A HAPPINESS HIGH...

  Monday, the 8th day of July, 2013

marks 61 years of marital bliss!

 

Where There is Love, Nothing is Missing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I totally agree!
  This wonderful man who married me sixty-one years ago
has made every day of my life more special...better yet,
our awesome love continues growing richer as it ages!

Read on for a thumb-nail sketch of our lives together...
beginning in the 1950's...

 

Handsome (aka Michael) first glimpsed a brunette named what???...okay, named Vasca...in 1949.  

 

Having spent two years in what was then ACC he decided he'd had enough of that and moved to greener (???) pastures which were really disguised sand hills and Odessa! 

 

He visited a Church of Christ and as young men usually do...he looked for girls and just happened to sit behind a girl he dubbed "the girl who would never set foot inside his car"...oh brother!  THAT girl (me) wound up owning half of everything that handsome brute would ever have!  He mistook my shyness for being stuck-up...(I know you're surprised to think I was once shy, but it's the truth...the honest truth). 

 

Actually he wanted to date my sister who is four years younger than me and very gorgeous...but  mother said she was too young and he should ask her older sister...Mother, please!  What was she thinking, like I was Leah to my sister's Rachel???  I was mortified but he asked me and what's a girl to do...I accepted!

 

The Korean Conflict took priority in our lives until June of 1952..

M returned from Korea to a beaming 21 year old girl at Ft. Sill.

 

Little did he know she had made all the arrangements

for their wedding even though he'd not formally proposed.  She never considered that he might want to remain a bachelor just awhile longer...think she was jumping the gun? 

Actually we think it was a God-work; He was in control and working His plan.  

 

My ambition in life was to be a wife and mother...that's it.  I was eager to have children immediately but that didn't mean I intended to have four in less than five years...which is exactly what occurred.  I was overflowing w/happiness and the boys were a joy, four times over.  Here are our fantastic young sons...when their dad (who went career army after our 9th wedding anniversary) was in Viet Nam...(we left a wonderful tour in Greece)...the boys and I lived in Odessa; Michael was at war in Viet Nam...long year.

 

 

Army life took us to Virginia, Greece, Ethiopia, Oklahoma, Holland, Germany, Texas and Kansas...wonderful experiences in every place...wonderful family times!  Aah...those were the days!

 

We felt so blest when the military moved us to Norman, Oklahoma where M was allowed to earn his Master's Degree and then teach in the ROTC.  The boys and I lived in Norman w/and without Michael  (1971-1991).  That was a wonderful gift from God that enabled us to educate 'the boys' at University of Oklahoma; see them married. 

M retired from the military; we remained in Norman...he served as Director of a school/hospital for children w/Cerebral Palsy and Spina bifida w/the State of Oklahoma, retiring a second time in 1991.

Our 'itchy feet' moved us to Wisconsin as warm bodies for a small mission effort w/the intention of living there five years that would become seven.  Surrounded by warm neighbors of German descent,
we had such a marvelous experience and made many good friends...we still visit with them.

 

 Flying right along, in 1998 Patrick & Katherine (#3 son & wife) bought a ranch near Poolville (TX) and asked us to live there in their guest house...sold our home in Wisconsin and moved again!

 

A big surprise came in 2002, when out of the blue...we were called to China to teach conversational English (among other things) to Chinese University students!  I had no college under my belt...no degree...definitely not a teacher so what?  No way did I plan to teach...ha, little did I know.  We went for a year that became two and a half years...the experience of  our lifetime...a God-work...oh yes!

 

   China...2003

   

We've settled in Weatherford...

probably remain here but who knows? 

Only God. 

We live here in our unique 'little fort'.

Somehow our family multiplied from

Michael & Vasca to:

Steven, Jeffrey,

Patrick & Scott

to:

Shannon, Mary Linda,

Katherine & Kim

to:

Ryan, Alan/Leslie Ann & Daren

Grant, Benjamin & Jackson

Brooke & Blake

Brandon/Donnae & Courtney

Probably more to come!

 

 

To you Michael, my fantastically wonderful love,

you've taken me around the world and back!

I wouldn't trade you for all the tea in China...

you, my love...are my everything.

Thank You for these sixty-one years;

here's to the rest of our lives!

 

Someone wrote..."The highest happiness on earth is marriage"...way high on my list.

 

From my heart...to yours,

Vasca