We still think we're 25 years old, so it's hard for us to imagine that it's actually been 18 years since we got married! And Briant's not sick of me yet?! I read a quote recently that said, "Marriage: An endless sleepover with your favorite weirdo." This made me laugh, and I thought that it was definitely true for Briant!
Here we are at the Portland Rose Garden where Briant proposed to me.
Los Angeles Temple on December 18, 1999. 
I remember going to our Oregon wedding reception a week later and another part of our honeymoon to Bend, Oregon to ski, followed by a New Year's get together at my Aunt Delores' house. Among the celebrating though, was the fear of it becoming the year 2000 because of the Y2K bug, a problem in the coding of computers and their networks that made us fear that they couldn't handle dates beyond Dec. 31, 1999. The whole world was in a panic, perfectly illustrated on the TIME magazine:
Good times. Obviously nothing happened and computers went on working fine. Phew...So, back to celebrating our anniversary and memories. Briant planned a wonderful evening at a restaurant in the city called Province, Latvian cuisine.
We loved the charming decor. Simple wood, patterns in fabric, dried flowers and spices. Very organic and earthy. Very Latvian.
And of course we enjoyed the presentation of the food, as well as the taste!
We still don't know what this fruit was, but it was good!
We left the restaurant and Briant surprised me by presenting tickets to a Hanukkah concert at the Riga Synagogue! He knows how I enjoyed working at Temple Rodef Shalom Nursery School in Virginia before we moved here, and how I loved the weekly Shabbat music and singing that we did with the kids. I was so excited!
We came to this synagogue back in September with a visitor from the state department, and fell in love with the colors and architecture.
The music was fun, some songs more solemn while others involved clapping and singing along with the cantor. The cantor was from a synagogue in Venice. Nice man that spoke English so we were able to understand most of what he said.
I think Briant looks cute in a Yamaka!
After the concert, we enjoyed walking around the quiet city and empty streets for a bit on our way back to the car.
A fun evening to celebrate another year of marriage! And here's to many more years to come!
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