Silver Bells - Cheers to 25 Years of Marriage!

We finally hit silver!! Laure and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary as a couple this week, our Silver Anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, I thought I’d regale you all with some of the highlights of our 25 years together – it’s been quite a ride so far and we’re just getting started!

Celebrating our 25th Anniversary with some Spanish cocktails at Beso in downtown Sarasota

Life with Laurie has been an absolute blast, and I can’t imagine or even really remember life without her! In addition to being a loving, kind person, she is also wicked smart, funny, and simply the most wonderful human being I know – I DO have amazingly good taste! Which means I have had the perfect companion to enjoy life with over the past 25 years!

We started off with a bang with a “storybook” engagement, wedding, and honeymoon to kick off our lives together. I proposed to Laurie at the Inn at Perry Cabin, a beautiful luxury inn and resort in the small town of St. Michaels, MD on the Chesapeake Bay (fun fact: The wedding scene for the movie “The Wedding Crashers” was filmed at the Inn at Perry Cabin). When we called to tell my family, they all screamed with delight because they absolutely adore Laurie. When we called Laurie’s parents to tell them, her dad, Mike, responded in the background to the news in a much more measured (and smartass) way by saying, “Well, did she say yes?!” What followed was a year of planning for our wedding, with the occasional dream of simply eloping instead (we ended up going with the wedding!).

Engagement day at the Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, MD on the Chesapeake Bay, and beach day to end the special weekend

Our wedding and reception were both in historic Old Town Alexandria, VA, one of our favorite places on earth and hometown to George Washington and a number of other founding fathers. It was a wonderful day and evening, but we couldn’t wait to head off to Hawaii for our two-week honeymoon visiting three islands (Maui, Kauai, and Oahu). We hiked, snorkeled, and swam our way across the islands while we were there!

Wedding at St. Paul's Episcopal Church & reception at Carlyle House in Old Town, Alexandria

Honeymooning in Kauai, Maui, and Oahu

We also started a tradition by spending a week celebrating our anniversary at the Inn at Perry Cabin on the Chesapeake where I proposed to Laurie – we looked forward to those trips to the Bay every year and ended up going back 23 years in a row until we moved down to Florida in 2021. Those trips included lazy days on the water, reading and napping out on the lawn overlooking the bay, spa treatments, and enjoying afternoons and evenings walking the streets of St. Michaels and enjoying all the great restaurants and shops.

Yearly anniversary trips to the Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels MD

We absolutely loved living in the Washington DC metro area and took maximum advantage of everything out nation’s capital has to offer over the 30 or so years we lived there. We ate at some of the finest restaurants in the country (Fiola, Minibar, Pineapple and Pearl, the Inn at Little Washington, Michel Richard Citronelle, Kincaid’s, Tosca, Marcels, Bourbon Steak, and Rose’s Luxury just to name a few). We visited the national Christmas Tree and made it a tradition to see “A Christmas Carol” at Ford’s Theatre over the holidays. We were also loyal Kennedy Center members and regular subscribers to the theater season – we loved taking friends and family to shows with us, and saw some great ones there – Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, The Book of Morman, the Producers, The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, Company, and Ragtime just to name a few.

Scenes from our time in DC - Hamilton at the Kennedy Center, the White House (before 911), and Mount Vernon, George Washington's home which was a 15-minute drive from our house

Spending time with friends and family is something both Laurie and I always look forward to, and we treasure those times when they happen. We absolutely loved hosting family for Christmas when we lived in Virginia and our nieces and nephews were growing up, and we now look forward to winters here in Florida when friends and family come visit while looking for a warm place to escape the snow and cold!

Great times with Laurie's family in Michigan, our niece in Florida, and nephew in Washington DC (both with their significant others!)

We also love traveling and have wonderful memories of our frequent trips to my mecca, Napa Valley, and other favorite destinations like Carmel Valley/Monterey, San Diego, New Orleans, Minneapolis, San Francisco and of course, New York City. Ahhh, ... NYC – that city holds a special place in our hearts. When we lived in DC, we used to make annual pilgrimages to NYC via the Acela train during the Christmas holidays to see the city all decked out in Christmas cheer, and to eat at some of our favorite restaurants and go to a Broadway show or two. Highlights included seeing the original casts of Hamilton, Hairspray, and Rent, but we also saw at least 15 other shows on Broadway during our years visiting there.

On Broadway in NYC, Press Restaurant in Napa Valley, and Geis family reunion in Vail, CO

We also took advantage of everything the Commonwealth (not State!) of Virginia had to offer by frequently traveling to the Blue Ridge mountains (only an hour away!) to visit Virginia wine country. Whether it was a day trip to attend the annual Virginia Wine Festival, an overnight trip to Little Washington to stay and dine at the Inn at Little Washington, or a long weekend enjoying the town of Middleburg and surrounding wineries while staying at the Salamander Inn and Spa for some well-earned pampering, we have great memories of each of our visits.

Virginia wine country and dinner at the Inn at Little Washington

Another highlight of our lives together was when we adopted our retired racer greyhound, Lincoln. He was the best dog ever – quiet, lazy, sweet, and a total goofball, with the shortest attention span of any dog, ever. He destroyed every squeaky toy we got him except for the first one – for some reason he treated that one with kid gloves. He loved long walks, “bye byes” in the car, and hanging out in the kitchen while I cooked with the hope of getting a bite of chicken or steak. We still miss him, but he brought so much joy to our lives while he was with us!

Our greyhound Lincoln - adoption day, chilling on the couch, and posing for the camera

I also have to mention work and the Center for Naval Analyses, or CNA as one of the highlights of our married lives together. In addition to CNA being the place where Laurie and I met, it’s also the place where both of us spent our entire professional careers. Given the nature of the work we did there (highly classified analysis conducted on the highest priority issues of concern to the senior U.S. Navy and Marine Corps leadership), it was great to be able to talk with each other about our work since both of us held similar clearances and some of the work we each did intersected with each other. We both deployed into combat zones in support of real-world operations (me with the Second Marine Expeditionary Force into Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield/Storm, and Laurie with the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea after 9/11 for Operation Enduring Freedom), and we both were frequently traveling for work throughout our marriage.

When I took over as head of CNA in 2015, I spent the next 6 years working 12–15-hour days and most weekends as well – it was an all-consuming, high stress job but I absolutely loved leading the organization and navigating our way through all the opportunities and challenges during that time. And through it all, Laurie was there cheering me on and taking care of everything else so I could focus on my work. I was gone more than I was home for years until COVID hit, and when I was home I was usually checking e-mails, up in the office working, or sleeping. In fact, it got so ridiculous that we actually decided to schedule an hour every Sunday afternoon to enjoy a cocktail together and get caught up! And through it all, Laurie never complained – she was a saint, and I couldn’t have done any of it without her!

Laurie receiving the DOD Meritorious Civilian Service Award for her support to the Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group during OIF, cutting the birthday cake with LtGen Walsh (USMC) at CNA's USMC birthday celebration, and laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery as part of CNA's commemoration of Veteran's Day

And finally, our decision to retire early was really Laurie’s idea, and truth be told, she was the one who did much of the research and planning that led to our eventual decision to move down to Sarasota, FL to start our new lives together as retirees! And what a great decision that was! In addition to being able to spend a lot more time together enjoying each other’s company, we have also met some absolutely wonderful friends and neighbors who have already become life-long friends – we couldn’t be happier!

Retired live in Florida - moving day, beach sunset with friends, and fun entertaining at home!

And I really do owe it all to my lovely bride Laurie! So, cheers to my beautiful wife Laurie – thanks for the past 25 wonderful years, and can’t wait to see what the next 25 years holds for us!!