By this time John and I were dating; we had been high school sweethearts. We started dating when we were sixteen. We both went to community college, and then he went to San Diego state. I got my license and worked as a vocational nurse. Later on, I went back to school and got my RN, and worked as a nurse.

I started to go to John’s school in sixth grade. We knew each other, kind of, but we weren’t particularly close friends. When we were sixteen I finally decided that I wanted to date him, but he was rather slow about approaching me.

John had a paper route out by where we lived. When my brother was two, I walked out with him, and just happened to meet John. The next day, I walked my dog. When I walked my cat, I think he finally got the clue!

He finally asked me out. Our first date was to the library to study and he told his parents he was going to the library to study with “Rick.”

I had just turned sixteen when we started dating. We dated for five years, and I got married at 21. I thought he was cute, and I thought he was a nice guy. That’s it!


John Whisks Me Away to Catalina Island, and Proposes

One day, John arranged a trip. I didn’t know where we were going, but it turns out we flew to Catalina Island. On the beach where we landed, he asked me to marry him.

John did the gentlemanly thing. He talked to my mom, so she knew. It was really nice!

We spent the day starry-eyed. We got married about a year later. For our honeymoon we took a driving trip up through the gold rush country. Two weeks before we left we had adopted a dog; probably not the most romantic thing to do!

We camped, and stayed in small places. It was delightful.

Our first born came along four years later. I had been working at Kaiser Hospital for a while, and John was working at Sears while he finished school. He was also a volunteer at the local fire department. Alyssa was born at Kaiser Hospital, which is where I was working.

I’m close with one high school friend; she and I have led nearly parallel lives. We found out we were both pregnant at the same time. It was really cool to be going through that not only with your husband, but also a good friend.

The only bad part was when she came in, looked at my tummy, and said: “I thought that was supposed to go away!”

Shortly after we brought Alyssa home, John got hired by the Manteca fire department. We lived in Manteca for four years. Then, we moved back to Chula Vista when John took a lateral transfer. At that point we had two young children and we thought would be good to be close to the family.