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On January 20, 2016, I felt so taken by these tracks crossing in the snow that I posted them on Instagram. Little did I know that very evening, my path would cross with my future husband for the first time ever.

Heath and I have now been together for nine years and married for nine years. While I do not recommend anyone else follow our 22-day whirlwind from meeting to elopement, it somehow worked for us.

So you can imagine my delight on this our ninth wedding anniversary, that I should be greeted by these tracks in the snow right in front of our house.

The house that we were never sure we would find, in a place we didn’t know if we would be able to stay, at a time when we were so exhausted of our nomadic life and ready for stability that we had no idea if anything was going to work out.

All to say, Congratulations to us! I’m sure most people thought we wouldn’t last nine months, let alone nine years. It hasn’t been easy and it hasn’t always been fun. Yet here we are still standing strong and I love Heath more today than ever.

To celebrate our anniversary, here are nine specific things I love about Heath.

1. He immediately understands my annoyance when I say, “They’re singing in The Hobbit ” (The book, not the movie, which I only read for the first time this past January and I am now listening to for the third time as my bedtime story).
2. When we had to trap a mouse during one of our housesits in Boulder last year and relocate it to a field far away, Heath put a scoop of trail mix in the mousetrap so they would have good food to eat during a traumatic time.
3. Heath was super excited to get a whiteboard in our basement so he could keep track of pool statistics, but then generously gave me one-third of the board for my Fergus doodles.

4. He fully participates in my enthusiasm and joy over our daily WeRateDogs calendar.

5. Anytime I show him a video of my pull-up training, he makes encouraging and inspiring statements.

6. Never once has he complained about the sheer number of times I’ve watched Annie Jr. videos on YouTube – yes, that’s right! My good friend Annie is getting a sidekick who I’ve been calling Annie Jr. for the time being. You can view a video of Annie Jr. here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukcXhPQCqpc

Here’s Annie, Sr., (left) with Fergus (right) if you need reminders:

7. Even though he thinks it’s disgusting that I’m using one of our glassware bowls to feed wildlife in our backyard (sadly, Patches the cat never returned after our brief love affair), he still hasn’t asked me to stop doing it.

8. When I accidentally shaved his head too close to his scalp back in November, he didn’t get mad at all. Which I appreciated and, also, because when he accidentally shaved his head too close to his scalp four weeks later, we laughed for a very long time.

9. In December, I sent out around 60 Christmas cards. Heath was tired and stressed from work and he still signed every single card that I asked him to in a timely.

Happy Anniversary, Heath! Here’s to the next nine.