From the beginning of civilization there have been wars. Some wars have been fought for religion, some for country, others for pride. I have just realized that I am in a war; one of territory.

You see, there comes a time in a man’s life where he gets married. I took the plunge almost three weeks ago. I am quickly learning that marriage can be a wonderful time in your life. It is full of fun and excitement, love and romance. But in modern times, it is filled with daily strategic battles that make up what may be a life long war.

This war can be traced back for hundreds of years I’m sure, but it has grown in scale more in the last century with the rise of commercialism in the home. It reached a peak earlier this decade when it became trendy for ladies to hang a sign in their home with the words “Live Laugh Love” painted on it…usually with some sort of flowered design around the words.

I didn’t realize it before, but my new wife Jessica has been silently training all of her life for this war, and she has trained well. Her mother (seen by other women as a hero on the battlefield), showed Jessica from an early age what a proper house should look like. The marks of the training can be seen now back in Portland where you’ll find a house where every square inch of wall space is filled with some sort of decoration. Some examples of this decoration are items such as a fat cartoon-like chef, an Indian standing against a purple wall, a painting of a bottle of wine, a wall full of crosses, a painting of ladies sitting at a table, and many other colorful but weird items of “art”.

The training must have been near completion when I moved into the apartment in December. As we did not live together yet, Jessica slowly moved her stuff into the closets, bedrooms, and… onto the walls. The war started subtly at first. In fact I did not even notice it until one day as I was leaving my apartment for work, I looked up above the door and saw a sign that read “Family”.

“Family”, I thought, “family doesn’t live here; it’s just me.” It was February and I was the only one living in my apartment.

Suddenly it’s June and I find myself walking through my kitchen only to find numerous decorative dishes lining the counters. There are paintings of a now familiar chef throughout the kitchen, and other dainty little sayings near the dinner table. I don’t quite know when it happened but I think I am the victim of a surprise attack.

Some how she distracted me with this large ceremonial wedding and a tropical vacation to Jamaica. I could tell she was trying to win me over, but I am not easily fooled.

She’s a tricky one, but I won’t give up yet. My only training for the “Battle for the Walls” dates back to when I was about ten when I would hang up posters of my favorite baseball player, Nolan Ryan. I was a pretty accomplished poster collector. At one time I had about ten covering the walls in my room.

I don’t know if posters of the strikeout king will fly around the apartment or not, but what I lack in training I can make up with heart. I won’t be the easy kill that she may have taken me for, but I can’t do it alone. Jessica had tons of help from the lady friends who have prepared her well with candles and picture frames, but I have my own group of friends that haven’t let me down yet, so I need your help guys…especially those who have fought the good fight, what should I claim as my own? I need some suggestions on how to fight back and gain a little ground. Help me before it is too late.

The wife and I are on the flight back from Montego Bay, Jamaica to Dallas, TX before we fly back to San Antonio for our last night in a hotel before officially moving in together. We’re sad to leave Jamaica, but excited to finally be back in Texas to get things started. I’ll recap the last couple days…

After eating on Thursday night, Jessica and I re-visited the piano bar. It was a little more rowdy this time. Three other couples joined us, our newest friends, who had all been married just around the time that we were. Of course we all had our share of drinks, and apparently so did a few other people at the resort. We heard stories of a newlywed being kicked out of Sandal’s for throwing punches during a live game show re-make of the “Newlywed Game”. I don’t know for sure, but I can’t imagine the new bride being to happy about that one.

Friday was our first day to truly relax. Nothing was on our schedule except for a little sun and lounging by the beach, and later by the pool. I got my share of the sun, but my few weeks in the tanning bed before we left paid off. I am in very little pain now. We finished the evening at dinner with 3 other couples. They really made the last few days of our trip fun.

Yesterday was our adventurous day. We finally walked out of the resort walls with no purpose other than to see the locals and buy a few souvenirs in town. Sandal’s wanted to charge $20/person for a cab into town, but we decided to press our luck and walk out to the street to get our own. Our gamble paid off. We met two very nice cabbies and were only charged what converted over to $1.50 a piece. We tossed in a tip for an even $5 for Jessica and I…what a deal.

We hit some of the tourist stuff like Margaritaville and the Ocho Rios Harley Davidson shop, but spent most of our time on the sidewalks and in the market. It was cool to see how the people of Ocho Rios lived their lives, although I don’t think we got the entire experience. Most of town is tourist related, one of these days we’ll come back and see what it’s like to live in a smaller town around the island.

My favorite part of the trip into town was photographing the city life. I haven’t gotten a chance to see the results yet, but I’ll post whatever good pictures I have later on. After a volleyball game or two in the pool and a nap in the afternoon, we enjoyed a “Tex-Mex” dinner by candlelight on the beach. Anyone ever seen a Jamaican in a cowboy hat and vest? One guy even had a sheriff’s badge. Jessica and I both had the fajitas which weren’t quite authentic, but didn’t disappoint. Knowing we had to get up early, we said our final goodbyes to our new friends and the beach and hit the sack early.

As you can probably figure, I’ve been following Aggie sports on the trip as much as Jessica will let me. Every other night or so I’d take a quick look at AggieAtheletics.com to see how the women’s softball and men’s baseball teams were fairing in the NCAA Tournaments. Well, once we arrived at the Montego Bay airport today, we caught a few innings of the Aggie Softball game vs. Florida on the bar t.v. during lunch. It’s probably better that I hadn’t been watching all week. As soon as we started watching, Florida began to rally. I’ll try not to look at tonight’s game just in case.

Our flights so far have been comfortable, and aside from knowing that we’re now flying over Houston but won’t be back into the city for a day, everything has turned out great. I’d like to reiterate how thankful we are to our parents for making the last week and a half perfect. We wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun without your help.

This wraps up our honeymoon summary. I’ll post again shortly to give our final thoughts on the actual wedding day. Thanks for visiting.