The Things You Do For Love

No. I'm not talking about walking in the rain and the snow... (Did I just seriously date myself?  Wow!)

You know that you are totally crazy about someone when you want to know everything about them.  From when they were little...

Johannus and Johannes - 1952

to where they spent their childhood.

Kinderdijk, Noord Brabants, Netherlands

Their life in their new country, from the younger years...

Norwalk, California

to their life as an adult...

Santa Paula, California

as they grew older

Porterville, California

and on into middle age.

Crater Lake, Oregon

You become fascinated with where their folks met...

Courting at the " Coastal Batteries" Batavia, Indonesia- 1946

and all about where they now live.

Caveman Bridge (6th Street) over the Rogue River, Grants Pass, Oregon

You grow to truly love their native food and want to cook the dishes as well as they do...

"Singapore Sate"...Sate Ayam & Gado Gado

Listening to them speak in their native tongue becomes a complete fascination and you ask them to teach you so that the two of you can have your own "language".

When you devote hours of your days learning all about siblings and children,

friends and family.

When the kids were younger

The Folks

and every job that they ever held.  

Hanging Steel in Bakersfield, California

Home building in the Applegate Valley of Southern Oregon

Building Dutch Bros' Kiosks throughout Southern Oregon

Then you spend days organizing their hundreds of photographs (thousands,eventually) into albums just so you can know more.


That is when you know for certain that this is the person that you love more than you have ever loved before. It is when you realize that you have found the person that you have spent your entire life looking for and you will never let them go.