Our Happy 43rd Anniversary

Can you recognize this bride????

It's me..... John and I were married 43 years ago on July 9th in the Los Angelas Temple

I was 20 and he was 23 year old return missionary. We met at BYU in a religion class in September, 1964. We were engaged in March and married in July of 1965.


We haven't changed a bit have we!


We decided to celebrate by going on a cruise. Three years ago we celebrated our 40th by cruising to Cancun and Belize. I could hardly wait to see what trip was in store for us this year.


When we got to San Diego I was excited to see the Monarch of the Seas waiting in the harbor. I love sailing with Royal Caribbean and I knew this ship was headed to Hawaii. I love the islands and I was so excited!

But...Oh NO!!! We got on the wrong ship.

Before we could get to the Monarch it started backing up.

It sailed off into the sunset.

John said not to worry. He said we would go back to Old Town and book another cruise.

We both love visiting Old Town San Diego. We wanted to visit the Mormon Battalion Memorial commemorating the longest march of US infantry in history, over 2000 miles, but it was closed for remodeling. We hurried on to book our cruise.

We stopped in the local saloon to ask directions and snap this self picture in the mirror.

John found the purser and found that we could book a cruise on the next ship to San Francisco for $30 dollars. We jumped at the offer..... but the problem came when we tried to pay for it. He wouldn't accept our new fangled paper money (especially since it was dated after 1865) and had never heard of "plastic cash". He would only take gold coins or nuggets.

We didn't have any gold.

Not a single nugget except the one on my locket John gave me when we went to Alaska. I didn't want to give that to the Purser.

I went off to shop for dry goods (fabric to make me a new dress for our cruise) in the general store as you see in the above picture.

John stayed to barter with the Purser.

He made a deal on a cruise and arranged the transfer to the dock for us.

John said that we would make it back to the ocean just in time for the last sailing. I could hardly wait.

This was not exactly the cruise ship I had in mind but John said it was the only one left available. Besides it was only $32 each and it was going to an island. I love islands.

So we happily climbed on board.

It turned out that it took us to Shelter Island. Not exactly what I had in mind...

..... We were going to get off and stay awhile but the king of the island told us it was too crowded there and we would have to move on.

Since we were not welcome on Shelter Island we decided to spend the rest of the day visiting the ships in the Maritime Museum.

We started out going in a Russian Sub.

We looked through the periscope but we couldn't find the Monarch of the Seas to go aboard.

John made a little pit stop in one of the bathrooms on board.

They had 3 bathrooms this size for 78 sailors.... and where is the shower???? Don't you know it smelled great on this crowded tub!!!

Getting around in the sub was not easy. We had to go through 4 port holes this size.

It was easier for John than for me but I made it.








We spent hours going through all the ships. One of them is going to be featured on the Discovery channel on July 14th at 8:00 on the Dirty Jobs show if you want to watch.

After a long day looking at all of the ships in the museum we were tired and ready to get back to our hotel. John had checked us in to the Sheraton Suites.

The rooms were nice and comfortable........

......but we found out that they charge $22 a night to park.....$25 a day to use the internet and they do not serve breakfast.

I couldn't blog.... (I wasn't willing to pay )
I couldn't check my messages...
We couldn't wake up to a yummy breakfast without paying a big price...

What's the deal???? We assumed they would have a good breakfast included....

All the other "suites" we've stayed in had good breakfasts.....Ayers Suites did.....Embassy Suites did......even the Travel Lodge did..... So what happened here??? We were too cheap to pay the high price for the hotel's breakfast. We were having nice lunches and dinners out and we didn't want to pay a lot for breakfast. So we set out on our own.

That was our mistake..... BIG MISTAKE..

We were hungry in down town San Diego. We couldn't find a House of Pancakes....Denny's.... or similar restaurant.......

...but we did find a Mc Donalds. We were in hurry to eat and be on our way to have fun so we stopped there...I waited in a long line to order our sausage McMuffins from a employee that barely spoke English. When I finally got our order back to the table and opened it up we had Big Macs instead of Mac Muffins.

We did not order Big Macs.....

We did not want Big Macs for breakfast.... or any time for that matter.

I took the order back.

I tried to explain the problem but the employee didn't understand English.... he didn't understand me...

Another employee came..... I could see I was getting nowhere.

John speaks Spanish..... John could help me out.....but Alas..... it was after 10:30 by then.....they were not serving breakfast anymore.

We ate our Big Macs and left.




Before we knew it our 3 days and 2 nights in San Diego were over and it was time to leave.

We had such a fun time together..... but we were ready to come home.

Well here we are 43 years later. We are not as young or good looking as we were. We are not as healthy or energetic...... but we wouldn't go back for anything. This marriage road hasn't always been easy but it has been worth it. We love each other in spite of our faults and short comings. We smooth out the rough spots because we know that having a loving relationship is more important than getting our own way..... or being "right" about something. We married in a temple of our God for time and all eternity. We are an eternal family. What a blessing and comfort this is to me. It would not be heaven for me with out my John and our children. I am eternally grateful and thankful that we have each other.

I must finish this post and get ready for Holly and her family to visit us tomorrow. We are so excited they are coming from Texas. Mindy and Ernie are on a little trip and we have their 3 children for 3 days. I need to get to bed so we can get up early, tidy up all the toys, sweep out the fire pit and patios and get ready to greet our sweet blog friends. Good night bloggers.... Have a great day tomorrow.