The Beginning......

I started going with my first boyfriend in the 9th grade! All my friends were asking boys to the Sadie Hawkins dance and they kind of talked me into asking him. We had fun but I was terribly shy. He says he knew there was something special about me since he first met me in the 7th grade. We went together thru high school with a couple of break ups but always ended up back together. We were in love! In the 11th grade, he signed up for the Marine Corps on the delayed entry program. I was devastated that he would leave after graduation. We graduated in June and he left for boot camp on July 25. I wrote to him everyday. I had a job at a bank so I kept busy with work. He came home from boot camp and we got engaged. We went together to get the ring. It was a quarter carat solitaire diamond that cost $500.00. He went back to California for Infantry training school with the plan of coming home for a Christmas wedding. Well, right after Infantry training school, he did not get much time off. He flew home for a couple days over Christmas and then was sent to Yokosuka Japan for barracks duty. What a shock that was to us. Somehow we thought we would be in California living on a base. Now we had no idea when he would be home again. His grandfather passed away in March and he got to come home. He came home on a Friday and on Saturday we told our parents that we would be getting married the following Saturday. We called a church and rented a hall on Monday. Our parents called people on the phone to invite them to the wedding which did happen on Saturday, March 24, 1984. We were 18 years old! We had great food, a cake, and set up a stereo for dancing. It was a blast! Everyone could feel the love! We went up north to Alpena for our honeymoon at the Holiday Inn. Randy left to go back to Japan about a week later. I did not join him there until August!