Welcome to our site. As we begin our lives together we thought it would be nice to have a journal of this time to look back on years from now. Though we aren't yet married we believe we've gone through a year of trial by fire & have really begun our lives as a team this year. It seems that since we have made it through this first year of living together we can make it through anything life throws at us. Perhaps that's just youthful invincibility talking but we think not. We hope you enjoy sharing our experiences, ramblings, as well as ridiculously mundane triumphs (we finally have an outdoor rolling trash can!) and failures (but have yet to find a vacuum cleaner bag that fits our vacuum!)

We moved into our first place together Aug 1st, 2004, in San Leandro, just southeast of Oakland. As you know we got engaged just days later on Aug 5th 2004 at Beckett's pub in Berkeley. While we had discussed marriage previously, Drew still managed to completely surprise me with his sneaky timing. We had just finished unpacking boxes! Both sweaty and exhausted we decided to celebrate by going to the pub we went to on our first date more than three years before. Using his Guinness as liquid courage, Drew asked me to "keep making him the happiest man on Earth for the rest of his life". Although it took me a few minutes to get back to him on that (I had to sit down and take it all in first) the answer was a resounding "yes". It was an evening of excitement and anticipation.

Unfortunately, the month of Aug 2004 was not filled with happiness alone. Sadly, my dad passed away from pancreatic cancer just about three weeks later, on Aug 25th, three days after his 55th birthday. He had been diagnosed just over two and a half years prior. It meant our engagement month was a bittersweet time for me. Although the disease had been expected to take over my father's body in the course of a few months instead of years, his death was still abrupt. The last month had been very difficult for him physically but the two and half years before had been full of life. My dad and I went to Paris together in June 2003. It was an awesome trip that included many museums! He also visited me several times in the Bay area. These were times we spent exploring San Francisco and my new hometown of Oakland as well as reminiscing in bookstores and restaurants in Berkeley. His passing took a tremendous toll on my first year living with my sweetheart and my start in graduate study.


As my father had hoped I would, I chose to go continue in academics at San Francisco State University to study American History. Aug 25th was my first day of class. I received "the call" from my grandpa in my very first class period. The large, shady fir trees on the serene grassy areas on campus were a respite for me then. I take BART from San Leandro to SF, a ride that lets me enjoy a great view of the green Oakland hills. It also takes an hour! But it's worth it as I have learned so much this year. Most of my classes were in Colonial and early American history, not periods in which I plan to focus my study, but more interesting than I expected. Spring semster, I wrote my first lengthy paper. It was 25 pages on the impact of the American Revolution on women, particularly whether women were more inclined to be Patriots or Loyalists. My first love (aside from Drew, of course) is the history of New Orleans in the late 19th century. I want to compare the impact of its music on American society as it compared to its impact on French society.

As many of you also know, this year was not only difficult for me personally but also for Drew. Not only was he concerned about me for the reasons I mentioned but beginning in that same fateful month on Aug 2004, he began to develop a decubitus ulcer, or pressure sore infection around his tailbone. All through September, he didn't feel it, as he has decreased sensation there and he couldn't see it due to it's location on his lower back. By the time my birthday approached on the 30th, he began to be aware something was wrong and applied ointment as he usually does for normal sores. Unfortunately, this was no average skin sore. By October, it had very seriously infected the skin and tissue even affecting the bone. The area had begun to to leak fluids by then so he knew it was serious. When he asked me to look at it in the middle of the month the infection had turned that skin a liver consistancy & a black color. I was petrified when I saw it.

He knew he needed to see his doctor by then but after having almost died in a hospital seven years earlier from viral encephalitis (the disease that caused a six week coma and left him in a wheelchair) he was not eager to go back into a hospital for this. Of course, it was necessary. He was at John Muir Medical Center for almost two weeks in October and November. When he came home to his "Welcome Home Sweetie!" sign he began home nurse care. They still come every other day to change his dressings to the wound which are hooked up to a portable drainage vacuum by a plastic cord. This drainage keeps the wound clean and helps it heal faster. He also has to sleep on a special bed with a chamber filled with very fine sand. Pumps in the bed push air through the sand which, when he lies on it, apparently aids in the healing process as well. We hope he can reclaim his place on our much comfier bed soon!

Since this has been a trying time for us we have both done things to distract ourselves from the pain caused this year. I have thrown myself into wedding planning, mostly ideas, not much legwork yet. Although this summer we're getting into it! I have hooked up to the internet site, theknot.com to help me plan and find discounts. Through the message boards I have met some great women who have been very supportive about my dad and Drew. We get together now and then. Of course, I also still have my book buddies from Barnes and Noble some of whom are still trapped in the retail world ;) This summer both Drew and I have been helping his mom reorganize the library at the elementary school, St Clement's in Hayward where she is the principal. Drew has spent some of his other time starting some business ventures with products on cafepress.com. They are mostly related to keeping a sense of humor while being in a wheelchair, shops handicaphumor and handicaphumor2.

Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned!