Thirteen and counting

Brent and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary a few days ago (May 27th actually). I can't believe it's been that long already! It's really flown by. We have our ups and downs but we really get along well most of the time. We have fun together and laugh at stupid things that no one else would find funny except us (just ask our kids). Brent really gets me (most of the time anyway) and it's good to have that.

A little history on Brent and Cindy~
I was a bright eyed young girl, fresh off the bus from BYU (okay, there really wasn't a bus). Needing a job as I did for the summer, what's a car-less girl to do but get a job at the place her sister is currently working and mooch a ride with her everyday. It was my first factory job (ah, we all remember our first factory job!) and my first time on the graveyard shift (oh wait, no it wasn't). San Segal Sportswear was a sea of "rockers" as they were called in those days. I was working with a foulmouthed bunch, I heard more colorful language in the first five minutes than I'd heard in two semesters at BYU. It was a shock to my sensitive post BYU system. When the chance to move to a quieter position QC-ing for the eight color press came up I gladly took it. This press had a couple of loud, obnoxious guys running it. There was a lot of yelling and laughing coming from over where they were. One was a guy who seemed different from most of the people there. For one thing I never saw him drive off at first break to meet the guy who "allegedly" dealed drugs. Another clue was I overheard him talking to another guy about classes at the University of Utah. I'd listen to him in the lunchroom talking to the other guys who didn't go meet the drug dealer (I couldn't help it because they were so loud). He would tell the craziest stories, I recall one about solving the garbage problem on earth by sending it by space shuttle to outer space. He'd have my sister Lynn and me in tears from laughing so hard. One day Lynn came up to me and told me that Brent was a Mormon. That was an exciting moment, because up to that moment he'd just been this cute, funny guy who would tease me while I tried to keep up with his printing. He'd purposely print the shirts as fast as he could so I would get way behind and he could stand there and laugh at me while I tried desperately to clean ink spots off of shirts and catch up. Or he'd tease me in the breakroom when he'd check out the tape in my Walkman and I'd be listening to the Morrissey tape with that "Ouija Board" song and he'd tell me it was satanic music. But now I knew he was LDS and he likely wasn't out drinking with these strange guys on the weekend (as if that could ever happen, there was still a lot I didn't know about this guy). So it went on for a while, he'd make fun of me, I'd blush (blushing being a big pastime for me back then), we'd talk at break and that pattern would repeat itself. Yeah, I could tell he liked me, but I didn't have the best track record with the guys, so I tried to play it cool. He wasn't going to ask me out though, so I had to come up with a plan. I asked him to go up to the University of Utah with me so I could get a catalog. Okay, I admit there wasn't much of a chance of me going there but I hadn't finalized my school plans for the Fall yet, so it was possible. We drove up in his red Nissan truck (he was an art student with a truck, you can't just dismiss a combination like that) and had a good time hanging out and then he took me out to lunch at a little Mexican restaurant his family liked called Su Casa, and I ate about three bites of my tacos because I was nervous and I didn't want to look like a pig (later he mocked me for being one of those girls who doesn't eat when she's with a guy and was glad when he saw I could wolf down a meal). We had a good time, although I was sure he thought I was a big dork, but he still didn't ask me out. So I had to take action again. I know, I'm starting to look like a pathetic loser here. I had some bounce back passes to Lagoon, where you can go back for free, so I asked him if he wanted to go with me. I knew I could only use one because they aren't transferable but I figured I'd just pay for his when we got there. He insisted on paying for it himself and then made fun of me for making him pay, of course. Anyway it was a great day and we held hands and I was all starry eyed but I promised myself this was his last chance and I'd move on if he didn't ask me out after this. So before we parted ways that night he finally asked me out and I told him "No". I already had plans to go to Bear Lake that weekend on a blind date with a guy who had a glass eye and with a friend and the glass eyed guy's cousin. So I declined. But.... when he saw me at work the next week when we were picking up our checks he asked me out again and we went out that night. We went to the movies and saw "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey". And four years later, two or three breakups and a lot of maturing on both of our parts we were married, and the rest as they say, is history....