Love

Sweet image found here.

My father-in-law is getting married.

That's probably not terribly exciting news to the rest of the world, but to our family, that's incredibly significant.

You see, my father-in-law has a very prominent tattoo on one of his biceps that says "Never Again". The tattoo has been a reminder to him that marriage wasn't a good thing, and it's not something he wanted to repeat. My mother-in-law has a lot of issues, and she made his life very difficult many years ago.

So you can imagine our surprise when he announced that he was getting married now - decades after ending his first marriage! He's truly, utterly and completely in love! To listen to him talk about his fiancee, you would think he was a twitterpated 16 year old kid!

The wedding plans have been progressing and we received the announcement in the mail last week. I went online to find out on Google Maps where the church and open house are going to be. They're in my hometown, but not in an area I know very well. I was surprised to find that the open house is being held just blocks away from where Surfer Pirate was living when we were first dating. That has brought up a lot of sweet memories from those early days when WE were the twitterpated couple who used to make everyone gag with how in love we were.

I was snuggling with Surfer Pirate this morning telling him my thoughts on the subject and thinking about years from now, being the old couple (like the one in the picture up there) holding hands and still being so much in love.

Those sweet thoughts of love have been floating around in my head all day, and it reminded me of another memory from when we were a brand new couple.

Twice a year, my church holds a General Conference. It's a series of church meetings held over a Saturday and Sunday that's broadcast on tv (and the internet now) for our members all over the world to be able to watch. I've always looked forward to it because of the great spiritual lift it gives me, as well as the fact that twice a year I get to "attend" church in my pajamas! In April 2008, when Surfer Pirate and I were dating, we had just undergone a change in our church presidency because our prophet Gordon B. Hinckley had died. Our new president Thomas S. Monson gave the sweetest talk at that conference, and it was a great opportunity to show Surfer Pirate who the new leader of my church was in a memorable and entertaining way.

* To give you an idea of what a fun talk it was, he told the story of how during a time when his wife had to be in the hospital, she left a note for their children that said "Dear Children, Do not let Daddy touch the microwave, or the stove, or the dishwasher, or the dryer..."

Anytime since then, if I've needed to clarify to Surfer Pirate something about President Monson, I just remind him of that talk. He will usually smile because he knows exactly what I'm talking about. And even though he has no interest in my church, he's always been very supportive of my church attendance and activities. I know that watching President Monson's talk has helped shape his opinion of what a good thing it is for me.

Anyway, with all the memories of that sweet time at the beginning of our romance floating around in my head today, I decided to look for that talk on Youtube. I highly recommend that people watch it. I know a lot of my readers aren't members of my church and may not care at all about what those beliefs are, but I recommend watching it because of the way he talks about his wife. You don't have to share my beliefs in order to see how very important she is to him. Just months after this talk, they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, and it's such a sweet story of how deeply they still love each other after all that time.

You can see the video here.
(Anyone want to teach me how to post a video from Youtube on here so I don't have to link everything? I can't figure it out.)

If Surfer Pirate and I are blessed to both still be alive in 57 years, I want us to be like that.


...of course, we'll also be the ones sitting on our front porch in our matching rocking chairs holding hands with a rifle next to each of us so we can threaten kids to stay off our lawn.