Be married for 25 years

... it seems really strange that I have this goal on my list since we don’t celebrate anniversaries.

In three months it will be Valentine’s Day and I can mark this goal complete.

23 years today! We celebrated by going to see The Lion King at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. What a fabulous musical!

Well I’ve only been married for 76 days (March 1, 2008!) so we’ve got a little ways to go until our 25th anniversary. My parents on the other hand will be celebrating their 25th next spring and I can only hope we’ll be half as happy when we get there :)

For a 25th anniversary, you’d think someone would throw a party or something. Well, the girls are all in school out of town, but they all called. I talked to my mom that day, but she had not remembered (not that I expected her to – it’s not her anniversary. At least the Dearest remembered).

I ended up not finding anything SILVER to commemorate the big day. Not like He cared what color his present was. It turned out to be BLUE jeans and ARMY GREEN cargo shorts. He got in the car to go out to dinner THAT NIGHT wearing jeans with paint on them. Apparently his only “clean” pants. Oh brother. So while the restaurant readied our reserved table, we drove over to KMart and got him some pants. He still wore the painty ones to dinner. (((eyeroll))) Ah, well.

He, on the other hand, DID find a nice shiny silver gift for me and it wasn’t even jewelry. It was a pressure cooker. I have always been terrified of pressure cookers, but he found me one with an abundance of safety features. Inside the box was the warranty card. I tossed it aside. He asked me what it was and why there were so many papers with it. I picked it up and prepared to read it to him in both English and Spanish, but the second and third pages were not part of the gift. They were a separate gift…

Tickets to San Francisco! He’s known for years that I have wanted to go back there. He had never been. We went last weekend and it was SO much fun! A lot of it was just like I remember. Some of it I didn’t remember.

We stayed near Fisherman’s Wharf and walked all over the place. After the first day, he was so tired of hiking up and down hills that we got a MuniPass and took advantage of all the modes of transportation except BART. He didn’t want to go up and down anymore, so the subway was out. That’s OK. I’ve seen it plenty of times.

... I spent the day hanging out with my friends. We bought fun lingerie and went out to lunch.

The groom did see the bride that day and it did not bring bad luck.

We showed up at the church about 2 hours before the wedding and we did start on time at 7pm. Got pronounced husband and wife at 7:20pm, then we were pelted with colorful rice and carted off in a limo to a local resort.

April 6th, 1983 was a Wednesday. The reception wasn’t until Friday, so we went to the Point at Tapatio Cliffs for a couple days. Not exactly incommunicado, and not exactly a honeymoon. I had left my street shoes in the Bride’s Room and with no car, we had to walk about a mile to the nearest store, a Circle K, where He bought me a pair of flip-flops.

It was fun, though. The hotel gave us a giant fruit basket and a couple bottles of champagne. When we returned the alcohol, explaining that we don’t drink, the concierge got such a kick out of it that he kept us in all the juice we could drink for the next two days!

We both – and each – had always wanted to go to Disney World for our honeymoon. Well, we didn’t have any money for that.

But our “someday” finally did come in 1998, after fifteen years of marriage and three beautiful daughters. They were 13, 11, and 8 at the time and thought it was a great joke to be able to go on their parents “honeymoon” with them!

It’s a great ride. Kinda like Disney World: Lots of ups and downs, some parts go by so fast you have to write them down in order to remember later, and some parts are downright drudgery! Some wild thrills and some that just make ya sick. But no matter what, as long as someone is working on the maintenance crew, we will all be safe.

Overall, we’re having a great run. Great food, great sex, great kids, great pictures, great memories, great fun. GREAT RIDE. :)

^{Oh, and we’re taking the girls back to Florida next month!}

I designed it myself. Took me five months to build it. I was especially proud of the sleeves. As Napolean Dynamite would say, “They’re really puffy.” ;) They were also a lot of work.

With little jewels all over it, a sweetheart neckline, and a cascading train, it was appraised at $1500 . . . in 1983! I spent nowhere near that making it, but it was the PERFECT DRESS for me! :)

We were engaged for just about a whole year. During that time, we traveled around Arizona, meeting and visiting his relatives (all of mine lived in the house with me, except my grandma, who lived right down the street), snow skiing, camping, and exploring cool out-of-the-way places, including caves and bogs.

Our “OFFICIAL” engagement was June 18, 1982, when we got the rings. We picked up some Church’s Fried Chicken and went to the park for a picnic. He did the whole down-on-one-knee thing and put the size 4¾ ring on my finger.

We had already chosen April 6th of the next year for the wedding, so with THE RING AND THE DATE, we were set to go.

I have always thought this was a cute story.

Sometime in February 1982, He was over at my mom’s, fixing electrical issues. Well, he had not turned off the power and was working with live wiring. I did not think this was very wise and decided to teach him a lesson.

He was standing on a step ladder in the Utility Room, with his arms over his head, working on the ceiling light.

I was in the hallway, with a long wooden dowel. hee hee hee!

BZZZZZT!!!!

He jumped so high! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

But he didn’t learn his lesson. He proceeded into my brothers’ room and took off the switchplate, still without turning off the power. I tried sneaking up on him again, but he grabbed my stick and pulled. When he got to my end of it, he kissed me.

Awww. Sweet. Yeah. Tingly sweet. =D

I don’t really remember our first date. We started out as friends doing stuff together and just sort of stopped going out with other people.

The courtship consisted mostly of dinners, motorcycle rides, arcades, movies, and trying to shoot ice down one another’s shirts at Taco Bell.

Then, two months after we met, on Easter Sunday, April 11, 1982, I received an enormous Easter basket with a formal invitation to “spend the remainder of (my) days as the wife and companion of (my Dearest).” It came with an RSVP card and everything. I checked the “yes” box and handed it to him.

February 10, 1982

I was a senior at Arizona State University, sitting in a lounge, doing a crossword puzzle.

He was on campus . . . well . . . checking out girls, I suppose.

He saw me sitting there and asked a girl he recognized if she knew who I was. Coincidentally, she did, and she introduced us.

He helped me finish my crossword puzzle, then drove me home on the back of his motorcycle so I wouldn’t have to take the bus all the way back to Phoenix.

The next weekend, he called (repeatedly), but I was always out doing something, so he hopped on his bike and drove the 20 miles to my house. My mom was cleaning and was dressed very strangely when he showed up and he didn’t even run for the hills! In fact, he hung around all day, fixing stuff for her.