June 22, 2011

How many children have you had?

Six, with six spouses and nine soon to be 10 grandchildren added to the family.

What are their names, birthdays, birthplaces?

See the blog posted on Novemebr 21, 2010. 

June 21, 2011

How did you feel when you found out you were going to be a father for the first time?

Shocked, especially since it happened so soon after we were married. However I had been looking forward to the time that I would become a father so I was also very excited. I was excited each time we found out we were going to have another one and regretted the day we had to stop. It was quite different too for us since we did not get to know the gender of the child until you were born. Plans for rooms and decorating always waited until after the birth of each of you.

June 20, 2011 Happy 36th Anniversary

What advice would you give to your children or grandchildren on their wedding day?

Well since each of you are married and I don’t remember any advice that I gave you then I guess I’ll have to give some now that will apply to you as well as your children. My advice is simple. Look closely at some one you are planning to marry and inspect them with the greatest of detail and then once married throw all of your notes away and just love them as best as you can. Forget all of your close friends and make your spouse your closest friend. That doesn’t mean you can’t have friends it just means you don’t frequently call them or confide in them about any of your personal matters in your marriage. Never put them before your spouse, never flirt with them if they are of the opposite gender, never let them be more important than your spouse. Look for ways each day to compliment them on things that they do and always support them in their church callings.

June 19, 2011

What do you admire most about her?

Her ability to work with people and her willingness to put all of her effort into her church callings even when other are far less committed. Her ability to love and her love for our children, their spouses and our grandchildren.

Tell a favorite story or two about her.

I could go on for a longtime about stories about her but will tell just this one for now.

As she admitted last night (as we were coming home from Roy’s wedding reception to Britt and Jeff ) when she first had a crush on me she would ride her bike up to my home ad stop along the road and hide behind the trees on the road as she would watch me working the hay. The one time I remember seeing her was when I was raking the hay in the filed just west of the house. A movement on the road caught my attention and as I watched I could see Marie and Trudy Childs on bikes up on the road. They later talked to me before they returned home.

June 18, 2011

These entries are actually being made after the date of the title when they were suppose to be made,I am just catching up.

How would you describe your wife now?

Marie is even more beautiful now than when we married. She is full of special talents and has an ability to love and make friends. We have recently ended a five plus year calling at BYU where she was greatly loved by nearly everyone of the Young Single adults that we worked with. The only reason it wasn’t a 100% of them is because we didn’t get to have time enough with some of them to get to know even who they were or they too would have had the same special feelings for her. She is so fun to have with me when we do family and wedding photos. There have been countless times that at each wedding someone would come u and compliment us on our ability to work together and how Marie was such an important part of that as she has such a unique ability to get people to smile for my camera. She is also a very hard worker and can work circles around me as she gets going early everyday and keeps going just like an Ever-ready battery.

How long have you been married?

June 20, 2011 was our 36^th wedding anniversary. We hiked with Brittany and Alex to the Grotto waterfalls in Payson canyon and then that night went on a date to a movie, “Kung Fu Panda 2”. We will be adding that to our collection.

June 17, 2011

Where have you most enjoyed living?

It must be pretty obvious that we like Mapleton since we have only left it for 6 weeks, to live in Spanish Fork, in 36 years of marriage.

Why are you living where you are today?

We are still living in the home we had built in 1983. We moved in on July 24^th and even though the house and yard have had changes it is still the home we love and don’t ever want to leave if possible.

June 16, 2011

Where was your first home as a married couple? (see Nov. 14, 2010 entry)

What other homes have you lived in? (see Nov. 23, 2010 entry)

June 15, 2011

What are some of your early marriage experiences?

We had a great time learning to love each other and be friends despite anyone else. The best examples that I can think of to illustrate this are:

First. A boss who wasn’t real smart. I started working for American TV just after we were married and Carl Haupt was the owner of the business and would have me go with him to learn how to do home calls and antenna instillations. That created a problem however since the boss usually had a lot of things he had to do in the office before we could go start on the days calls. So it was typically 2 or 3 in the afternoon before we would leave the shop. I would do odd stuff around the shop until we left each day. That meant that we got home late in the evening quite often as well. So one night when we were particularly late and Carl had brought me home, we were met by Marie her parents. Carl told her we were late because we had been out with a couple of women. Even though Marie knew it wasn’t true it still didn’t sit well with her especially since she had been told that with company present.

Second: A well meaning Aunt. After Ann had graduated from BYU she came to saty with us a couple of days before she headed back east to find employment in Kansas and later in Washington DC where she met Charles, her home teacher. We had Ben at the time and Ann was the trained child rearing person. It seemed like everything we did wasn’t the way Ann had been taught at BYU to do it and she would tell us. Well, needless to say we loved her dearly but she couldn’t leave soon enough for either of us. Since then we have come to greatly respect her insights and love for us and still love her dearly.

June 14, 2011

Did your wife know how to cook when you got married?

Marie wasn’t an experienced cook like her mother was but she was not new o it as well. She has always cooked special meals for me and us. She did have some lessons on how to use our new $800 or more Microwave that we got about two years after they had started on the consumer market. It was a great microwave and really changed the way we cooked and had meals. Baked potato meals became so easy after that and we did that quite often. Cakes became easy to make as well but we did revert to using the conventional oven for cooking them after a few months.  It has been interesting however thinking about our changes in eating habits over the years. We had Chicken Pot pies fairly regular during the first few years and Cambells tomato soup was used quite regularly. We then had different dinners that became a stable for a few years and then we moved on to something else. I think quite often as we go shopping now about the things that we used to buy every time we went and how we now don’t even seem to look at them.

Did you have any cooking disasters?

The only cooking disasters that I can remember are when for Thanksgiving we had a pressure cooker spew it’s contents of carrot pudding all over the ceiling. The only other one that really sticks out in my mind (during which I was not home to see) was when Marie put a potato in the microwave for three minutes and then went to shower and then upon discovering went running through the house in her birthday suit to get the charred smoking remains of the potato out of the microwave  and into the great outdoors since it had not stopped after the three minutes, it might have even gone thirty minutes.

June 13, 2011

What adjustments did you both have to make in your marriage?

She had to get used to a lot of things and make a lot of adjustments but since she got pregnant on or even before the actual honeymoon she was sick with morning sickness for several months right after we were married. That was a huge adjustment. I had it easy and just had to find a job and go to work then come home to a gorgeous but not feeling too well wife which took some adjusting I suppose.

Were there any surprises?

Yes, a child coming so soon after the marriage, Marie had her period and figured she was safe for awhile. However we were not planning on using child birth preventions since I had a coach in High school that had a deformed child due to the pills of that day and so we didn’t want to chance it. However I am glad it happened the way it did for each of you and you each are special to us.

June 12, 2011

Did you have a honeymoon? (see Nov. 10, 2010 entry)

Where did you go?  Moon Lake , see last blog since I seemed to get ahead.

June 11, 2011

What are some memories of your wedding?

I was in a dizzying world for several days around the wedding and don’t remember clearly all of what was happening only that I was very happy. I do remember that during the reception one of my mission companions came to Duchesne for the event and knew that they truck had a transmission going out so during the reception in the church parking lot he changed the transmission. It still didn’t work real well so he worked on it again later and we then took it to Moon Lake for our honeymoon on Wednesday. We were there in one of the small cottages the first night and then Tim, Leesa and Matt came and stayed in another one the next night and the third night dad, mom, Clair, Ruth, Alan and Kelly Ann came up for a dinner that evening. We effectively had a one day honymoon, but it was fun. The next week we moved to Mapleton into Verl’s home there and I began looking for work

June 10, 2011

When and where did you get married? (See Nov 6. 2010 entry)
Describe the wedding ceremony and who was there?

It is hard to describe a wedding ceremony for an LDS couple since the things that are done in that ceremony are performed inside the temple and are too sacred to discuss outside of the temple however since each of you (my children) have now experienced that as well then you know what happened and how beautiful the ceremony is for each couple. I can say that Kermit and Verl were the witnesses. There were a number of family that came and other than that I don’t really remember who was there. I know Marsha was baby sitting for my brothers and sisters and Marie’s family. Marie’s uncle took a few pictures for us outside of the temple since we didn’t have a photographer at the temple. Chris Short was the photographer for us at the reception the next night in Duchesne. We left the temple and drove in the old blue chevy pickup to Centerfield and then to Mapleton where we stayed the first night. We got up Saturday morning and drove out to Duchene for the reception that evening.

June 9, 2011

How did you propose? (see Nov. 4, 2010 entry)

How long were you engaged?

I went home for the couple of weeks between quarters at Snow and went to work for the school district during that time. So one day I made deliveries to the Roosevelt schools and then stopped and got some roses. When I got back to Duchesne I stopped on my way home at Marie’s and had her come out to the truck. I had the roses sitting in the front seat and asked her to take them. She was somewhat hesitant until she didn’t see a ring with them. I was actually testing the waters for what I had planned to do later. She loved the roses and we talked for a short while and then I went on home. We later got together that night with her family and Marsha to go Christmas caroling. We had a lot of fun and Ann had a couple of friends there as well that went with us. Well when we got back I asked Marie to stay outside with me for a few minutes and then tried like heck to get Marsha to go into the house and see the new pool table that their family had gotten for Christmas. (I don’t remember if this was Christmas eve or not but it seems like it was.)  Anyway I then held Marie with her hands behind her back and slid the ring on her finger, the wrong one but hey I couldn’t see what I was doing and it was with her hands behind her back. Well I asked her to marry me and with a few seconds pause she then replied Yes and we went into show her family. That was pretty much it and Marsha was really excited to find out why I wanted her to go inside so badly.

So with that being around Dec 25^th and our anniversary being June 20^th you can do the math and see that we were engaged for just shy of 6 months during which we were pretty much separated by 135 miles of lonely road.  I went back to Snow just after the first of the year and she stayed in Duchesne to work until we got married.

June 8, 2011

Things have been hectic so I haven't been able to get any blogging done since early in Colorado.

Tell about your courtship. How long did you know her before you got married?

We had a long courtship I suppose since we dated as soon as she turned 16 and were married just before I turned 22. I have stated before however that I dated when I was at Snow the first year with other girls and she dated when she was at Snow while I was on my mission. So our actual courtship I guess really began when I got home around the middle of October 1974 and we were married several months later since she went home after Christmas break to work until we were married after I graduated from Snow in May of 1975. So the last five months before I went home after graduation were some very long months as she worked and I studied at a distance of 135 miles apart fro each other.