Who Knew that Marriage Could Be So Wonderful?

July 24, 1993 Denver Colorado Temple

Eighteen years ago today Herman and I began our wonderful life together. Looking back, we were so, so young. We must have been just a little stupid to make an eternal commitment when we lacked so much understanding about the world around us. But, we entered into this commitment with our eyes wide open, knowing that we couldn't imagine taking that tremendous step with any other person. We had total faith that we were making the decision that the Lord would wish for us to make. And, with that how could we be nervous or afraid? I married my very best friend in the world, and all of the trials and triumphs of marriage have only caused me to love him even more. Laney sometimes tells us that her friends at school comment on how we act like newlyweds still. I can't help it. My sweet husband makes me smile, and I still get the flutters sometimes when I see him from far away. Neither one of us are perfect, but I believe that we are perfect for each other. I don't think that anyone else on earth could have handled either one of us. But together we form an absolutely perfect union. I have complete trust in Herman. I know that he will do his best to do what is best for me and for our family. He is such a good daddy for our six children, and he is not afraid to show me just how much he loves me every day. How could I not be thrilled to be married to a man who constantly introduces me as his wife, "the hottie" when I am perfectly certain that I am merely ordinary? I can't help but feel beautiful when I am around him. Our relationship is strengthened each day because I feel like we really do try to understand what path we are meant to follow in this world. Sometimes we find ourselves being led in directions we had not anticipated, but we are willing to grab our boots and start walking, having faith that we'll figure things out as we go along. It isn't always easy, but it is guaranteed to be fun and exciting. I love my sweet Nino!

So, this weekend we decided to take a little anniversary getaway since we finally have kids old enough to stay alone at home overnight, especially since Herman's mom is close enough to help out in an emergency. We didn't go too far -- just to St. Louis for a quick overnight. We left late Friday afternoon to stay at the Marriott in St. Louis. We didn't plan anything really. We just planned on going with the flow. After checking in to the nice hotel we headed out to eat.  We really enjoy eating at Brazilian churrascaria restaurants because they remind Herman of the time he lived in Brazil for two years for his mission.  They are super fun.  There is always a nice salad bar with interesting cold ingredients, and then several waiters come around with huge slabs of various meats.  You are able to taste a variety of yummy grilled and roasted meats.  We always eat way too much, but it is an experience to remember, so it's worth it.  This time the restaurant was staffed with a bunch of young men from Brazil, so I was hoping that Herman would use his Portuguese with them.  I think that it's just a little bit sexy when he starts talking in his foreign languages.  He didn't do it, but he did talk to the waiter a little bit about the city in which he grew up in Brazil.  That was kind of neat.   Our grand plan was to stop at The Cheesecake Factory for dessert, but after an hour and a half eating at the Brazilian restaurant we realized that that was wishful thinking.

Instead of eating more, we headed to the Chesterfield Mall for a little shopping.  We had a very specific mission.  I have not worn perfume since I was in college and suffered a traumatic event that kept me away from fragrance since that time.  Here's the short story of the event:  I was in the college band playing trumpet.  It was a brass section full of guys -- none that I had the hots for or anything like that, just a bunch of post-adolescent boys.  One day I was running late for everything, and I grabbed my perfume and spritzed on a few sprays like I usually did before my afternoon activities and ran to band practice.  I have no idea what the brand of perfume was, but I'm sure it was something pretty cheap.  I was just a poor college student, you know.  I seem to recall that it was some cheap knock-off of Estee Lauder's Beautiful.  Well, I headed to my seat to start warming up when our lone tuba player exclaims loudly, "Something smells over here.  What is it that smells?"  Immediately all the lovely boys in my area burst into that terribly annoying laughing that teenage boys get when they are making fun of other people.  I can't describe it.  You'll just know it when you hear it.  Since I was the only one not laughing, I was convinced that I must have been the subject of the comment.  Maybe not, but by then the damage was done.  I headed back to my room, tossed my perfume, and never wore anything again.  I wish young men (and young women, too) would recognize just how harmful words can be to someone.  None of those boys probably remember the comments they made that day, but they hurt me enough that it lasted for almost twenty years, and I'll never forget.  Herman has wanted to get me something in the years we have been married, but I told him that I would never wear it.  I don't know why I let the actions of young men who I care nothing for to dictate the rest of my life, but that is my neurosis, I guess.  But, this adoption changed everything so that I was willing to put aside my twenty year worries of having a distinct body odor.  We are now in the process of adopting a little girl from China, Minsy.  We are in the final months of preparation.  I am pretty sure that we will be traveling to China sometime in October, and now we are preparing to get our visas and stuff like that.  Now that we are at this point in the process we are able to send Minsy a care package.  Our Chinese guide told me that I needed to include a stuffed animal and a blanket sprayed with our colognes so that she would recognize our scents when we picked her up.  The only problem was that I didn't have any cologne that I used.  So that led us to our mission at the mall that day.  We headed to Macy's to the fragrance counter to begin our exploration.  It is so hard to choose a fragrance because I can't tell what will smell okay on me or not.  I just told the lady that I needed something that wouldn't be overpowering.  Sometimes I think that they must get extra commission for selling certain brands because she was really pushing us toward certain scents.  But after smelling a bunch of smells and cleansing my nose in between with a good sniff of coffee grounds, I made my choice.  The winner . . . Daisy  by Marc Jacobs.  I think it suits me, but I'm still getting used to it.  Today I wore it to church, and I felt like I had this perfume cloud hanging all around me while I sat in Relief Society.  Luckily, none of the good ladies there turned around and said, "What's that smell?"  I think I made it through today, so I'll keep wearing it.  Hopefully it doesn't offend anybody.  It does make me a little happy thinking of Minsy smelling it when she opens her box in China next month.

While we were in the mall we walked past a store that offered massages.  They weren't ordinary massages, but Herman wanted to do something else sweet for me while we were there, so he stopped in and got me a short twenty minute massage.  I have gotten massages before and LOVE them.  They are so relaxing and can get me back on an even keel in my life.  However, this was no ordinary massage, as I said earlier.  I started to get a little nervous when I saw them smacking the back of the guy on the table next to me.  He wasn't complaining, but I stated to wonder exactly what type of massage this was.  It sure didn't look relaxing.  Well, it was not relaxing.  I think my teeth were gritted the entire time.  I felt like the lady was picking up each of my back, neck, arm, and leg muscles individually and then twisting them around while she slammed part of her body into my back.  Yikes!  I just kept praying for the time to be up.  I guess I could have complained, but I am the queen of non-confrontation, so I sat and suffered.  When she had finally smacked the last of my sanity out of my back I was able to stand up.  I immediately leaned to the right, about ready to pass out.  I felt completely weird.  I can't really explain it.  I tried to put on a brave face for Herman since he was so sweet to get the massage for me, but it was hard to deny that it was pretty painful.  But, I have to say that after I regained equilibrium and was able to walk straight I did find that my back felt better.  I didn't feel relaxed, but I did feel rejuvenated.  Maybe that was the point.  If so, kudos to them.  I probably won't head back any time soon, though.

Steel Cut Oats!!

We had grand plans to go to one of the indie movie houses in St. Louis to see a movie that we couldn't see in Waynesville, but it didn't happen.  We just had a relaxing evening at the hotel.  We spent so much time just talking and talking and talking.  I am so glad to be married to a man who I could talk to forever.  It is such a blessing.  On the following day we headed on another mission.  This time we wanted to find a stuffed animal and blanket to put in Minsy's package.  We started at Target.  Target has tons of cute things, right?  Well, this particular Target was severely lacking.  We couldn't find anything.  Weird.  But, there was a Whole Foods store next door, so Herman took me there.  I've never been before.  Wow!  What a store!  I loved the produce section.  Everything looked so fresh and clean, and I liked seeing where the food came from.  There was almost too much new stuff to process.  We just walked up and down the aisles looking at everything.  Then I gave myself a $20 limit to just grab a few things to try.  Super fun!  I may stop by there each time I come to St. Louis to get another $20 worth of stuff to try out.  I'll have to limit myself or I could go crazy, and as important as I think it is to get fresh, healthy, and organic foods, it would cost a small fortune to feed my family of 8 (almost 9), so I'll just play around for now. 

With our healthy food adventure over, we headed to a Babies R Us.  Can you believe with all the kids I have I have never been inside a Babies R Us before???  They just never had one close to where we lived, so I never made the effort to seek one out.  When I walked through the doors I was thrown into future grandma heaven.  We had our babies in the midst of our poverty, so I never really spent much on coordinating bedroom sets and stuff like that.  Now, of course, we don't need any of that stuff, but I was positively giddy thinking of getting that type of stuff for our future grandchildren (far, far in the future, of course).  I just giggled and giggled as we walked through the aisles and saw all the super cute merchandise, but it would have been ridiculous for me to walk out of the store with a cart load of stuff and no baby at home.  We only needed to find a stuffed animal and a blanket, so that helped limit me.  Still, there was a pretty large selection, and I got a little overwhelmed trying to decide.  Finally we got a cute little bear that matched a super soft pink blanket with flowers on it.  I love it!  I came home and immediately held both of them and slept with both of them.  For some reason, holding onto the blanket and bear really brought home just how real Minsy is.  I think I really felt for the first time like I was getting a new daughter to love.  I always have those sort of moments with each of our kids, but it is different with pregnancies because I can feel the babies kicking me all day long, letting me know that they are in there, just waiting to pop out into our family.  Minsy has just been a picture on the computer, but holding these items that will be in her arms in the next month made her real to me.  I hope she will like them and feel the love we have for her soon.

With our Minsy shopping complete, we headed back to the Chesterfield Mall for our lunch at Cheesecake Factory.  The menu there is sooooo overwhelming to me.  Luckily, I am able to push through it pretty fast and get the type of food that I like.  I'm not sure why, but I have never really enjoyed any meal that I have ordered there.  The cheesecake is divine, of course, but the main menu leaves a lot to be desired.  This time I got a pretty good meal, though.  It was spicy chicken tacos that were delicious.  Herman and I were smart and got to-go boxes at the beginning and divided our food in half so that we didn't stuff ourselves.  We saved room for the cheesecakes.  Sooooo good!  I love cheesecake.  I think that I could live on cheesecake for awhile -- probably not too long, though, because I have post cheesecake guilt once I eat too much of it.  When we finished eating we headed back into the mall for a second to go to an Asian gift shop there.  We found a wall sign that said "Eternal Love" in Chinese (at least that is what they told us.  We really don't know anything.  It could have just said, "You're a sucker!").  But, we'll believe that it is what it says it is, and we thought that would be a great thing to hang in our house.  So we got it along with a huge decorative fan to hang on the wall.  We want to celebrate Minsy's heritage in our home so that she knows we appreciate all that she is.  

So, the anniversary getaway is finally over, and we headed home on I-44.  All seemed to be going great, and I even settled back for a well-deserved nap.  We were about an hour from home when we heard this huge explosion followed by the loudest banging noise coming from the back of our van.  I immediately began to freak out, but Herman just calmly pulled over to the side of the road and puttered a little way up the road to get to a commuter parking lot where he could change the tire without risk of losing his head to a passing speeding semi.  I could not believe how torn up that tire was.  I'm so glad that Herman was driving.  He handled things calmly.  I would have over-reacted and probably made things worse.  He let me stay in the car while he changed the rear tire.  As he pumped the jack up I couldn't help thinking about the scene in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray's character fixes the tire for the old ladies who think he is a nice man from the auto club.  I felt kind of lazy there, but I think Herman kind of likes doing that stuff for me.  Unfortunately we had to drive home on the doughnut tire, so we weren't comfortable driving full speed on I-44.  Luckily, we were able to use the alternate route provided by Historic Rt. 66.  It took us a lot longer to get home, but it was neat to take the scenic route without tons of traffic and nice views.  There were some sweet little towns along the way.  We couldn't help but notice how those little towns must have been devastated when the interstate was built and took business away from them.  It was kind of sad, but still I was glad to see part of my state that for some reason I had never seen before. 

We finally arrived home to a house full of happy children, all alive and none bleeding -- successful vacation!  So now today is our official day to celebrate our life together.  It is enough to say that we do a good enough job of appreciating each other every day that it is not necessary to throw all our appreciation into one day.  I did like to head to my craft room and go through old pictures and scrapbooks of those early days of our marriage.  We were so young, but we were so happy.  We had the world and the rest of our lives in front of us with no one but ourselves to keep us from living our dreams.  We had so much fun in those early days, and the days only continue to get more fun.  We may be a little bit slower and take a little more time to recover from our fun, but I wouldn't trade this for anything.  I didn't just marry a great guy.  I married my best friend -- not just for then, but for eternity.  Life is awesome!