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. 

May 30, 2011 Happy Birthday Gabe!!

What attracted you to her?

She was cute, and she was pretty, and she was fun to be around. The fact that she was also shy was a little bit of it as well I suppose. I loved to see her walking to school with her hair blowing as she walked. I was just flat out smitten by her.

May 29, 2011

Do you remember where you went on your first date with her? What was it like?

I do not remember our first date but I remember a double date we took with Lee Moon and Diane Horrocks to Roosevelt. It was the only double date that I remember ever going on and it was to a movie. I do not remember the movie or even why we did it so it must have not been really a memorable movie. I think we rode in the back seat as well but even that is not clear. We had to have ridden in the back since Lee drove. I know I didn't. Memory is just to hard to retain when it come to some 40 years ago and events that happened at that time. It is too bad that most things that you remember had a major impact or otherwise it slips from the archives of your mind all too quick.

May 28, 2011

I have had a short recess while working on the new playhouse so this post is a little late.


When, where, and how did you meet your wife? How old were both of you?

Meeting Ann and Marie at the Duchesne High School library.

My mother Ilean, was the librarian for the high school in Duchesne. We were in the process of getting a new high school in Duchesne and the old gymnasium was where the library was being located until a new wing of the school could be made and the new library located there.

So in the summer prior to the start of school in 1967 (I was then 14.) as I was getting ready to enter 8^th grade I was helping mom set up the books in the make shift shelves in the (old gym) new library. I was putting the books in alphabetical order on the shelves and mom was at the desk typing up the missing library cards for me to put into the books.

As we were working a knock came on the doors and two young girls walked in to the library. One of them was somewhat taller than the other who was obviously very shy and stood shyly behind her older sister. The older one introduced themselves as Ann, a sophomore and Marie Behrmann, a 7th grader, and that they were new to school and lived just down the road from the high school. Mom then introduced me to them I think since I don’t remember but mom wouldn’t have done anything else since she was very proper and that would have been the protcol. Well little did I know at that time that I would get to know the younger one really well and also learn to love her even more. I thought at that time that she was pretty darn cute with emphasis on the "pretty" part. That was the first time I saw her and it would not be the last. She did live just down the road and there were many times in the following four years that I would watch her as she walked to school each morning and I would be sitting on the planter box by the new library which was built the following year. I also got to know the older one and in fact we received our mission calls the same day in 1972. (That’s another story.)