How I met my husband.

   It was a hot day in July, and I was on my way to the beach to get a tan. The year was 1983 and I had just turned 26 years old on the 3rd of July.  I was having a conversation with God as I was driving down the road, and I had told Him that I was ready and I prayed that He would bring me my husband.
   At that time we went to the lake almost every weekend and attended a church there in the summer.  They had a paper that come once a week and everybody always received one.  It was usually slung toward the house somewhere next to the door.  This paper always had personal ads in it and I used to read them just for fun.
   I was so shy, and all of my friends had gotten married or just moved away to go to college. I attended the Beauty College in our hometown.   I would never go to a bar just to meet a guy so I decided to answer one of those ads just to see what would happen. I answered an ad that said that he was a Christian. I figured he might just be normal, because some of those people that put ads in that paper are Not!  I had forgot about it and one day a letter come in the mail for me.  It was a picture of a guy and six year old twin boys.  They were so cute. I thought that someone in our family had adopted them or something.  If I had just read the letter I would have found out it was a letter back from the ad I had answered.  The guy wanted to meet me.  I later found out that he had put that ad in that paper an hour away so that nobody would find out in our hometown.  I would later find out that he lived about ten houses down from my grandma in town.
   I was excited about meeting his twins, but his picture looked like he was a little stressed out and a little scary.  He explained that the picture had been taken after the twins birthday party.  I do not remember how many kids were there, but that made me feel better, because I would have looked like that too after a birthday party with that many kids. Any other time I would never had agreed to meet a person anywhere like my house, but I figured that a guy that was raising his sons alone probably would not be a serial killer, besides my parents were going to be home so I took a chance that he wouldn't stalk me later. 
  On Sept. 22nd ( he says the 21st) we agreed that they would come out to the house, and I couldn't wait to meet them.  They pulled in and out come three very good looking guys.  Jeff was about 6'2 with blonde curly hair, the boys had white hair and all three were dressed in jeans with sky blue sweaters on.  I was really impressed. The oldest twin by one minute comes in just looking around and I went to get them something to play with.    We just talked and  later on in the evening the oldest twin said that they would really like it if their dad got married again, like maybe to me, we all just laughed.  They got ready to go and I invited them to come up to the lake. 
   They come up to the lake and we had fun. The twins fished, and we had supper together. When it was time for them to leave he had told me that he would call me, and I said okay. 
   I had not heard from him and it was Wednesday afternoon. I did not want him to think that I was just sitting around waiting on him to call.  I had thought that he had just told me that and didn't intend to call at all.  I was so mad I called him up and told him off.  I told him if he thought that he knew me he didn't and I did not like it if someone told me they were going to do something and they didn't.  He explained that he did not have anyone to watch the kids for him. I told him that if he would have just said that my mom would be glad to watch them if that was the problem, but only if he trusted her.  He said that he did, so we went out on our first date alone that Saturday night.
   After that we dated with the twins.  I would make dessert and he would make supper one or two nights a week.  I was in love with him by the end of November, but he was a little slow. At Christmas time I met his grandma and she told me that the next time she saw me she wanted me to be dressed in white.  April came and I asked him if he ever wanted to get married. I was 26 and didn't want to waste time where nothing was going to happen no matter how hard it would be to walk out of their lives.  He told me that he didn't have to get  married that he liked his life just like it was.  I thought I bet you do me coming in here and bringing dessert and being around all of the time. I told him that I wanted to have at least one baby and he told me that babies were clutter.  I decided that in May I would begin to spend less time with them and fade out for the twins sake, if there was no chance that this was going anywhere. 
   One night at the end of April it was raining and Jeff called to say we couldn't get together that night like planned. I thought that was a little odd and asked why not?  He said because it was raining and he was afraid it was going to flood like a few years before.  I asked him if I could come anyway and he said that I could come.  When I got to their house he seemed way to tense.  I asked him why he was pacing and he told me about the flood and how all of the railroad ties that lined his property had floated away during the flood and the boys and him had to go and bring back the ties.  I didn't think that was such a big deal how many could there be.  He said do you know how many of those there are?  I said what maybe twelve I had not counted or payed any attention.  He informed me that there were sixty two.  I did feel a little sorry for him after that .  I asked him why he just didn't move.  I told him it was not like he had to live there for the rest of his life.  It was apparent that if he did he would go crazy, because everytime it rained he paced from one end of the double wide to the other.
   He lived in a flood plain and did not think anyone would buy the house.  I told him that in the meantime to anchor those ties down so that if it rained and flooded they would not move and float away.  He did that right away.  He asked me if I wanted to go look at houses with him and I told him that didn't have anything to do with me, because he was the one that would have to live there. 
   I was starting to plan the fade out and one day on my day off I hear the loud truck coming and wondered what Jeff is doing there in the middle of the day.  Out of the truck comes Jeff and one of the twins.  He looked so bad that I thought  the other twin had been killed.  What is wrong I asked?  He explained that one of the twins had chickenpox.  I said, "OH is that all that is wrong."  He said, "But I do not have anyone to watch him, because he cannot go to the sitter."  I told him that when I wasn't working I would watch him and when I had to work mom would watch him.  He looked so relieved.  Mom and I took turns watching them and we had so much fun!  The twins were supposed to go to the zoo and Josh was hoping he would get well so that he could go to the zoo.  He finally got well and made it to the zoo and while they were at the zoo the other twin broke out with the chickenpox too.   While I was taking care of Jeremy he told me that he wanted a mommy that lived with them.  I knew it was not going to be easy leaving them, but I had to do it just right for their sakes.  While they were sick I was fixing supper and was there every night when Jeff would get home and all the while trying to plan how I was going to pull this off so that the twins would not get so hurt.
   After Jeremy got well it was time for him to go back to school and I told Jeff that there was no reason for me to come in all of the time, because the twins were well now.  Monday night came and my mom and I were out for a walk.  We were about a mile and a half away from home and I hear the loud truck.  I told my mom he does love me, because we were not supposed to get together tonight.   The neighbor stopped and we were talking to him and telling him and he asked if I wanted him to take us home.  I said yes and he drove us home, I thanked him and went to talk to Jeff.  The boys went into the house and we walked down the road.  He said after a while that he thought that we should get married.  He never really asked me.  The next night I went to his house and I told him that he never had asked me to marry him.  He said, "Are you going to make me ask you?"  I said yes and he said, "Will you marry me?"  I said yes right away.  We planned our wedding in six weeks so that we could take our honeymoon during his planned vacation.  The boys stayed with mom and dad for half of the week and then we  come back for them for the rest of the week.
   After two years we had our son.  There are ten years between the twins and our son.  They were so excited to have a baby brother.  After I gave birth to our son, my husband comes in the room and asks if we are going to have another baby.  I told him we needed to get through this one first.  Twenty three months later we had our daughter.
   We have had our ups and downs like every other married couple.  I always knew he was a good guy, but since I have been sick I now know how lucky I am to have a man like him for a husband.  The boys are 32 now and it seems like the time has gone so fast. We have had so much fun with them, and our other kids.  Happy Valentines Day Dear, I love you very much!!!  I know God gave him especially to me.