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.