My Family:
Mike

I will probably be blogging about my family a lot.  Of course they are very important to me so here we go.  I met my husband Mike in high school.  Just as we were graduating we started dating.  Our first date was to the local stock car races and his mom was with us.  Pretty weird I know.  We were so young when we started dating but didn't wait long to be married.  We were both 19.  He worked at a wood shop and we rented our first house from my Aunt for $75 a month.  I wanted to have children right away and wanted to be a stay at home mom so I didn't work.  We lived in Joplin for about 2 years and Mike decided to go in to the Navy.  He had flirted with the idea before we started dating and even had a chance to be nominated for the Naval Academy but didn't take it. 

While Mike was in boot camp I stayed in Joplin missing him very badly.  When he graduated  his mom and brother and I  took the trip to San Diego to attend the ceremonies.  I married this little skinny guy that probably didn't weigh 120 soaking wet.  When we arrived at the ceremony we could not see him or talk to him until the graduation exercise was over except from a distance.  I didn't recognize my husband but his mom did. He had put on quite a bit of weight.  While most of the recruits were trying to lose weight he was trying to gain so he ate as much as he could and with that and all the exercise he gained muscle and turned into a man.  

I returned home after the graduation while Mike finished his next school.  I was going to stay here while he finished another school but I missed him too much.  I packed up what little stuff we had and drove from Joplin to San Diego by myself.  I was 21.  We lived in a tiny studio apartment in down town San Diego for about 4 months.  It was an interesting time.  The neighborhood was scary and we were broke.  We were still paying house payments back home and rent in San Diego.  It was a really pretty place but we never had the money to do anything.  Mike was going through training to be an electronic technician in the Navy.  

We survived our time in San Diego and lived in several places after that.  Next to Zion Ill. then to West Virginia, St. Mary's Georgia, back to San Diego then Great Lakes Ill while Mike taught school.  At that time we lived across the state border in Kenosha Wi.  Mike was in the Navy for 11 years.  When the Defense Department started cutting back Mike got out of the Navy.  We stayed in Kenosha for a couple more years while Mike was working for a local wire manufacturer.  We then decided it was time to take our 3 kids and go home.

While we were living in West Virginia and Georgia Mike took college classes and earned a bachelors degree. He has been working in variations of electronics and mechanical maintenance ever since.  Now he works at a local explosives plant. He still likes to watch the races on tv and like most men likes football and baseball.  He loves to go camping, something our family has done regularly for many years. He has a good friend that he likes to fish with and they spend many hours on the lake. 

 We have been married for 34 years.