February 12 is my mom and dad's anniversary and this year, my dad does not have my mom to celebrate another year of marriage. It is his first anniversary without her. It is our first anniversary without her.
When my parents were engaged, they had their engagement photos taken in a tree.
When I was 15, I began making anniversary meals for my parents. For their first meal, I made them a large red wurst cooked in sauerkraut. For some reason this took a long time to prepare and so I had them in the living room of our home watching Anne of Green Gables while I was cooking in the kitchen. They got through the entire first half before their dinner was ready. My goal was for them to have a nice, relaxing romantic meal together. I was planning on serving them their food then leaving the kitchen so they could be alone. However, my youngest brother, Joshua became hungry around this time and wanted a PB&J sandwich and HAD to sit with mom and dad to eat. I remember being annoyed that he was ruining their romantic meal but they, of course, let Josh sit with them. I now remember this fondly. :) Josh, if you read this, I love this memory of you!
For the next several years, I continued to make an anniversary meal for my parents, getting more extravagant each time. I put up a red curtain from the living room and the kitchen and the living room was the dining room, I borrowed a long table from church, once my brothers and I put on a puppet show (we were creating puppets in youth group), my brothers were the servers, and each year, I got better with the clean up afterwards. ;)
My favorite memory was their 24th wedding anniversary. I had that red curtain up, a table from church in the living room, decorations purchased from the dollar store and my brothers as servers. I chose recipes from several of my newly acquired Italian cookbooks and made my parents an Italian gourmet meal. For a starter salad, I made them Maria Luisa's salad which is in a 1950's Italian cookbook I found at a used bookstore in Watertown. It called for anchovies so I found some either at Hy-Vee or Econo Foods. I did not know what to do with them so just layed them over the salad. My dad, who will eat anything (once drank coffee to just be polite, another time pulled an partially rotting apple out of the garbage and ate the good part), turned his nose up and would not eat this salad. My aunt Joanie was also there and was making homemade ice cream in the ice cream machine that plugs into the wall and has a motor that would turn the canister containing the ice cream around. I coached her on how to place snow around between this canister and the outer wooden wall, sprinkle some salt on top and repeat. After about 2 hours of the machine whirring, we turned it off (it should take about 45 minutes). Apparantly, I did not coach Joanie well as she had put snow and salt over the lid of the canistern and salt had leaked in. That ice cream would not freeze! And because, I was taught to not waste food, I brought into daycare where I was teaching 2 year olds and served it to them for a snack after their nap. But, that's another story!
The last year I was in Watertown, before moving to Colorado, I invited my grandparents, aunt Joanie, uncle Ben, brothers to plan a potluck celebration at church. We sent out invitations that had a Norwegian flag drawn on it and asked for people to bring Scandinavian dishes. And they did!! I remember Julie Radach bringing a white chowder that was amazing! I know others brought amazing dishes as well but I don't remember specifics. I created a scrapbook for my parents and included a few pages for guests to sign as well. With my dad's help, we created their engagement photos as well! We helped mom crawl up in a tree from our front yard and I took photos of them re-creating the same poses.
While, these are precious memories and I am so thankful for them. I am even more thankful for the committment that my parents lived out with each other. Their committment to Christ, his church, each other, their family and friends.
P.S. I would share more pictures but they are in Colorado. :)
I remember that ice cream. When you took the ice cream to school the kids were eager to eat it. They were used to your tall story telling and now you fed them yuky ice cream!
ReplyDeleteWhen you would tell them a tall story, they would just say, "sure Karen." I think they loved you anyway!
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