30 Fabulous Years

On this day, twenty years ago, I was sitting at lunch with Carter who was three and a half. I told her that it was Daddy and My tenth wedding anniversary. Since she was already good at math, she looked at me and said, “Where are all the other kids then?” I guess her three year old mind thought that you get married and children automatically come along. Maybe she thought they were like wedding presents.

I had to explain to her that we had a life before she was born and we waited until we got just her. She was worth waiting for. That didn’t satisfy her, she wanted some older siblings.

So here Russ and I are, married thirty years and are happy as the newlyweds we were. No kids at home. So Russ gives me this card this morning and I laughed for about twenty minutes.

I am so lucky that he kept at me in those years when he knew me at work and I didn’t pay any attention to him. I am very thankful that his boss, Bill Lile, sent out that company wide email, “Please congratulate Russ Lange for getting his Masters in Electrical Engineering at night, while working full time. He also just was awarded five patents.” After I read that I wanted to know who this brilliant guy was and lo and behold it was that engineer who had been hanging around me on business trips, but I didn’t give the time of day to.

As I told Carter when she was 13, “If you are looking at someone you think you like, turn around and notice who is looking at you.”

I am one lucky girl that Russ Lange liked the way I presented his inventions to rooms full of strangers, who after my exciting description of all the features would buy them like hot cakes. I just thought he was one of those strangers. Thank goodness he is so tall and he was hard to ignore. Happy 30th to the best husband I could ever have. I couldn’t invent a better one.