Great Memories and Great Stories

As we sat down this year to write our Christmas letter, we felt the itch to keep with tradition and yet “kick it up a notch” as Emeril would say. We started our letter writing 10 years ago when we moved to TX as a way to keep up with folks-- our letters have typically summarized the previous year’s events and happenings; celebrations or learnings. We believe however, that it is also important for families to remember and cherish memories and stories and share them with others.

We approach our 25th wedding anniversary in June 2009, and in keeping with our Christmas tradition to be reflective and thankful for the many blessings we have received, we thought it would be interesting for us and challenging for you, to try and pick the most memorable moments from our 25 years together. Now, here’s your part in this endeavor. After reviewing our top 10 stories, vote on your favorite three stories. We started this process with more than 50 ideas, and the ten stories below are the ones that have the most meaning to us. We’d like to know what you think. So here are our greatest memories in no particular order. We will keep the polls open until January 15, 2009 and then we’ll tell you which three are our most cherished.

1. It’s October 16, 1980 at Suburban Racquetball in Rockville, our friends Dick and Marlene Schroeder (Dick working at the College of St. Benedict with Steve and Marlene working with Anne at the St. Cloud Hospital) arrange a “blind date” for us to play racquetball (after months of trying). Anne plays in blue shorts and t-shirt with a matching headband and Steve has long hair and is quite thinner than today. After the match (which Steve won to Anne’s frustration – she’s sooooo competitive) we talk for hours upstairs over a burger. Steve tells Anne years later that he knew he was going to have a significant relationship with her from this very first meeting.

2. It’s May, 1997, Steve is just finishing ten years at the University of St. Thomas and Anne is finishing her seventh year running her company, Market Strategies. We’ve lived in St. Cloud for 25 years. Anne is recruited for a position at a company called VHA in Dallas, TX. With lighting speed, we reach a decision to uproot our lives in MN and move to Dallas. Anne packs her bags and leaves to start her new job, leaving Steve behind to handle the whole pack and move from our St. Cloud condo.

3. It’s Christmas 1983 and after living together for several years (renting a house), Steve comes into the kitchen one evening and says to Anne, “I think we should get married,” to which Anne inquires, “why?” “Because I love you and I think you love me, and it just feels right. What do you think?” Anne says, “that sounds good but I’m not wearing a long white dress or a veil.” We sold everything each of us owned and started anew.

4. It’s 1980 and Anne and Steve are living in Kutzmann Addition in Sartell, MN. Anne has this brainchild to start a gourmet club with several other couples. For twelve great years, we took turns planning and cooking—and celebrated more than 48 meals together –many of them from around the world, and several combined with winter getaways and always contentious games of Trivial Pursuit and Phase 10.

5. In 1994, good friends Tom Moore and Cindy Faye Johnson (from our gourmet club) purchased land on an island in northern Minnesota and built a log cabin. It’s called Timberlake. We have managed to make an annual pilgrimage to Timberlake almost without exception, (except this year!) – to regroup, reenergize, fish, read, tell stories, fish, play Skip-Bo, cook, fish, cook fish, work on island projects, fish, take naps, cook some more and relax with good friends. To this day, our annual pilgrimage to Timberlake continues to be a special time on our calendar.

6. It’s all about surprises! While Anne has been the “Master of Birthday Surprises,” especially for Steve’s 30th, 40th, 50th, and most recently 55th (she veered from the 10-year program), Steve pulled a good one on her 50th by secretly planning with her boss a fictitious Las Vegas meeting, where unbeknownst to her was a weekend of golf lessons with Tiger Woods’ ex-coach, Butch Harmon. Steve felt the need to do something pretty outrageous to top Anne’s Pebble Beach trip for Steve’s 50th.

7. Our two favorite Caribbean islands are St. Maartin and Aruba, two Dutch islands that have given us some of our best quiet times together. St. Maartin was our honeymoon island, and Aruba has been our more recent escape. Both islands give us our favorite pastimes (other than golf) – great beaches, good food and gambling. We recall getting fresh baguettes, gouda cheese and Diet Coke to make a great lunch break from sunning by the ocean. Our other memory is finding a great restaurant, and then heading to a casino to win back our dinner money. They’ve been one of the few vacations where we don’t golf.

8. We loved playing in our club’s couples golf championships and we were fortunate to have won two of them. It was always a fierce competition between a group of couples, and for many years we were always in the hunt. Our final win was most memorable – Steve hurt his back on one of the first couple of holes and held it together through the round, and Anne came through with her best round ever at the club.

9. It’s April, 1996, and we’re at Augusta National (the Masters for you non-golfers!) for the very first time with friends Tim and Mary Schroer. We fly to Atlanta and drive over four hours to our hotel in Greenwood, SC (still an hour outside Augusta) --just a bit longer than the “quick drive” we had anticipated. Our first view of the course was all the azaleas in bloom on the 13th green. We witnessed the changing of the guard at the Wednesday Par 3 tournament with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and a young (amateur) Tiger Woods playing together. Steve got Tiger’s autograph on his Master’s ticket and Anne shot a whole roll of the pairing; the best photo one is of them coming off the final green--the negative is locked away.

10. Both of us have had hole-in-ones (Steve-1994, and Anne-1998), and we were lucky enough to witness each other’s. They were both at the St. Cloud Country Club, and Anne’s was on the last round of golf we played there before we moved to TX.

Remember, like the recent presidential elections, it is important to vote. So vote early and vote often for your favorites and think about sharing some stories of your own.

We’ve also included some of the other stories in this blog that didn’t make our top 10. Scroll down to read more.

Happy Holidays to you all!

Anne & Steve