Six years and counting

Author: Samuel Peterson

Date Published
2021 - 06 - 26 ISO 8601
76 - 06 - 26 PB

Six years since the time of this writing, I married the lovely Dr. Amanda Lindsay Nahm. This post is an attempt to describe what a positive impact this has had in my life. Before we discuss the specific consequences of the union however, I figure some sort of description of Dr. Nahm is in order.

Amanda Lindsay Nahm

Amanda Nahm, daughter of Steve and Linda Nahm, doctor of philosophy in the Geological Sciences, expert in structures of the moon, mars and Enceladus, is a remarkable woman. She was born in Delaware, and spent her childhood in the following other states: New Hampshire, Indiana, and Oklahoma. During this childhood, she became an accomplished oboe-player and cellist, lived the life of a high-performing honor-role student, and had also identified her calling at the early age of 12: to be a planetary scientist. Unlike most children, she actually stuck to this vision and got her PhD in geology, studying planetary science. After this she lived the nomadic lifestyle of the itinerant academic. This life brought her to: Texas (Houston and then El Paso), and then to Moscow, Idaho.

A happy coincidence

Very soon after she arrived in Moscow Idaho, I also wound up there, adrift in the far less honorable position of an underemployed schmuck living with his brother. I met Amanda very shortly after arriving in Moscow at a lunch with a bunch of friends of my brother's. I happened to be sitting next to her, and we were (or at least I was) engrossed in a conversation about the sources of geological activity in the moons of the outer solar-system. She left an impression.

Pretty quickly, Amanda became the principle reason for staying in the area. Amazingly, I actually managed to get her to agree to marriage -- I have many strengths, but courtship is not one of them.

Shortly after our engagement

Blastoff!

It's a good thing we moved quickly to tie the knot, only a couple months after the engagement, Amanda was accepted the study in Berlin as a Humboldt fellow. So we married just before going off to foreign lands for a stay that amounted to about 3 years. We went far and wide: Crete (and Santorini), Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Zurich, Ascona, Vienna, Stockholm, Leipzig, Innsbruck, Tokyo, Kyoto, Aizu and others. I got my first sort-of job (Caterwings) and then my first actual job (Goebel, which I only got through networking with my father in law... Thanks Steve). Amanda wrote a chapter on an authoritative review of lunar geology. Oh, and we also had Elliott!

Us while Amanda was pregnant with Elliott

We came back to the US, and things did not slow down. Just one year back in the US, Amanda got a job as a NASA program officer and Sr. Subject Matter Expert. This got prompted me to find my current job, writing software the Artemis 2 mission. So after spending enough time in Phoenix to realize we would not want to live there, we wound up here at our current home in Maryland... but not before also having our second son, Henry.

Elliott, mamma, and Henry, shortly after moving to Maryland

Whew! Well that was a very abbreviated account of these last six years. Why do I bring it up? Simple: it's necessary to explain what I mean by saying: "A lot of great things have happened for me personally over these years, and Amanda has something to do with just about every one of those things".

Amanda the mother

Amanda does not just excel at getting things done and going places. She is also indispensable to Elliott and Henry. She understands their emotional needs far better than I do. If left to my own devices, they'd almost certainly be far dirtier, and behind on their doctor's appointments. She also helps me to be a better father to them as well by showing me better ways to handle them. It is difficult to picture life without her.

To another six years

These past six years have been great, far better than they looked like they were going to be before I met you, darling. And these next six years are full of opportunity. We have things to do, and places to see. We will continue to watch our children grow, and we will grow and change with them.