"It was one of those smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it,

that you may come across four or five times in a life.

It faced - or seemed to face - the whole eternal world for an instant, and then

concentrated on you

with an irresistible prejudice in your favour.

It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood,

believed in you just as you would like to believe in yourself,

and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best,

you hoped to convey."

f. scott fitzgerald

My Oklahoma boi-fraaaan has spent the majority of his 24 years in the states of Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. Thanks to family road-trips and school conventions he made it to surrounding midwest states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Colorado and the like. Basically, he's been everywhere I haven't. Because, I, on the other hand, have spent the most of my 22 years in a giant U of North America: New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, The Carolina's, Florida, Georgia, Mexico, Arizona, San Diego and LA, Nevada, Monterey and Northern California, Washington and Seattle, and finally up to Vancouver. (Not to mention the various European and island jaunts to Panama, Aruba, The Grand Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Jamaica, London and other English cities, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Scotland.)

When MisterMister moved to the east coast in his Amazing Race to win a particularly confusing girl, he was instantly smitten with the new surroundings. Flat land, dirt roads, short trees, long straight drives and eternal skylines are what he's used to. He loves the winding roads, the super tall trees, the mix of mountain/river/city/country/suburb the DC area boasts. He loves the history and the tall trees. I think his favorite part of Maryland is the tall trees (well, and all the traffic lights. Boy oh boy does he love himself a good long traffic light! Or two! Or three! ;)

Sometime in the summer he had a work project up near Niagara Falls. Though my dad is from upstate New York and I've been to that state dozens of times, I'd never seen The Falls! Tragic! We decided to channel our inner Jim and Pam and make an experience out of it. I flew up to Buffalo after his work week, and he whisked me away to America's most famous falling water.

If you though he had a thing for tall trees, you should have seen his demeanor around tall water!

Class act.

I'm about half the size of those rocks down in the corner:

Happy, blink-y, scruffy, plastic, misty fun.

This weekend together changed something in us. It was our first week apart since dating, we wore ponchos, we picked flowers, we sang to the Tarzan soundtrack, we drove home together in a truck for 16 hours, we concentrated on each other, we celebrated a monthiversary, we enjoyed wonders, we sat on thorns, we ate snow cones, we sparkled, we talked, we people-watched, we created new inside jokes, we sat next to each other in the bench seat of his pick-up, we were silent, we slipped on wet rocks, we didn't drink margaritas, we laughed, we made up scenarios "if you fell into the rive right here, what would you do?" (my plan was always to find the nearest rock or log, his was always to swim to shore), we opened presents, we changed.

I'll end with the same quote I started this post with: