Four More Years! Four More Years!

Our wedding date is easy to remember: August 20, 2006 was two days after the premiere of Samuel L. Jackson's magnum opus, Snakes on a Plane. Since four years have passed since Mr. Jackson declared he'd had enough with the scaly aviators, here are four things I love about my bride:

1. Smiles at brew pubs.

On our road trip to Arizona last year, we stopped for dinner at the Bricktown Brewery in Oklahoma City. In spite of a long day in the car, Lisa was smiling and looked nice. Her profile picture on Creepy Social Networking Site is a snapshot I took there while we were waiting for our food.

2. Kind to tiny toads; able to spot small lizards.

We saw this tiny toad on a path in a park near Lisa's parents' place in the Twin Cities. Lisa thought it was neat, and provided her dainty foot as a scale for this picture of the thimble-sized anuran. Likewise, when we visited White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico last year, Lisa spotted this bleached earless lizard (Holbrookia maculata ruthveni) - a tiny white lizard on white sand - from tens of feet away. That's a quarter next to the lizard in the photo.

3. Crazy hair.

When Lisa was a teenager, one of the little neighbor girls told her, "You must have eaten all your bread crusts when you were little." Puzzled, Lisa asked how these were related. The girl responded, "My mom told me that if I ate my bread crusts, I would get curly hair like yours." I'm glad Lisa ate her bread crusts.

4. Smells nice.

Really, what more could one ask?