Annette and I got married on May 4, 1990, in the Salt Lake Temple. Annette had just finished the spring semester of her freshman year at BYU. I had been running the ranch and driving Dad's school bus route for the spring while Dad was on the road shearing sheep with Jimmy Hoopes.
Dad was committed to the shearing crew until the middle of June. I was committed to the ranch and the bus route until school got out at the end of May. Michel and Margaret said that we could live in their cabin in Grover Park (Turnerville, WY) until July when we planned to move to an apartment in Orem so we could go to BYU.
The week before our wedding, Mom, Keri, and I cleaned the cabin and fixed it up really nicely as a surprise for Annette. (She thought we were just setting up the bed.)
We did not have enough money for furniture. Michel and Margaret gave us a three-piece, sectional couch, a folding card table, and two folding chairs (the latter three items composed our dining room). Mom and Dad gave us their old waterbed. Mom bought a second-hand, wood-frame loveseat with a separate footrest and refinished the cushions. She said we could use the loveseat combo and her old rocking chair until we could afford to buy our own furniture.
We stayed at the Little America hotel in Salt Lake City on our wedding night. On May 5, we ate lunch at Hardees and drove to Star Valley for our reception.
After the reception, we drove to the cabin. Annette was surprised at the furniture, curtains, and other decorations we had put up in the cabin.
Because we needed the money I was earning driving the school bus, we decided that I would continue driving the school bus and not take time off. We would not have a honeymoon until after the school year ended. Annette and I told everyone that we were planning a one-week getaway honeymoon in June after school was out. However, we did not have enough money for that. So, what we really planned was to stay in the cabin for a week.
We lived in the cabin from May 5 until July 1 for an eight-week-long honeymoon!
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| our first meal in the honeymoon cabin |
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| master bedroom |
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| gorgeous bride pondering the future |
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| handsome groom cooking dinner |
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| after dinner photos |
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| repairing the pond |
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| don't fall in |
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| success ... pond rebuilt an a moose visitor! |
For our one-year anniversary, we decided it would be fun to stay in the cabin for the weekend. Margaret assured us that the cabin was stocked with enough food for the weekend. We thawed the top layer of our wedding cake (Mom had kept it frozen in her big freezer since our reception). We took the cake and a gallon of milk with us to the cabin.
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| the frosting fell off the cake as it thawed |
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| repairing the frosting |
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| candid moment |
Well ... it turned out that the only food in the cabin was several cases of protein bars. We had planned to spend the entire weekend at the cabin and did not want to make the round trip to the grocery store to get other food. After assessing the situation, Annette and I decided we could make do with the cake, milk, and protein bars. We stayed two nights and three days.
We still have fond memories of the honeymoon cabin.
[see related post in my 20th Anniversary Memory Series]
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