Our Story

 

Us, in St Louis, Missouri (2001). 

Us, in Lishanku, Nepal, Butch’s maternal home (2001).

 

The Short Version -

It was March 1998 -- Year of the Tiger.  The place was Bandhavgarh National Park.  Susi was a tourist, Butch was the naturalist.  It took an instant to seal our fate.  During Butch’s off season, we spent eight weeks together in Nepal getting to know each other. 

The next year, we lived in a small fishing village north of Guayaquil, Ecuador and volunteered at a small school called Escuela Gandhi.   Butch was the football (soccer) coach.  Susi taught English, art, and computers.  Every chance we could, we explored this lovely country.  

The year in Ecuador laid the foundation.  We married in 2001 in two ceremonies: one in the U.S. with Susi’s family and close friends; the other in Nepal in the village where Butch’s grandparents lived.  

Although our primary, legal residence is St. Louis, when we married, we agreed to straddle both worlds.  This means we spend half of the year in South Asia, and the other half in the U.S.  It is not always easy, and sometimes it means we are apart more than we’d like.  But it also gives us the best of both worlds