A bit of background on my family.  But first, on this page, you'll find links to my family and links to our vacations so you can 'see us in action'.

I met my husband in college.  He was twenty and I was nineteen.  Our first date was Feb 17th and we were engaged by March 4th.  We married July 6th--twenty years ago this year (2002).

Eleven months later we had our daughter--six weeks early.  You'll see her web page under Christina.htm.   I had a hard time with this pregnancy almost from the beginning.  I was on bed rest most of my pregnancy, having to quit my job.  My husband was working a job and going to college!  I ended up, blood pressure so high, we had to do a c-section, hence, her early arrival at 5pounds 0 ounces.

I left college to be a full time mom.  It was my firm belief that, in order to give the children what I wanted, and my husband wanted, I would be home with them full time.

Three years and fifteen days early, I had Jeremiah  Jeremiah.htm.  This pregnancy was such a breeze.  I never felt so good.  I was digging rose gardens and mowing our lawn one week before he was due.  Then they induced on me--for five days to get the child to come into the world.  My problems started then.  Just a week before he had been breech and they admitted me to try to turn him.  I called all of my friends to pray, and that night, at 39 weeks, the child turned in my stomach.  I watched it!  Boy was that nasty doctor surprised the next morning (he kept telling me I would HAVE to have a c-section because my first one was.  I kept tell him no, God promised me this one natural.  Thank goodness Dr. Smith--head of OB/GYN at Darnell intervened!)  When he was born, I hemorrhaged quite a bit.  He weighed 7pounds 10 ounces and was lo-o-o-ng.  I thought he'd be a baseball player was my first impression.  

Between those children my husband became a 2nd Lieutenant and then graduated college--in that order!  I got to pin the bars on him along with his dad.

We went immediately into the Army (As you can tell from above--our second child, Jeremiah, was born in an Army hospital in Texas).

Steve did great, coming in first place in Officer Basic.  He got a pretty statue.  I was so proud of him!  This was at Ft. Knox.  

Then we moved to Texas!

Graham/Rudmann was insisting on cutting back the military three years later--and guess what.  A certain Col. which will remain nameless but many in the Army would know his name! (GGG) gave my husband an 'average' review.  He wanted people 'gun ho' in his unit.  Steve wasn't that type.  He got the job done without a lot of fanfare.  We watched this Colonel ruin many officers, never suspecting that he had Steve on the list as well.

So, with the G/R bill wanting to get rid of people, Steve was ROTC and had gotten only an 'average officer' rating from this Colonel.  They wrote him telling him it was back into the reserves.

We were stunned.  Colonel Murray was now the Btn Commander and was stunned as well when orders came down.  He loved Steve (had worked with him awhile after the other Colonel left) and fought to keep Steve on Active Duty.

But to no avail.
 

Of course, you and I know God was in control.  Steve looks back now and says he never realized how unhappy he was in the military until he got out.  

Our marriage was rocky toward the end of his military stint.  And they had jerky officers, one whose name again I won't mention, that would insist, as he outranked Steve, that Steve would stay there until he went home because his wife was out of town and he didn't want to go home.  Then he would insist that Steve go to bars--regardless of the fact Steve insisted he didn't drink and didn't go into bars.  This guy was a really nasty individual!  Steve and I both were about to throttle one Captain!

Steve ended up back in the reserves.  Two weeks before he got out, however, we prayed and felt we belonged in Baton Rouge.

We'd never been there.  We  packed up and moved, me going ahead of him with our daughter to find a place to live while he came with the U-Haul.

It was wonderful.  We got involved in inner city ministries and he had temporary jobs until Dr. Knight heard of a hiring and asked Steve to fill out an application to work where he was temping--Exxon!

Later we found out that people had been trying for years and years to get on at Exxon but just never succeeded.

Again, God was watching out over us.

And we'd been married nearly ten years now!

I must say, it's been an up and down marriage.  I've been through three or four surgeries, at one point, unable to walk because the pain was so intense, but my husband was always there, supporting me.

Yes, we've fought and there have been times we didn't' even want to look at each other (on my part at least!). 

But you know what...when you agree at the beginning that divorce is not an option, things work themselves out!

And now it's twenty  six years, we have a nearly twenty-five year old daughter and a twenty-two year old son....

We have moved back to where we started--Oklahoma--and my husband teaches SCORE students and I am a children's pastor.

He is the best man in the world.

You can see more about them on their web pages.
 

But that's our life, in a nutshell!