Believe it or not, it was 19 years ago this week that Stan and I met for the very first time. That is just crazy! We are so old! On December 1st 1989 (Yes, we met in the 80’s!! Yikes!!!!), Stan and I had our first date. It was sort of a blind date. Let me tell the story.
Stan and I were both attending M.C.C. but had never met. I was serving as the LDS sorority President at the time and had planned a fun activity called “The Date Exchange.” Each of the sorority girls were assigned to bring a date for a specific girl and then at the activity we would exchange dates. Well, the night of the date exchange came (in the desert), and I discovered that Stephanie, the girl who was assigned to bring a date for me wasn’t there with the guy who was supposed to be my date (Jeff). There were a handful of others who also didn’t show up, which meant there were a handful of “dateless” ones. So we had to do some re-arranging. Lucky for me, because I was in charge of the activity I was able to help with the rearranging and decide for myself which one of the “dateless” guys I wanted to be paired with! I was going to be safe and choose someone I already knew, but for some reason I decided to be brave and choose a guy that I’d never met before. We had played a couple of games before the exchanging of dates, and I observed that Stan was a funny guy, so I figured I’d be safe enough with him. :) So we were paired together (he had no idea that I had chosen him), and had a really good time. We had a lot of fun finding out the many things we had in common-including that we both had 10 kids in our family!!
The next morning I told my Mom about the date and Stan told his Mom about the date. Neither of us could remember eachother's last name, but after I told my Mom what I knew about Stan she said, "That sounds like the Roberts family!". And in telling his Mom about me, Stan's Mom said, "That sounds like the Phelps family!" So little did we know when we met that our parents knew each other. Not only that, as we each talked to our Mom's separately that morning, we found out many other connections-including the fact that Stan’s family had bought our suburban not long before. We also discovered that my Uncle and his Dad were good friends, my grandma and grandpa Phelps were best friends with his grandma and grandpa Roberts, and that my grandma Ferrin was friends with his grandma Hancock!
Later on that morning, I get a call. On the other end I hear "Hi Crissie, do you know who this is?" Well, although I thought it might be Stan, I didn't want to say "Stan!" just in case it ended up being a different guy! :) So, I just laughed and said No. After he told me who it was, we had a good time talking about all the connections we had learned about from our Moms. Much to my delight, he then asked me if I wanted to go out with him that night. So we went out that night, and the rest is history. We dated for 9 months, and were married on August 16, 1990 in the Mesa, Arizona Temple. What’s funny is that my older brother attended this date exchange also and met his future wife Wendy Wheeler. They got married a month before Stan and I did! I don't know if anyone else paired up that night ended up getting married, but I would have to say that it was a very successful Date Exchange!!
Now the interesting part of the story-soon after the date exchange we found out that the reason why Stephanie and my intended date Jeff didn’t show up was because Jeff was in a minor car accident on the way over to pick up Stephanie for the Date Exchange! The Lord works in mysterious ways!!! Sorry Jeff, we just weren't meant to be together!! :)
So, 19 years later here we are. Since that night, every year on December 1st Stan and I celebrate by getting Kentucky Fried Chicken because that’s what we ate the night of the date exchange. :) So that’s what we did on Monday night. We got KFC and had a “romantic” candlelight dinner at home. The only difference between this time and 19 years ago was that there were 3 kids included in this “romantic” dinner!!! :)
This is a picture of the Date exchange. Stan is the first guy on the left (this picture was taken right before I met him.)
This is a picture of us a few months later at my family's cabin. Aren't we so cute!! :) Ya, I know. We've aged a little in 19 years!!!
I love this man!! I couldn't be happier that we were brought together on that night of December 1st 1989!! I was 19 when I met Stan. That means that we have been together for
half my life!! :)
