In Today's News . . .

Here is some real Leap-Day silliness:  After four months of the mildest winter in years (very cold, but almost no snow), we got dumped on for a couple hours on Leap Day, and now have about six inches of snow. 

Yesterday was Michael's birthday!  He is twenty years old. Here's to another sixty to eighty! 

Today is my wedding anniversary!  My marriage is twenty-two years old. 

Here's to another forty to sixty years!

Love and Marriage

When I was growing up, the story I heard most often and liked the best was the story of my parents meeting and getting married.

Dad had a dream before he left for his mission; he saw his wife and his family, and he knew that his wife would be from another country. My mom, Dolores, was born in Brasil; and my dad, Orlin, is from the United States. Dad served a mission in Brasil and, as Mom puts it, she was his souvenir.

But I'll just tell you the story the way we heard it as we sat around the dinner table (and if I get it wrong, Mom will just have to excuse me because I'm going entirely by memory):

Dolores was engaged to another young man in Brasil when she first saw Orlin. She says that she was walking along and looked up and saw a missionary on the steps of the church, and she thought, "I'm going to marry that missionary with the glasses." So she went home, and broke off her engagement to the unfortunate Brasilian guy. (This was the most frequently repeated, and my favorite, part of the story.)

Mom would say about that missionary with the glasses, "He was so good-looking, and he had lots of thick, wavy hair."

Later Dolores found out that another girl was also interested in Elder Johnson; this girl was even knitting him a sweater. So Dolores went to the nuns, who were great friends with her mother and her family, and asked one of them to knit a sweater for her—a blue one, I think. I believe Dolores' gift to the young Elder Johnson was finished first; and I believe it was many years before he found out that Dolores hadn't knitted it herself. But to make doubly sure the other girl didn't get in the way, Dolores told the mission president that this girl was very interested in Elder Johnson. I believe the mission president got the message confused and thought that Dolores was interested in Elder Johnson; either way, Elder Johnson soon got a transfer to another area in the Brasil mission.

Orlin recalls that one day another missionary was showing a home movie (maybe a gift from home?). It turns out that Orlin's family knew this other elder and so their pictures were in the movie too. Orlin says,"When I saw the pictures of Esther (his sister) I thought, 'I like Dolores as much as I like Esther.' "

Before Orlin went home he was able to visit Dolores' town again for a little while. And then he was off to the states again. Back home, he wrote to her and asked her to marry him! And she said yes! So her parents allowed her to go to the states, but to be sure everything was on the up and up they sent her sister, Helena, as a chaperone. They stayed with Orlin's family.

Because Dolores hadn't been a member of the church for a full year, and because of some kind of mix-up getting her records to the states, she wasn't able to get a temple recommend. Orlin was getting a little frustrated with the waiting because he would soon be going to Germany with the Army. Finally he told his mother (who, at the time, wasn't too excited about him marrying a foreign girl) that if they couldn't get married in the temple they would just go to Las Vegas. My Grandma Johnson didn't want that to happen—if they were going to get married, it would be in the temple! So she called church headquarters, and my parents were interviewed by President David O. McKay, and Mom got her temple recommend. They were married in the Manti Temple on July 8, 1953 (I think Mark E. Petersen was their sealer). Three days later Orlin went to Germany. It was six months (or was it nine?) before Dolores could join him. They had lots of adventures from marbles in the marble cake, to having their first baby, to seeing the sights in Europe before they came home to the states.

That was the start of everything. Now Orlin and Dolores Johnson have eight children, 37 grandchildren (I think Mom says it's 42, but I think that counts the children of our Navajo foster sister), and 13 (?) great-grandchildren. They have been married 57 years today.

about 1977

As a side-note: Mom's sister, Helena, eventually married Dad's brother, Norman. And Grandma Johnson did grow to love my mom; she died in our home with Mom right there (in Mom's arms, if I remember right).

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Kiss and Tell

In honor of our 20th wedding anniversary, which was this past week on March 2, I'm going to tell you what Bruce and I did on the first night of our honeymoon trip:

Bruce and I, being kids, decided we would honeymoon in Los Angeles and go to Disneyland together. We borrowed my mom's car—which we thought would survive the trip better than Bruce's '69 Cougar—and drove away. That first night we stopped at the Peppermill in Mesquite, NV (which, by the way, was a new—and almost the only—resort there at the time). So we got a little room, and I went to draw a bath and slip into something a little more comfortable. While I was in the bathroom, Bruce was in the bedroom getting ready for bed. After a minute or so I could tell that he was a little frustrated so I stepped out to see what was wrong. It turns out that he forgot to bring something very important: his contact-lens removing tool.

When Bruce first started wearing contacts, he was given this little suction-cup thing that would pull his lens off of his eyeball. The idea was that he could use it until he learned to blink the lenses out of his eyes, but he just got used to using the suction cup all the time. And now here we were, in Nevada, and he didn't have it. He tried and tried to get his contact lenses out, but to no avail. Pretty soon I was there trying to help. I was poking my fingers around in his eyes, and pulling on his eyelids, and doing what I could to help get the lenses out. No good. We both tried and tried and tried, but couldn't get those lenses out of his eyes. We worked at it for nearly 45 minutes, and we were both getting more daring about how I touched him, but no luck. Finally, during a brief rest, Bruce had a thought: He was used to using suction to get the lenses out of his eyes; what if he got a drinking straw and I sucked the lenses out?

OK. I can totally understand that this is not how he wanted to spend the first night of our honeymoon. (Me either!) But that straw idea convinced me that he'd gone over the edge; that he'd lost his marbles. Still, we were both tired and frustrated and neither of us could think of a better solution. So Bruce went off to the bar and asked the nice bartender for a straw, and then came back with a fat, red drinking straw. He gave it to me and said, "Put one end in your mouth, then center the other end on my contact and then suck." I told him he was crazy, but I figured we'd already tried everything else. What else could I do?

So I've got this red straw in my mouth, and I'm looking down it's length into Bruce's eyeball. And here was Bruce's perspective: He could see my face and the straw in my mouth with one eye, and with the other eye he had a bird's-eye view straight up the straw and into my mouth. I began the procedure with much trepidation; put the straw in place and sucked on it. And . . .

It worked! He says my eyes got wide, and I looked really surprised, and with the straw still in my mouth I squealed, "Ooooo!" and dropped the lens into his waiting hand to be cleaned and put away for the night. And we both laughed and laughed. Then the other eye. Ah, sweet success! Oh, relief! And lots of giggling.

That's how we removed Bruce's contact lenses every night of our honeymoon. When we got back home he practiced—and became very good at—blinking them out of his eyes.

And that is the story of our first honeymoon night—or at least as much as you get to hear about it. ;-)

Candid Camera . . . or is it Thrill-Cam?

Hmmm.

Hmmmm.



Who do you think took these pictures?

Strangers in a Strange Land

We went to church in the Murfreesboro Ward the next day. When we walked in the door we were greeted by the bishop, "You must be the Norths." That was nice. Apparently word had gotten around that a new family from Utah, with two boys, was moving in and we were made to feel very welcome. It was a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, to see that the church was the same there as in Utah--even down to the song that we did sing with the choir that afternoon. (I found out later that a family of teenage girls in the ward were hoping our sons would be a little older. When she saw us, one of them leaned over and told her mom, "See. I told you they'd be babies.")

We had this family picture taken about three weeks
before we made the big move.

When the meeting was over Rob Fortney, a member of the ward, introduced himself to us. He said that as he sat in his pew, and saw Bruce and me holding our two boys and singing with the choir, he felt very strongly that he should invite us to live in his house while we waited for an apartment to open up to us. He also invited us to dinner that night. At church that afternoon, I hadn't realized that Rob did not consult with his wife Kim before inviting us to move into his house. But she told us, "When Rob told me he'd invited you to stay with us, I just thought, 'Emma and Joseph always had other people living in their own home, and cared for them.'" And there was no question of whether or not we could stay; they simply opened their home to us. We lived with them in their little, two-bedroom home for two weeks.

The next day Rob took Bruce to the school to get signed up for his classes, and he took him to a temporary-employment agency to get signed up on their list too. Kim was working, and while everyone was gone I put Jason in his stroller, took Michael, and walked over to a little strip-mall to look around. While we were there some man just walked right up to me and started complaining about the railroad or the train schedules or something like that. It was a little weird. We soon found out that people in the South are just like that. They will walk up to a total stranger and start up a conversation as if they'd known you forever.

And usually they were very kind and friendly. Southern Hospitality.

talking with our neighbor, J.J, at the Tremont apartments

When we got into our apartment we tried getting a new fish. In fact, we tried ten times; Michael came up with names for ten goldfish and they all died one way or another. With one of them we learned that there is so much natural chlorine in Murfreesboro's water that it would kill a fish. But mostly they all jumped out of their bowl--the last of them disappearing under a chair and dying there. (I get up in the morning, check out the fish bowl and holler, "Where is Jabba-the-Hutt?!") After ten fish, we gave up.

We spent nine months in that apartment (long enough to have Lindsey), and then bought a trailer-home when our lease was up. The trailer plus the rental of the lot (in the nicest park in town) cost us the same as our apartment rent did. But we had the bonus of a place for our kids to run around and play. The trailer looked like an old tin-can on the outside, but it was cute and comfortable inside.

Lindsey and me; our tin-can house is in the right-hand corner behind us

People in the south were astonished at "how many" children we had. When I had two little boys and was pregnant again it was excusable, "Ohhh! You've got ta get your gir-el." But when I had two boys and a girl and was pregnant again, I got some pretty strange looks. And when I had four children with me, in the flesh, I got lots of double-takes and, "Surely those are not all your children!" And there was even one little girl in a grocery store who was so amazed, that she counted my kids over and over again and announced to anyone who could hear that "she has four children! Count 'em! One - two - three - four! Four kids!"

We were right, smack in the Bible Belt. Religion was on billboards everywhere, from the church that announced "Over 816 Saved" (and changed their count weekly), to "Smile if you love Jesus" on the Salvation Army marquee, to "God's Love Served Daily" at a diner in town. A common conversation-starter would be to ask, "What's your home-church?"
One day I was at the Wal-Mart cafeteria with Michael and Jason and two nice little old ladies sat at the table next to us. Michael was flirting with them (he was three) and one of them said to him, "Whay-er did you get those beautiful, brown eyes?" She was tickled when Michael said, "Jesus made them." She beamed and said, "Yes, that's right," to him, and to me, "You are teachin' him right." If only she knew I was a Mormon!
A few years later I was at the grocery store with my four children, and I came across this very friendly woman who complimented me on my beautiful family. I ran into her again a little later, and then a third time, when she asked me if I had a home church. I told her I did; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She wasn't familiar with that one, and asked where it was. I told her where the church was, but that still didn't ring any bells. Finally I told her I was a Mormon. And suddenly she didn't know what to say to me. I'm sure I sprouted horns right in front of her face. When I saw her again in another aisle of the store, she didn't know what to say to me. I wonder if she thought I was teachin' them right?

Then there was the delightful southern accent. After a few weeks in Tennessee a member of the Relief Society asked me how I was adjusting. I said I was still getting used to the accent, then I realized that in the south I was the one with the accent! I soon found out that a grocery cart was called a "buggy," while the thing you push your baby around in is a "cart." And you really do refer to a person or a group of people as "Y'all," or even "All y'all." We also got called "Yankees" a few times (but only as a joke).

a rainy day in Tennessee

It rains and rains and rains in Tennessee--which is why it might really be the "greenest state in the land of the free." But it is so hot and so humid there that rain was a real relief. And the rain in Tennessee wasn't freezing cold like it usually is in Utah; you could go out and play in it all day. Well, we Utahns did; I had a little boy come and tattle to me once, that Michael had been playing out in the rain and he was going to catch a "hay -ed" cold. He was a little shocked when I told him that I knew Michael was playing in the rain and it was OK. The warm, humid climate was probably why there were so many bugs there as well. Yuck!

Halloween--one of these pizza guys is not in a costume. Or is he?

Almost as soon as we got to Murfreesboro I started writing and writing and writing letters home. I've never done well away from home, and I so needed contact with my family. I lived for letters from home, but didn't get many. Finally we just learned to live with astronomical phone bills, since I called my sister or my mom two to four times a week. Bruce went to school full-time and then delivered pizzas all hours of the night to earn a living for us. I was so lonely and so scared at first that I called the airlines in tears almost every night for the first few months to see what it would cost to go home. I knew that if I just took off Bruce would follow me back; but I also knew I would never do that, and that we would get through this.

And we did. It got a little easier--thanks to the calls home, the great people in our ward, and the hope of graduation coming up. I know a lot of really difficult and even bad things happened to us while we were there, but mostly I don't remember them.
No.
I do remember them, if I think about them I can even still feel them; but they are not foremost in my mind. I remember, but I don't often think of them.

And now here we are. Back in the mountain desert of Utah, with eight kids (count 'em--eight!) Was it an experience for our good? I think so. When I think of being in Tennessee, I mostly remember our friends there, and the struggle to get through school, and graduation. So much of it was so new and so strange. I can honestly say it was hard; even in looking back the difficulty of it hasn't diminished.
But it was good, too. It's good.

. . . And They Moved to Tennessee

or . . .
Alas, Poor Omar!

So we started on our journey. The first leg of our trip took us into Wyoming. We arrived at a motel on the west side of the state at about 5 or 6 p.m. I would say that it was uneventful--if my bra hadn't disappeared. We thoroughly searched our motel room; under the beds, in the closet, in the dresser and night-stand, in the windowsill, in the shower, behind the toilet . . . Then we went out and searched the car, and under the car, and our path to and from the car. It was just totally gone! Weird. I made the rest of the week-long trip as a liberated woman--which I did not enjoy. I wanted to stop at a mall, or even a K-mart somewhere (we had plenty of opportunities) but those men I was driving with didn't want to take the extra time. Hmph!

We drove across Wyoming, through Nebraska, Iowa, part of Indiana, Illinois, some of Missouri, Kentucky and right smack into the middle of Tennessee. The landscape changed dramatically; instead of being surrounded by mountains we could see the horizon all around us. Suddenly it got humid, and the trees got bigger; we crossed the Mississippi River; and we saw for ourselves that Tennessee might really be the "greenest state in the land of the free." We drove from Monday, August 7th through Friday, August 11th; and with each day and each state that we passed through, our springs wound tighter and tighter. What were we heading into?

Jason, Bruce and Michael pose in a Superman cut-out
at a gas station in Metropolis, IL

Peter wanted to hurry and get us there and settled--although settled into what, I didn't know. So as time went by he pushed us to drive later and later into the night. On Thursday night we passed through the last town around 9:30 pm. I wanted to stop and get the kids--and myself-- to bed, but Peter kept going. Finally, around 11 pm, we were able to let him know that we wanted to stop (this was before cell-phones, too) and he pulled into this little hole-in-the-wall motel in the middle of nowhere. It was a tiny, old place; I was surprised to see a radiator-type heater next to the bed, and horrified to see cockroaches on the walls. But it was stay there, or drive for several more hours to find another place. What in the heck were we doing?!

We got to Murfreesboro, TN late Friday afternoon, arriving on the hottest --record hot-- day of the year. We drove through town to find the university; on the way to MTSU we saw the LDS church.
At last! Something that resembled home. We drove around campus a bit, but were too late to talk to anyone so we went to find a place to stay the night. By the time we got checked into a Motel 6, I was a basket-case. So I sat in the motel room with Peter and the kids, and tried to hold in my agitation, while Bruce went out to the truck to get some of our things. At that point it looked like we might be staying at the Motel 6 indefinitely.

Well Bruce was taking such a loooooong time just to bring some clothes in that I finally went out to see what he was doing. And there he was, standing by the truck and holding our giant pickle jar with Omar floating in it, dead. We had taken him into our motel rooms every night of the trip, but forgot him in the truck on that hot, hot day. We had cooked him to death. Added to the strain of the past week, and the enormity of this move--it was just too much to bear. Bruce and I looked at that fish and bawled our eyes out.

Back in our room, I wanted to call my parents or Melanie for some comfort but they were gone, still vacationing. So I called the Relief Society president, Dorothy Broeringmeyer. She was very nice, and told me to take it easy that night, and invited us to dinner the next day. We went for a dip in the motel's pool, had some dinner and went to bed. The next morning I discovered that there were fleas in my bed; I hardly cared any more.

But Dorothy had arranged for some men in the ward to come Saturday morning and help us unload our stuff from the truck into a storage unit. She was very kind and encouraging at dinner that night, and she invited us to sing with the ward choir the next day. For just one minute I began to feel a tiny, little, wee bit better.

. . . more to come

So They Loaded Up the Truck . . .

In August of 1995 Bruce and I did one of the craziest, scariest, bravest things of our married life.

Bruce had just graduated with his Associates degree in communications and video-production in June of 1994. He got a part-time job with KSL TV, in master-control. We moved from his grandma's house to live in my parents' house while they finished out their mission in Portugal. Jason was born in January of 1995. My parents came home in May of that year. We were doing OK, but the job didn't look like it was going anywhere and we were living with my parents. Not that there's anything wrong with my parents--they are great! But you just don't want to live with your parents when you are married and have kids; it's time to be on your own.

Bruce, particularly, was feeling stuck and he'd been thinking of going back to school and getting his Bachelor's degree in audio-engineering. And he wanted to go to one of the best schools in the nation for this--one that had all the latest equipment, etc; he wanted to go to Middle Tennessee State University. On July 24, 1995--Pioneer Day here in Utah-land--I was in my mom's kitchen washing dishes when Bruce came up behind me, gave me a little nibble on the neck and said he needed to talk to me. He wanted to go off to school now. So we talked about it a little, prayed about it, and decided to go for it.

Bruce immediately called MTSU admissions and got the paperwork rolling (July 24 isn't a holiday in Tennessee). When he went in to work he gave his two-weeks' notice. Throughout the next week we called student housing and got our names on the list there, but it looked like we wouldn't be able to get in for fall semester; so we started looking up apartments in Murfreesboro, TN (this was before the internet), and got our names on some apartment waiting-lists too. We found the names of the bishop and Relief Society president of the Murfreesboro Ward and called them to let them know we were coming. And we started packing up our things; we'd be leaving in two weeks, on August 7.

Grandma Johnson took my boys and their cousins on a "farewell trip" to Hogle Zoo a few days before we left Utah.

I spent those two weeks organizing all our things, and weeping, wailing, and gnashing my teeth. I was terrified! But we were going to go through with it.

August 6 was a sleepless night. Jason, who was eight months old, must have felt that something was up because he kept me awake all night. In the morning we said goodbye to our family and got ready to go. Mom was pretty worried about us going across the country by ourselves. She and my dad were going on a vacation trip with Melanie's family the same week that we would be driving away. Actually, we had intended to leave the previous Saturday--the 5th--but Mom said she'd feel better if we all left on the same day. Well, what's a couple of days? She also asked Peter, my oldest brother, to drive out with us. The last thing we did on the 7th was dump our goldfish, Omar, into a giant pickle jar and take him out to the car.

This picture was taken just before we left. I had spent most of the night in tears with a fussy baby. We all felt about as good as we look here.

We prayed together, gave hugs and kisses, and we were off. We had no job lined up, no place to live when we got there, no friends or family in Tennessee, and didn't even know yet if Bruce had been accepted to MTSU. But we jumped into a moving-truck and drove away. Now I was really terrified!

to be continued . . .

p.s.

And for the last joke of the day, I short-sheeted my bed; yes, my own bed. Bruce went to bed last night thinking that I was a very silly girl. :-)

19 Years

Last Monday, March 2, was our 19th wedding anniversary. My marriage to my charming, thoughtful, fun-loving, charismatic, funny, handsome Bruce is the absolute biggest source of happiness in my life. There is nothing I like better than to be with him.

So, I thought I'd try to list the major events of our married years:

1st year, 1990: Well, we were newlyweds; how much better can it get?

2nd year, 1991: We were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. Soon we were expecting our first baby.
3rd year, 1992: We had our first baby, Michael!
4th year, 1993: My parents left on their mission to Portugal. We moved in with Bruce's Grandma White just weeks before Grandpa White died.
5th year, 1994: Bruce graduated from SLCC with an Associate's Degree in communications and video production. We moved into my mom's house. I am expecting a second baby.
6th year, 1995: Jason is born! Mom and Dad return from Portugal. Bruce and I make a decision and a HUGE leap of faith and move to Tennessee so Bruce can get a Bachelor's Degree in audio engineering. Bruce's Grandpa Ward died.

7th year, 1996: Bruce is in school at MTSU. He delivers pizzas for Papa John's at night to support the family. Lindsey is born! We buy a trailer-home (it is the same price as renting an apartment, but with the benefits of being our own place and having a yard for the kids to play in).
8th year, 1997: More schooling. I am pregnant with baby number four.
9th year, 1998: Brandon is born! Bruce takes me on the Date of the Century. He graduates in December! We sell our trailer, pack up and move back home to Utah! Bruce's Grandma Ward died. I think maybe I might be pregnant again. (This was a big year!)

My Dad's a Grad!

10th year, 1999: Bruce gets a job as a sound engineer for Acclaim Entertainment, a video-game company. Ryan is born!

11th year, 2000: The world as we all know it does not come to an end. We buy our own, real, non-movable house! Bruce gets laid-off from Acclaim two days after we make our first house payment. He starts working nights for Fairchild Semiconductor while he looks for something better.
12th year, 2001: We decide to home-school our kids. Kaylie is born! Bruce gets laid-off from Fairchild Semiconductor. He starts working for ARUP Laboratories.
13th year, 2002: Rachel is born—what a surprise she was!
14th year, 2003: Jessica is born! (We really need to slow this down.)
15th year, 2004: Bruce starts in Primerica. We decide to send the kids back to public schools.
16th year, 2005: Bruce decides to work on his Primerica business full-time; it's harder than we thought. Bruce's Grandma White died this year.
17th year, 2006: Life just goes on. Good and bad. I'm glad we are together. Bruce starts working as a substitute-teacher; he loves working with the little kids. We get our kids enrolled in charter schools—we like this MUCH better than regular public school. 18th year, 2007: Bruce gets a long-term sub job that ends up lasting the entire year.
19th year, 2008: Bruce teaches 1st grade on an alternate license this year. He loves the kids, and the kids and their parents love him. But we discover that he earned more as a long-term sub than he does as a full-time teacher. (Go figure!) We win, and lose, a trip to the Bahamas.

I guess we've had some ups and downs; all kinds of happinesses and all kinds of stresses. (Who doesn't?) But it is good, and we have continued to grow closer and closer. I love Bruce with all my heart, and he dotes on me so much it is almost silly. Our marriage is our safe, joyful place; the place we turn for peace, renewal, happiness, and sometimes just out-and-out silliness. We hear so many people say that a marriage is hard work. We have never felt that way. If it is work, it is delightful work. What can be better than having your very best friend to tell everything to every night, and to wake up with every morning; to work and play with every day? I am so glad that we will be together forever!

What will the 20th year, 2009, bring?