5 years ago yesterday, at the ripe old age of 23, I married a kind, smart, funny, and beautiful 21 year old girl. We dated for 3 weeks and were married 3 months later. Marrying Mimi was the single best decision of my life. Simply the best wife and best mother anyone could ever ask for.
Since then we’ve explored the world together. From Argentina to Tasmania. From Banff to Phuket. From Paris to the Whitsunday Islands. From Aruba to Zurich. From Sydney to Venice. From the spiritual hills of Jerusalem to the awe inspiring Mauna Kea and Na Pali cliffs.
Sure I had done my share of traveling beforehand. I flew from Sao Paulo to Tokyo and back with free stopovers in Dallas, JFK, Los Angeles, and Miami thanks to American’s free systemwide ticket promotion for just flying twice to Florida or California. I made my first million miles as an 18 year old and haven’t looked back.
But there’s something completely different about discovering the world together with your soul mate. Especially one willing to put up with my craziness. Taking a month-long honeymoon to explore each of the Hawaiian islands that I so love. Flying while pregnant around the world, staying in a $3,000 suite one night and a hostel in middle of nowhere the next. Packing and flying to Buenos Aires within an hour of finding a glitch that would take us there in first class for free…and then coming right back home after one night. And most of all, flying with little Rafi on 49 flights! It’s each of these trips that stand out so vividly in my mind and are the stuff dreams are made of. What a lucky fluke that I live in a time where I was able to do it all while in first class without having to shell out more than a few kopeks. Though it seems that aspirational awards may be on the way out.
But more importantly than the fun and games, for giving me 2 amazingly adorable kids. And doing a heck of a job raising them so far.
Here’s to the next 50!
Banff, 6 weeks before Talia was born.
Hong Kong, 6 months before Rafi was born.
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95 Comments On "The Best 5 Years Of My Life"
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Uh….here’s to the next 50 kids?!
Happy anniversary dan!
love this post! thanks for sharing! kudos to your wife. especially in the future, while she will support your dreams while staying home 🙂
Mazal tov! Only happiness and nachas!
Happy anniversary!!!!
Well deserved
Mazel Tov! Many many more.
Congrats and Thanks!
HAPPY anniversary
biz hinderd in tzvontzig mit glik in freiden…..May the blessings of Avraham Avinu continue to keep poking you and all whom you touch….as they say in Hebrew…..Ehr iz a mentsch
Mazel tov! Many happy and healthy more years to come iy”h
So sweet of a post! (And a short courtship; I’m encouraged). 🙂
Thanks for sharing. What a lovely post.
Hey Dan,
Congrats and thanks for finding deals & steals.
Mazal Tov. Enjoy every minute – even the day to day non travelling ones.
Mazel Tov!!
Happy anniversary DAN i wish you many happy years together, if i would have the income you get from you’re website i would have taken a six month honeymoon in Hawaii not a 1 month LOL,,,
Till 120 together happy and healthy !! (And miles of course )
Mazel Tov to you and your wife. Keep up the great work! Only simchas
Congrats to you both, and to many more adventures together!
mazel tov! many many more………thanx
keep your private business to yourself and share deals please. it’s not appropiate
Wow.
Awesome! Happy anniversary to you and your wife!!
May you live to see many many more happy anniversaries!
Congrats and Happy anniversary! Sure you are the luckiest person in the world.
Amazing!! A really sweet shoutout to your wife
Till 120 in good health together
The best part of life is when you are able to fulfill your dreams together with your best partner and share the Joy togathe, that makes it twice as much fun!!
Happy anniversary!
Mazal Tov
Lots of continued nachas!
May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob richly bless you and your wife!
Happy anniversary Dan! Meny more together just keep in mind in future the seats on the planes are getting smaller so think when u take along your wife b4 babies are born lol.
mazal tov! only 50 more years? u have until 180, in good health and happiness…etc
Mazal Tov. .. and as I said publicly years ago when AA and TWA first launched the concept of “frequent flyer miles”, many years ago: “Mitzvot are the frequent-flyer miles for the ultimate journey”. Zvi B. 11/4/2013 Aleph Kislev.
@jeff- you are such a douche.
Jeff would have a point if this was a commercial site. However, it’s just some guy’s blog that thousands follow. But Daniel has a good point too – there’s no need to be a douche.
Hi Dan, Happy Anniversary! you are the man!
Mazel Tov, Dan
Mazal tov!!!!
You guys are soo cute and thanxs for all the awesome deals!!!
Mazel Tov!!
I actually starting following DD and DDF so I can give my wife a proper honeymoon.
Hey Dan,
This is the best deal you’ve ever posted. Happy Anniversary to you two!
Mazal Tov!
Mazel tov! Really special to hear!
Congratulations!
Happy Anniversary to both of you! And thanks for all the great deals you had posted!
Mazal tov! Many more!
nice going! hows your wife n my kids!
MAZEL TOV!!!!
I hope Mimi has seen this – that will bring you even greater mazel!
Dan pls give me some tips.
I had planned a month long vacation trip in coming Jan or Feb but My wife is 6 & half month pregnant today.
If my baby is due in mid Jan 2014, is it ok to take a international trip in March or April? I thought about traveling to Korea & Honkong for 2 weeks.
If not, what about Hawaai for about a week? Should we take the trip before delivery or after?
We wanted biz class travel
Mazel Tov
Mazel Tov
Mazel Tov
Mazel Tov
Mazel Tov
May You Together continue helping so many people and live to see the coming of Moshisch BeKarov !
Mazel tov Dan! In 50 years from now when you’ll look back and reminisce on how you used to fly from place to place in these big metal structures with wings, you should only remember happy moments, with your health family beside you, running around the world in whatever form of transportation they’ll use at the time, hopefully with some sort of point system better than what we have today. Amen.
Thanks everyone for the good wishes!
@jim:
Leave today. Seriously 😀
mazel tov!
Dan – This week my wife and I are celebrating our 42nd anniversary. Just wanted to fill you in. If you think it’s been great the last 5 years – it gets even better! IYH!! Mazel Tov again!
Many more happy years together. And, of choose lots of yiddishe and chassidishe nachas.
May you be blessed with more mileag nachas ad hundred un tzvantzig million
Dan you have created such simcha and joy and fulfillment in others lives. You deserve every minute of happiness that your wife and children bring you.
You have brought families together who have not seen each other in years. I think you probably even saved some marriages, because the wife wants a trip and we can only afford it with your deals. Especially now with everyone flying, and so many problems in the world, like the shidduch crisis. If not for you who knows what the state of marriage would be in Klal Yisroel!
On a practical note have your children gotten any frequent flier miles yet? Do you have to pay for Rafi already? Or have you figured out a way to have him fly free? If you use miles on him, then he is a very bad return on investment 🙂 because he uses miles but you can’t yet get a credit card in his name to counteract it. Are you doing anything to get around that problem?
Congrats! Love your site! Keep traveling.
Best wishes to you and your family! (And, of course, thanks for all the excellent, helpful information you share!)
mazel tov and thanks for all that you do.
Dan, your posts are awesome and full of content but it would not pass the scrutiny of my grammar teacher:-p
e.g.
But there’s something completely different about discovering the world together with your soul mate. Especially one willing to put up with my craziness.
You went from second person to first person in the same paragraph. It’s gotta be consistent:
But there’s something completely different about discovering the world together with your soul mate. Especially one willing to put up with YOUR craziness.
or
But there’s something completely different about discovering the world together with MY soul mate. Especially one willing to put up with my craziness.
best wishes to you and Mimi. Would love to see a pic of the happy family 🙂 Have you been anywhere since Talia’s birth?
@Mutty:
🙂
@verideriberi:
Lol, sounds good.
He needs his own seat now but he is Fairmont Platinum for life 😀
When you get past 10,000,000 miles the trick is finding time to burn them. Have to start going to the airport George Clooney/Ryan Bingham style.
@jewkugel:
Will keep that in mind when I turn this in for my thesis.
If I haven’t made any big typos I’m happy.
@Marge:
Don’t think I’ll be posting pics here even though they are such cute kids (and I’m not biased at all ;)) but you can try on Facebook.
It’s only been 6 weeks, took us 9 with Rafi to get him on a plane…
What a sweet post…Mazel Tov! Wishing you many healthy and happy years together with lots of yiddishe nachus:) The years pass quickly and it does just keep getting better. My husband and I are approaching our 25th anniversary and we are going to St. Martin – we can’t wait!!! If you haven’t been there – add it to your list
@Debbie:
Thanks, will do!
good work Dan!
@jeff: What is wrong with you? If you don’t like the content today, you don’t have to read it. I think it is nice that Dan posted this comment.
@jeff:
jerk!!! Show some respect.
@Ellen: Chill…
He misunderstood Dan’s post. He understood it as a private letter to his wife which in his opinion should not be aired in the ‘sphere. What I think Dan means by his post is to publicly thank G-d, the Creator and Giver of life, the Master Director, for all the blessing He has given him. He is also asking The Holy One. Blessed is His Name, HKB”H, to give him many more years of happiness together.
Let’s all join and give Brachas ,blessings to Dan and his family! Cheers! L’chaim! To life! Amen!
@Igor Ivanovich:
Amen!
עד מ××” ×•×¢×©×¨×™× ×©× ×” ב×הבה
To someone that makes so many people happy, it is appropriate to wish many more happy anniversaries.
ellen ! id like to show you the meaning of respect
I agree with @jeff
so many “orthodox” jews posting about how nice this love letter is. why not show it to your rav (assuming you are not modern orthodox) and ask him how nice it is? and if your knee-jerk reaction is
“FRUMMIE GET OFF MY WEBSITE”
then just at least admit to yourself that you are just another burnt-out jew who has lost all perspective. this letter violates the spirit of tznius in so many ways it’s disturbing. frankly I don’t care and wouldn’t bother responding, except I am doubly astounded by
A) all the responses lauding this violation of tznius that should be apparent to anyone of mainstream-or-more orthodoxy
and
B) the fact than dan is lubavitch and the lubavitch rebbe’s stance on tznius was one of true intensity.
very disturbing.
MaZel tov! Ad maya vesrim
@well.:
wow mr. well – you are a sad human being.
as is apparent to any of his readers, Dan considers his readership to be his extended family of sorts (as evidenced by posts like these). even more endearing is the apparent love and appreciation he has for his wife. as his extended family, we are all very happy to read of Dan’s personal simcha.
That being said, I just can’t understand the constant and recurring personal attacks on Dan for things like this. Dan never claimed to be a moral exemplar (not that I believe there is anything immoral on his site). Dansdeals is not a religious institution, and it is certainly not a religious institution which is fine-tuned towards your very narrow brand of extremist judaism. Please make no assumption that your values are universally held, nor that your values are in any way more correct than those of other upstanding people.
Dan – these things always seem to slide off your back, but in case they make a dent – you have the respect of 99.9% of the people here!
Mazel Tov on this milestone, and thank you for your efforts in helping Klal Yisroel! It is to your credit that I am able to see my family in Israel more often than I ever thought I could. I think it is sweet that you voice your appreciation to your wife, and I hope that she hears it from you in person as well 🙂 Zei Gezunt!
Mazel tov!
congratulations! love the pictures may you have many many more wonderful years together and continue to be such a great help to all us. And please ignore what the ridiculous people say to you. Nobody is forcing them to read your emails
you might have been right BEFORE dan put himself on the moral map by allowing himself to be interviewed by mainstream orthodox magazines. his own personal comments there are not in consonance with some of the things he posts.
while you are correct about me being a sad human being 🙁 I am still bothered by the hypocrisy. no one asked him to say those things about himself.
and you are wrong in any case, since (at least in the past) dan made the pretense of moral high ground by issuing halachic discourse about (some of) the various schemes he proliferates and/or enables via this website.
in any case, I am not asking you to agree with me. just to admit to yourself that you have lost all perspective on what it means to obey the “spirit” of the law as opposed to the letter, a rather important jewish concept.
and one that I am sad about :[
and bitter too.
Mazel tov!
chiba gerabim
Mazel Tov!!!
Mazel tov many happy lovely years together with nonstop elite deals/travel/flights/nights
Keep em coming
lots and lots of mazel tov.
i dont even know you but i have been enjoying your daily email for many months now.
lots of hatzlacha in building a family and may Hashem give Mimi and yourself much ‘koach’ to raise the kids in the best way possible.
enjoy each other for the next 50 years and beyond 🙂
Mazel Tov!
Nice post.
When are you having a seminar for Dan’s Deals again in the near future in the east coast?
Mr. well. I went back to Dan’s post to look at it from your perspective. There’s nothing objectionable, (except some would not like the pictures. So they can hurry by and not look.) The post is tzniusdik and respectful. It expresses joy at having been granted his true match and great kids. It can definitely be called a ‘love letter’, yet it was written in a frum, tzniusdik way. An essay appropriate for readers of this blog.
mazel tov !!!!!
may you and your wife have together lots of nachas from the kinderlach may hashem help that you have lots of time to keep doing great things
dan your the man!
Guys grow up. If u dont like it then dont click into this sight, go tweet about it now, losers. This post was a great post. Dan da man!
why do these 1st class upgrade glitches never happen to me? lol, mazel tov
Mazel tov from California. It is an honor to have you share your success and simchas with us. It let’s us know what is possible if we follow your direction. Thank you. Kul tov!
Dan, Mazel Tov!!
You are so selfless. Everything you do is truly amazing.
Personally, i think that you wrote this letter of appreciation because Mrs. Dan sometimes gets frustrated. Perhaps she feels neglected at times, even though you don’t mean to neglect her. Perhaps she sometimes wishes that she could just be the wife of a “regular” guy.
I commend your wife for “putting up with your craziness.”
I commend you for writing this letter in a tzniusdikeh way.
Mrs. Dan, if you’re reading this, please know that even though your hubby spends tons of time on this, he loves you.
This letter is his way of showing you how much he cares about you.
Dan, thanks for all you do!!
Dan – Huge Fan. You are inspirational!