bo

ten by jen geigley


It's our tenth anniversary today. And ten years can fly by in a flash, just in case you didn't know. It has been a pretty radical decade. We've grown and changed in a million ways, as everyone does. Yet some things remain the same.

We met in the year 2000 (in the year two thouuuusaaaaand) after mutual friends gave Bo my phone number. I had just graduated from college, moved to Des Moines and was finding my way in the world. This, my friends, was before internet dating, before iPhones, before Facebook ... even before MySpace. I couldn't 'look him up' anywhere. We didn't know each other at all. And one night, he called me up on my land line and asked me if I wanted to go out for coffee. And I said 'sure.' It was basically a blind date, and I was basically freaked out.

Secretly, I hoped I wouldn't like him. I was getting ready to move to Minneapolis. Job interviews lined up, roommate and apartment ready to go. But one coffee date couldn't hurt.

Bo showed up at my apartment wearing a J. Crew sweater, jeans and a leather jacket and we drove to a coffee house called the Chat Noir in his Land Rover. (Did I do a good job painting that picture? ;) We started chatting instantly and effortlessly and found that we had tons of things in common. We had similar if not exactly the same taste in punk, rock and metal. We were both graphic designers who play guitar. Went to ISU? That too. We had coffee and talked for hours. He was cute, kind, funny as hell and I knew I liked him a lot. Right away.

I ditched my Minneapolis plans. I wanted to take a chance on this guy.

We'd hang out on the couch and watch movies, but we were both a little hesitant about relationships so we'd sit really far apart. I remember Bo slugged me on the arm while saying 'goodbye' one night and I wondered if we were just going to be friends. But there's nothing wrong with taking it slow. After a couple of months, we started dating. Three years later, he took me back to the Chat Noir and proposed.

And boom. Here we are. It's surreal to think about life back then. Super weird. Things were so different. We never could have imagined life ten years later. On the other hand, maybe we did. I might have forgotten. We're dreamers. I bet we were right on.

Marriage is no joke. Do we have days that are less than perfect? Of course. But we carry on. I don't take our relationship for granted – it's a rare and splendid thing to find your person. I'm lucky as hell to have found a dude who gets me; he makes home a fun place to be. He's an incredible father to our kids and a good friend to the people around him. We make a super solid team and I like where life is taking us.

I count my lucky stars to have a lifetime of coffee dates with Bo to look forward to. 

Happy anniversary, dude.


  (You can find this print here.)

nine by jen geigley


Nine years ago today, this was us. Who were we? A couple of kids, it seems. We had just bought a house. We didn't have children. We were fun; so happy and carefree. Little did we know that we were putting down roots in good old Des Moines, right then and there. We probably guessed where we'd be living and what we'd be doing in ten years, but we didn't have a clue. We didn't know how good it would be. We're still here. Us. Plus two children. In the same house, in the same city. And life is a new kind of fun. Happy and carefree. Happy nine years of marriage, my friend.