How it all turned out! Love story part 3

"So do you want to?"

"What?"

"Feel my muscles, I've been working out and my pecks are huge, come on, feel this" pointing to his chest

"No I really don't want to feel your muscles, I'll pass" I say incredulously

"C'mon I know you want to............here, give me your hand" before I can protest he reaches down, takes my hand and puts it squarely on his left pectoral muscle....."isn't that awesome?" he says with a huge smile.

"yeah, sure" I say as I pull my hand quickly away from that awkward grope and roll my eyes. This guy is definitely not my type.

He then bursts out laughing and I don't know if he is laughing at me or what? Heck, he is the one who just forced me to touch his chest and he has the audacity to laugh at me.

I can see his eyes searching mine almost as if this were some test and he was seeing if I passed and he laughs some more. I start to laugh at the whole absurdity of it all.

Everything that has just transpired would tell me that I was dealing with an arrogant muscle head who loves himself and is body obsessed but everything in his eyes, laughter and demeanor makes the whole experience feel more like a child who has just shown me his cool double jointed finger. He just has an air of absolute good natured humility. I would guess the whole exercise was more about a catching me off guard in a funny way than his need to have his muscles validated.

My head is in a low velocity swirl at this point, I have never met anyone like him. He is so completely the opposite of anyone I ever imagined being interested in, yet I like that he is so unique.

At this point we are nearing the parking lot and he asks if I am hungry....it's about 4:00 in the afternoon and he suggests we go to Taco Bell together and grab a bite. Sounds good...............then he says, "where is your car parked?" Oh no, I feel sick, once he sees "poo" it's over. I stall....."Where's your car I ask, praying that his is as bad or worse. "It's right there," he points to a brand new shiny red Honda Civic. Great, there is nothing to do but lay it all out there and see where the chips fall. "Mine is the brown one over there". He looks and doesn't seem phased. 'Poo' passed......we are off to a good start.

He decides that we should drop my car off and go together and then suddenly he changes the location from Taco Bell to The Training Table. It is starting to feel more like a date and less like a casual 'grab a bite'. I'm OK with that!

Dinner was fun, I have never laughed more or felt so at ease. When the check came it was obvious that neither of us wanted it to be over. "What are you doing the rest of the night?" he asked. It was Saturday and whatever lame plans I had with friends just melted away...."nothing" was my reply. Looking back I should have played harder to get.

We were still in work clothes so he dropped me off to get changed and said he'd be back in 30 min.........30 min later he arrived and to my horror, we were dressed exactly the same. We were both wearing brown leather loafers, dark blue jeans, a chambray shirt with a white t-shirt underneath. We looked identical. We both laughed and I headed off to change when he stopped me...."no, I don't care if you don't". I didn't, so off we went dressed exactly the same.

Our first date lasted 12 hours. Here is how it went:

Went to a friends b-day party

Went to the grocery store, I needed to get something for the lesson I was teaching at church the next day. We were there forever walking through the isles and talking....we didn't care that we were in a grocery store.

Back to his apartment to play pool with his roommates

Off to a comedy club...........so funny I remember laughing so hard I cried.

Went to a midnight movie (Regarding Henry) cried again for different reasons.

Sat in the parking lot of my apartment complex and talked until 4:30 am. When I got out of the car I did so begrudgingly, it had been a whirlwind night that I didn't want to end.

The things I knew by the end of our first date:

He was nothing like the idea I had of the man I would marry.

He was the most real man I had ever met. No pretenses, he never wears a mask and says and does exactly what he thinks and is. This makes things very interesting.

He is happy to the core and laughs more than anyone I had ever known.

I felt like I had known him my whole existence and being together was just a reuniting not a meeting.

I never wanted to be away from him.......ever.

I knew I would marry him.

We never spent a day apart after that first date. It took two weeks for him to finally kiss me and at about the same time I asked him where he thought we were headed and his answer was "Oh there is no question we will be married" In two and a half months we were engaged and 5 months married. A fact that I really don't want my daughters to be aware of because if they try to marry someone that they have only known 5 months I will FREAK!

Life has not always been easy, our first year of marriage was very difficult but we have gotten better every year, weathered every storm, and built a deeply happy life together.

I adore this man!!..............and he still has great muscles! In fact when he saw the picture below (at the top of the last post) he said "Oh that totally looks like me!" He still has me laughing!

"Do you want to feel my muscles?" Love Story Part 2

I was a good girl. A Good girl who could lean slightly toward self righteousness. This may have been part of my problem in finding my longed for husband. I was looking for a man who walked on water yet if I was self reflective at all I would have realized that I was barely treading water myself. When I look back, the day I met my husband was the beginning of a fresh new outlook that created major change in me.

I was a teacher at the Missionary Training Center. It was a great part time job while working on my degree. I had noticed another teacher there who physically fit my ideal. I watched him from afar and hoped one day I would get the chance to get to know him. He was serious, looked ambitious, tall, dark hair, handsome, and seemed very grounded in all things I deemed important.

But, thank heaven, fate had different plans for me.

One November day I went to work and everything was different. All the classes were switched around so I wasn't working with my usual group of missionaries. I was assigned to work with a very rambunctious group of 19 year olds. It was going along smoothly until one of them suddenly piped up....."Hey, Sister Hartley, are you married?" "No, I am not" I coldly replied. Class time was not the place to be discussing my marital status and I tried to shut them down with my tone. Then all of a sudden 4 or 5 of them jumped up and in absolute heartfelt delight yelled........"We know your husband!!". "What are you talking about" I said "I just told you, I am not married". "Yeah but we know who you are going to marry and he is awesome!!!!, he is our teacher and you are totally going to marry him". With that they all just ran out of the room. This was a huge no no to leave the room during class time. Everything was out of control and I was freaking out. They ran off to who knows where leaving me and 4 other missionaries alone. I was furious!! After what seemed like forever but was probably 4 or 5 min, they came back dragging their teacher behind them. Actually, they were literally carrying him and he was laughing his head off.

Sunshine is the only way to describe him. He had white blond hair and looked like he had spent most of his days surfing on a California beach. His eyes were clear ocean blue, his smile was bigger than the room and I could tell by his unabashed laughter as they dragged him in that laughing was what he did best. I could also tell, even though he was being taken against his will, that these missionaries loved him and the rapport and connection between them was deeper than I had seen with any of the other teachers and their students. There was a brotherly bond.

"Elder Bray, this is Sister Hartley. Sister Hartley, this is Elder Bray" they breathlessly said as they set him down. "Sister Hartley, meet your husband" they said to me and then turned to him and said "Elder Bray, go ahead, she's going to be your wife so, you better ask her out".

AWKWARD, to say the least!! I couldn't believe this was happening to me, I wanted to die. Luckily he was a little more composed than I was and just calmly laughed it off and told them to get back to work and stop thinking about girls, dating and marriage. He smiled at me, turned and headed back to his class. I tried to get back to work but those missionaries just kept gushing about Elder Bray and how amazing he is. Everything I did to try and get them back to business would just be one more invitation to tell me another great thing about their teacher and, as they put it, my future husband.

Class finally ended I headed to the teachers lounge to fill out my reports. I turned the corner and to my horror, there was Mr. Sunshine sitting on the table smiling and talking to another teacher. I wanted to crawl under it. I smiled awkwardly as I went to pass him and then to my shock, out of the blue, he grabbed me, put me in sort of a choke hold, and rustled up my hair (a noogie). WHO DOES THAT!! I was desperately trying to keep some dignity and composure in another extremely awkward situation. I was a strait laced girl looking for a serious boy and this surfer dude was freaking me out!! I had no words and was trying to act somewhat normal in a very bizarre situation. He looked me straight in the eyes and just started to laugh. I said something stupid like "ha ha those crazy missionaries", got out of his grasp and quickly headed off to fill out my reports. Who was this guy and why was he not obeying any social norms?

I took my time hoping he would leave so as to not have to endure another grabbing incident but he just kept laughing and talking. I couldn't quite tell, but it kinda seemed like he was waiting for me......sure enough as I finally got up to walk out he jumped off the table and stepped in line with me, I guess we were walking out together?

He had such an easy manner about him and very quickly all the awkwardness just melted away. Talking to him was as easy as breathing and within minutes we were laughing about the classroom incident like old friends. I was completely at ease.......that was until, halfway to the parking lot, out of the blue, he said "Hey, do you want to feel my muscles?"

Oh Great! Another curve ball.

Little did I know there were many more to come!


To be continued

Do you want to hear a love story?

Our engagement picture 1992

Today is my husbands birthday so instead of doing my usual and tell all the things that are amazing about him I have decided to tell our story. This may take several posts but I know that my girls will love it.

I was 23 years old. The emphasis on OLD. At this point all of my high school friends were married so I felt like the lone relic. Such a silly concept to me today!! Getting married was very important to me, I felt like it was going to be the most important decision in my life. In fact when I was around 14 I began praying everyday for the boy who would eventually be the man I would marry. I prayed for him vigilantly that he would be making the right choices, withstanding temptation, and becoming the kind of man that would be a great husband and father.

I had a vision in my head of him. He was going to be tall, dark hair, very distinguished and lawyerly (whatever that means). He would be thoughtful, somewhat serious minded, ambitious and most of all he would make the gospel the center of his life. He would be good to the core and a great husband and father.

At this point I had just gotten back from serving an 18 month mission for my church. I wasn't the most beautiful girl on the BYU campus, just ok cute. I was ambitious and finishing up a degree in Broadcast journalism with visions of anchoring the evening news. I dated but they weren't lining up, hmmm maybe because I drove a 1981 brown beat up Toyota Terrell that was lovingly named "the piece of poo" by all who knew it. It usually went like this......

"Who is driving?"

"Gale is,"

"oh no do we really have to ride in the piece of poo".

So I obviously wasn't on the radar of those with style, money, and class. But I felt I had lots inside that would make me a good mother, wife and partner. I did date some really great guys who seemed to fit the bill but it just didn't feel right and I wasn't sure why. I rarely got very serious with anyone because as soon as I realized he didn't fit the ideal or I didn't feel for whatever reason that he was the one, I gave him the shove off. At 23 I began to question myself and how picky I was being. In fact around this time I wrote a song called "I've said No, one too many times". I was suddenly feeling that I needed to drop the ideal and just find a good man. What was I waiting for? It was such an awkward time of my life.

Then, like a ray of sunshine and bolt of lightning all rolled up into one, he happened in my life..........to be continued.


Off to make him his birthday breakfast of Dutch Babies, with strawberries and cream, yumm.......more tomorrow!

Oh how our family loves that cold white fluffy stuff!

SNOW??....not a chance. I am talking whipped cream. Since this blog is to document our family it would not be complete without a post about whipped cream. We eat it EVERY DAY. It is a wonder that we are not all 300 lbs. There is not a day that goes by where whipped cream isn't served for breakfast. It is a staple in our house and when, and if, we run out there is a shadow of gloom over all of us (well, except Elle, she is our one "no cream please" girl.) In fact Whipped cream is such a staple in our house that calling it whipped cream is way too cumbersome. It is just cream and we all know what we are talking about......."pass the cream", "Hey she's eating all the cream". "Mom, where's the cream".

Breakfast Menu items:

Whole wheat chocolate chip pancakes topped with syrup and Creme.

Whole wheat waffles topped with syrup and creme

Crepes topped with creme and fruit

French toast topped with syrup and creme

And our favorite of all

*Dutch Babies topped with syrup creme and fruit

Usually there is sausage or bacon on the side.

Now you may be asking do you ever eat eggs? omlettes? hash browns? Yes we do and in these instances we are all drinking a big cup of heaven called Postum with.....yes you guessed it. Creme on top. Ah life is good.

Just listen

So, being that am absolutely hoplessly flawed, for some reason today I am gripped with fear and the only thing I know to do is pen my thoughts and hope that it is somehow cathartic. As my girls grow I am realizing that there is a bubble bursting point. I think I am reaching that milestone and it is hard for me. What is that bubble? It is this; when our children are young we as parents are their world, they look to us for all advice, councel and guidance. Then there is a point that each of us reach when we realize that our parents are human and imperfect.

I have enjoyed the bubble for a good long while but now I see that my older daughters are beginning to see little glimpses of my frailty and I ache for my inability to fix myself. I feel no need for perfection, I could care less if my house is messy or dinner didn't get made or I didn't shower, that is not what I am saying. There are just parts of my character that are flawed and there is nothing more jarring than seeing that I am not hiding them anymore. It is one thing for my husband to know my weaknesses and love me anyway but for me it is altogether different to know that my children know. I know it is good for them to realise that we don't need to be perfect but the mirror that my children are to me is bringing it all to the surface.

I see myself more clearly through them and my weaknesses seem to be more painful to me when reflected in their eyes.

The funny thing is that they know my failings because I have taught them differently. We gather together every morning for scripture study and I teach them the truths of the gospel. We have weekly family home evening where we talk of all things eternal and important. I teach them to be kind and good, honest and non judgemental so when my judgment of another slips through the cracks, they now call me on it. When they see me waste my time, they look at me confused. When they see me loose my temper, I feel sad and ashamed. I really like the Wonder Woman status that I still hold in my younger girls eyes....it is so comfortable. This is such a silly post I know. In fact I think I will turn off comments because this is similar to one of those times when you talk to your husband about something and you don't want him to fix it or tell you what to do, you just want him to listen. I just needed someone to listen this morning.

New Years

A good friend requested we post our New Years pictures. I must say that we do New Years big and it is so much fun. We always have a huge Fondue dinner. We have been doing this since the day we got married and the girls look forward to it every year. We are Fondue pros!! Each year we invite a family and we start getting requests early in Dec. It is the golden ticket. We usually only invite one family as it is too hard to do with more than that.

The Cordy Family came this year and then our neighbors the Englishes' also came.

Because we ended up having 2 families we had to make a separate table for the teens!

After fonduing we went to a New Years family dance at our friends, the Merkleys, driving school. It was a blast!! My camera ran out of batteries so this is the only pic I got of the fun dancing evening. The little girls out-danced everyone, they put all the teenagers to shame.

The next day our friends the McKinley's' warmed up their pool to 90 degrees and invited us over. The kids had a blast! What is better than winter swimming.

Then of course.....afternoon bowling. I think 5 or 6 families came and we had a great time!

Then it is off to bed for the kids.

My favorite part then begins. Chris and I share our New Years resolutions. This year is particularly important as we have grown so much this year and have prayerfully tried to decide what our plans and goals for 2009 are going to be. That is for another post.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

A Perfect Moment

This morning I woke up very early and headed out for some holiday store shopping. In my desire to not wake a soul I grabbed mismatched clothing in the dark, threw my hair in what could be loosely termed a ponytail, and headed out, mascara under the eyes and all. Ne'er a light was turned on and being that it was pitch dark outside, I was quite a sight as I headed out on my task. It was New Years day so the world was a ghost town. When I arrived at the store looking like a homeless woman I was greeted by the store checker with suspicion. As I began filling carts full of merchandise I could see he was getting extremely worried...."Is this a crazy homeless lady with an obsessive compulsive shopping disorder? Is she filling carts only to leave them for me to put a way? Does she even have any money?" Finally he came over and asked me for ID....you can imagine how bad I looked for him to actually need to see ID. He was obviously concerned. I could also see disappointment when he realized that I was legit and he was going to have to check me out with my 12 carts full. His concern turned to extreme annoyance.

As he checked me out he huffed at least 40 times, his eyes rolled and he put things in bags all together way too rough. He wanted me to know that I had disrupted his morning routine with my load and he was mad. He didn't say a word to me through the whole process and being as I had not even bothered to brush my teeth before sneaking out, I wasn't speaking much either. I tried to be cordial and kind but he wanted none of it. Finally as we were nearing the end of the purchase he sighed and in a curt voice said. "So it looks like you are really stocking up for next year". "No" I replied, "This is not for me, this is for my school, we put together a store so all the kids can do their Christmas shopping. We purchase things very cheaply so that even those children who can't afford gifts can give them. This is all for next years store." He suddenly saw me in a new light, I wasn't a crazy compulsive shopper, I was doing a service for our community. His countenance changed in that moment. He was kind those last few minutes and suddenly wanted to help. He asked if he could help me load my car and we were friends as I left.

I can't stop thinking about perspective and how often we are altogether wrong about each other. I read CJanes blog today where she shares how someone had left a comment for her saying that they think she is self centered. Wow did that ever hit home. It made me cry.
A blog is a one dimensional medium. We see a picture, we read the things written but it barely scratches the surface of who a person is and what they are going through. It is a small snapshot that we share with each other but just like my crazy haired appearance this morning it is so incomplete that we are often wrong in our judgements.
Someone may read my blog and think I am rude and self absorbed or any number of unkind things. They would be both right and wrong. I am sure I am rude sometimes though I try desperately not to be. I know that there are many times when I think too much about myself but I am constantly trying to see others and find the charity that I so much pray for and desire. I know that I am not a good enough friend and I haven't always loved enough.
Another may read and think wow they have it all together and are amazing. Again, both right and wrong. We are amazing in our love for each other as a family and our desire to do good but we are hopelessly flawed and sometimes just plain a mess. We make many mistakes, often get frustrated and struggle with all things that a family of 4 could struggle with. This is the complexity of life and the facade that we often don't see through until we know someone well. A while back my sister said to me, "Treat everyone you meet with the love and care you would give someone that you knew was going through a very difficult time in their life and 70% of the time you will be right". This statement has sat in my soul since she said it. We are all struggling in some way and how great it would be if we always made a point of lifting each other up, giving the benefit of the doubt and loving no matter what.

At the second store I went to, an elderly lady came in as I was headed out. She saw that I had 7 or 8 carts full of bags and immediately gave me a sweet smile, held the door and asked if she could help me. She was at least 75 - 80 years old. She quickly pulled one of my carts to the car for me and held the door as got the other carts. As she headed back to the store I ran ahead and held the door for her. She looked at me (crazy hair and all) with such love and in that moment I loved her. I don't know her name or anything about her nor she of me but it was a perfect moment.

We have put away the sparkling cider and fondue pots and have set our goals. I pray this year that I will both, not judge others nor be offended by others judgement of me. I hope to have a new perspective and fill my life with love for all, even the seemingly unlovable.