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Midori & Eric's Christmas Greeting 2000

Tales of the North/South Pacific

We have a curious expression for marriage in English: "settling down". This is something of a misnomer. From all we can tell, married life may be better described by the expression "perpetual motion". At least in our case the metronome seems to have been stuck at "Presto" all year. And what a year it has been!

To recap, here's a quick overview of what we've been up to:

January

We greet the year 2000 while standing out in a cornfield somewhere in Indiana, together with my sister and brother in law (who actually live out in a cornfield, somewhere in Indiana).

February

Eric comes back to Japan (again) and starts work at Sanwa Bank.

March

Midori comes back home to Japan and Eric visits Midori's parents in Yamaguchi. We get engaged, etc. Sensing Eric's nervousness, Midori's father pops the question: "So, you think you want to marry my daughter?"

April

Midori (re)starts work as a pharmacist at a drugstore in Tokyo.

May

We start making wedding preparations, searching high and low for the best venue, and finally choose the Matsumoto valley (of all places).

June

We participate in a bicycle race at Utsukushigahara, near Matsumoto.

July

We get married at Azumino Family Chapel, and hold our reception at Tobira onsen, a beautiful Japanese hot spring.

August

We recuperate and start our new life together.

September

Midori starts BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) classes.

October

We take a trip to Kobe and Osaka to visit Midori's university friends.

November

Eric takes the Japanese Securities Exam, and learns lots of useful new vocabularly in Japanese, such as "GDP deflator".

December

After much postponement, we honeymoon in Bali, in which Eric travels below the equator for the first time, goes diving with the tropical fishes, and Montezuma gets his revenge.

Japanese book of the year: "The story of pastor Chii-roba" by Miura Ayako
English book of the year: "Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis

All in all, we've been having a ball. Midori likens our married life to a three-legged race: the concept takes a little bit to get used to, but we get right back up when we fall down. We'll figure this one out yet!

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