Happy Anniversary!

Tomorrow, June 28th, is my parents' 30th anniversary. I looked up the "traditional" anniversary gift for a 30th. . .I have been mildly intrigued by the traditional gifts since I read the list in a calender when I was in elementary school. I thought the gifts were so strange, especially a gift of paper for a 1st anniversary and wood, wool, or various metals for later anniversaries. I looked up the gift for a 30th, and the website I found lists the "traditional" gift as pearls and the "modern" gift as diamonds. Well, sorry parents, you will have to settle for a chronological blog of scanned photos instead. . .

First, I must share this wedding photo. . .I'm glad that photography trends have changed since the 1970s and 80s. . .I have seen many other wedding photos like this in other relatives' wedding albums so I know there are many out there. It is pretty cheesy!

OK, I will go back to the late 1970's when these two became aquainted while attending NDSU. They were both members of Greek houses and met for the first time when Tim was a freshman and Cindy was a sophomore. My mom thought he and his buddies were kind of obnoxious. One day she was walking to her dorm after class and Tim pulled up next to her in a car and offered her a ride. She answere that her dorm was "right there", in their sight. At a later date she got a phone call from "Tim", or so she thought. . .she mentioned that he sounded different and the guy on the phone said "I have a cold". Tim was anxious about calling so the person on the phone on his behalf was actually one of his fraternity brothers. I can imagine my dad giggling in the background. That's very mature, guys. . .

They started dating after that. They both were majoring in engineering so they studied together, or so they said. . .

Yes, it appears they were very serious students. . .

I believe this photo was taken at Gale and Barb's (my uncle and aunt) wedding.

Awww, so nice. I don't know what was happening here, but they are wearing flowers so it must have been some occasion. I love the clothes. Mother, where are all of these lovely, now vintage clothes anyway?

Anyway, the college years continued and soon they were engaged!

This photo was taken at the rehearsal dinner.

Here are some wedding photos. . .

This is a photo of the groom with the ushers. The one with glasses is my uncle Tim, my mom's brother. The one on the right is Dad's cousin David and the other two are friends.

The typical manly groomsman pose. . .The groomsmen are my mom's brother Steve, Todd, a high school classmate, my uncle Gale, and David, a cousin. I love how David is wearing different shoes!

I don't really know why the bridesmaids were told to look down in that demure fashion. . .it is kind of dated, but then it was 30 years ago! The bridesmaids' dresses were sewn by my mom. I can't imagine such an undertaking! The two on the left are my mom's sisters, the one on the far left is my dad's sister Karen and the other is a friend.

The whole crew, minus ushers.

All done, time to party!

A few details about the party. . .

I scanned this page from my mom's wedding scrapbook. There was an announcement about the wedding in the local newspaper and they had a live band there! The handwriting says that there was a reception at the church, and an open house at my grandparents' house before the dance. I love those personalized cocktail napkins! I haven't seen those at a wedding for quite awhile!

After the wedding they moved to Iowa where Cindy put her degree to work at John Deere and Tim finished his degree at Iowa State. I don't really know the order the next photos should be. . .I am guessing based on the size of my dad's hair. . .the smaller it gets the later the year. . .

I think this picture might have been taken the weekend of my Aunt Kris's wedding

They had a few dogs in their early years. There was a black lab-ish dog that they found as a puppy and adopted that they called Dennis. The dog pictured above was named Bunting. He was a border collie who they adopted after his mother, a neigbor's dog, gave birth under a shrub in their yard. I think my mom might be pregnant in this photo but I'm not sure.

Awwww. . .their first child! It's me! I was born in April of 1983, followed by Andrea in January of 1985 and Peder in January of 1987. After we children entered the scene pictures of the two of them together became rare but I have a few. . .there are others but not that I have on my computer at the moment. I realized that I don't even have a professional photo of our family of 5 from my youth! We didn't have many taken to begin with and I don't have any of them scanned. The reason is that I think they are generally pretty bad and I don't like the way my hair looks in any of them.

This was taken on our family ski trip a few years ago at the top of the "Peak" at Big Sky before we started our annual descent.

Here they are at my wedding in 2007! (P.S. our anniversary is June 30, two days later! The traditional gift for the 3rd anniversary is leather and the modern gift is crystal! Hint hint! Haha just joking, the last thing we need is crystal!)

Here they are at the illustrious occasion of my being sworn in a licensed attorney after multiple bar exam attempts. Yay.

They have had a marriage filled with adventures. They never hesitated to live their own lives and moved far from "home" in thier early years and eventually to the Middle East while my dad was working as a petroleum engineer. They still like to travel and I wish I had some photos scanned from the many trips to Mexico with their friends over the years. There are still indications of those toga wearing engineering students! I'm sure they will have many more anniversaries filled with grandchildren and such, but for now all they have is a crazy, thrashing dog named Jake and cat named Allan who puts his toys on their bed whenever they visit our house. They are so lucky!

Happy "Pearl" Anniversary!