adventures and misadventures since then.

When I was looking up Austria and trying to find out more about it, I ran across some pictures of a place called Hallstatt. It was the most gorgeous place I had ever seen! A medieval looking town on a lake, with mountains all around.

When Peter asked where I wanted to go for our Honeymoon, I asked if we could go there and he agreed immediately!

I did not know at the time that Austria was about the same size as Louisiana, and it was very easy and not very expensive at all, to go to Hallstatt.

I saw real mountains for the first time! And Ice caves and a 7500 year old salt mine. I was in absolute heaven! Except for the walking and the claustrophobia and the altitude, going through the ice cave. But Peter was very cool and helpful about it, and we had a good time.

We even went back to Hallstatt for our second anniversary, staying in the same hotel, the Weises Lamm.  Of course things changed over the years and Hallstatt  eventually kind of became a big deal for tourists from all over the world, and got so crowded that you could not walk, and could only be swept along by the crowd.

Peter likes to take a nice, long motorcycle ride through the mountains, every few years, and the last time he did, he went through Hallstatt and was just really surprised at how it was, compared to the two times we had been years before. But times change. That’s part of life.

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And here we are now