Twenty Five Years

Mike and I were married 25 years ago. That seems crazy! I have been so lucky. Mike is the absolute best. I can not imagine my life without him. I am so lucky that he makes decisions quick! We were engaged shortly after he came home. Well, he kind of asked me to marry him the day after he came home. Not really, he wanted to know the answer before he officially asked the question. I took a week to answer him. I wanted to make sure I wasn't marrying him just because I wasn't married when he came home. I know that is crazy. Mike was my dream. Still, I wanted to make sure I did the right thing. The first time I ever saw Mike was in seminary class. The teacher asked us to introduce ourselves by saying our name and one interesting thing about us. I don't know what I said, but I remember Mike at the front of the class saying his name was Mike and he had three bowls of Fruity Pebbles for breakfast. As soon as he said that I heard words in my head that said, "That's who you are going to marry." WHAT? I kind of laughed to myself. The girl next to me asked what was so funny. I told her nothing. I was shocked. First of all, I was 15 and had never once thought about marriage. I wasn't interested in dating or anything like that. Second of all, I was extremely shy. It was obvious Mike was the kind of person I wouldn't even talk to. It was obvious he was popular and way out of my league. Third of all, like I said, I was FIFTEEN! Anyway, the next class was history and Mike was in that class. We had a seating chart and he was seated next to me. I couldn't believe it. He spent the next few months constantly trying to get my attention. I would ignore him. Mike likes to joke that he spent forever trying to get me to talk to him and once I did he could never get me to stop! Anyway, we became close friends for the next two years. We started dating our senior year. Then were married exactly three months from when he came home from his mission. I know that seems crazy, but we had known each other for six years by this point. Also, it turned out that the day we picked was the only time my mom would have been able to come to my wedding. I went to the temple for the first time the week before I was married. We came home to find a message on the answering machine that my mom's cancer was back and she needed to start radiation right away. This was a Saturday. I was getting married the next Friday. My mom waited a week so she could be at my wedding. I feel this was a tender mercy. We prayed and prayed and prayed for my mom to get better. That was not Heavenly Fathers plan, but he set it up so she could see one of her kids get married. Her only daughter. I know that was important to her and I am extremely grateful I was able to have her there. She was too sick to help my plan the wedding. She was quarantined after her bone marrow transplant for months. I remember begging the invitation printers to let me bring their book of invitations home so I could show my mom the one I wanted. They were nervous about it, but let me do it anyway. My mom died nine months after we were married. Wow. Didn't mean to go down that rabbit hole. So, in summary... Mike is the best and cancer is the worst. Hahaha Here are a few pictures from our wedding.

Mike & Stephanie

Jorja texted me at 5:30 in the morning. She was at Ella's house. She stayed up all night talking. The other girls (Ella, Gabby, Giselle, Ellie, Grace, Liza) had just fallen asleep, but she was wide awake. She told me that they ended up moving the sunrise thing to Storm Mountain park because the student government kids didn't want to go to Alta. So, she decided she would go to that. Welp, that didn't turn out to be what happened. Jorja and the other girls went to Storm Mountain, but the other people weren't there. Ella got a call from Bode telling them to come to Alta. By this time Jorja had been up all night and was not thinking clearly. They decided it would be okay as long as no one posted pictures with them in it. Looking through Jorja's phone, there was a picture she took at Storm Mountain, then several pictures at Alta, then she accidentally took a screen shot of driving directions to Kneaders. She was there for about twenty minutes. So, she went and took pictures, then left. (She had a TON of pictures.) Well, anyway, someone there posted a picture with them in it. I don't even have the picture posted. That picture got shared over and over and now Jorja is in big trouble. People are mad because it looked like student government invited only their friends, when in reality it was dance company that invited student government. Jorja was so mad because she didn't intend to go. If it had never been moved to Storm Mountain, she never would have been tempted to go, but in the moment one thing led to another and before she knew it she was there. Packer was so mad at them. He told Jorja he was the most disappointed in her out of everybody. She was pretty sad. Honestly, I blame Packer for this. He has such a doom and gloom attitude that he gives the student government no hope. Jorja didn't think they would get a senior sunrise, so this seemed like at least something she could do. Turns out they are having one next week. If Jorja had an idea that was happening there would have been no way she would have gone. I don't know why Packer is so secretive about everything. Why can't he just tell the kids we will try our best. The world is changing quickly every day, but if there is any way we can pull it off, we will do it. Now, Jorja is banned from going to the real senior sunrise. Packer let her choose her own punishment. Skip senior sunrise or skip homecoming activities.

Liza, Ellie, Gabby, ???, ???

???, ???, ???, ???, Jorja, Ella

Jorja & Jake

Ella, Jorja, Giselle

Bode & Jorja

Jorja & Ethan

Jorja & Riley

Luke, Jorja, Aiden

Ethan, Ella, Jake, Luke, Jorja, Aiden, Giselle

We had a low key evening. We ordered food from IHOP and watched Mulan with the kids. Mike had been excited about this and I only fell asleep for a little bit. Doesn't sound too exciting, but both of us felt like a night in tonight. Plus, we don't have many movie nights with our family left.