The Next Big Adventure

Four years ago today, my life changed forever when I hosted a tall, scruffy CouchSurfer named Sam. He was riding a motorcycle home for Christmas, from San Francisco to Charleston. His last minute request almost went unanswered because the CouchSurfing website would not load a reply page, but I managed to get in touch and let him know he was welcome minutes before he left an internet cafe in New Mexico.

We went out for Thai food, then a beer at The Bar, and back at my apartment we stayed up late sharing music, talking and laughing. When he left in the morning I felt myself wishing he could stay. I told him to come back on his return journey. Our instant connection was undeniable, but it wasn't until weeks later, after he had visited again and left again, that we acknowledged our mutual attraction.*

*Couchsurfing is not a dating site! Read more about it here.



During the second visit he met my parents and we saw Slumdog Millionaire with my friends, I taught him the basics of welding, and we played with my theremin. After he left, my brother asked me how it went. "I'm going to marry that guy," I replied. My friends and I nicknamed him the "Dreamy CouchSurfer."

Sam told me later he couldn't explain what compelled him to take his cross country motorcycle trip, just as I couldn't explain how I knew I would marry him. To us, it seems like we were being gently guided toward each other. On my first visit to San Francisco, we looked at the Marin Headlands and Sam said, "let's go to New Zealand together."

First things first, though! Long story short, Sam moved to Texas, we got married, we saved up some money and then the big New Zealand adventure I'd been planning for years finally happened with the person I had grown to love most in the world. Next we planned to come home, save some money, and maybe go off on another big trip, this time perhaps to Europe or South America.

Now, however, it seems the next big adventure has been planned for us. Within weeks of returning to the US, I got pregnant. If you've been wondering why I'm looking a little bigger around the middle, now you know it's because I'm almost 4 1/2 months pregnant.

Also, I'm pretty sure we're gonna have the cutest baby ever.