Saturday, August 29, 2009

40th Wedding Anniversary Celebration

Last Saturday, August 22nd was our 40th Wedding Anniversary. We decided that it was a good reason to have a nice party for the entire Stake and many others. We have made many friends during the sixteen months that we have been living here in the Netherlands. We reserved the church so that we could share our joy with others. Here it is very unusual for anyone to married a long time, and 40 years was amazing to most people. We were honored to host our friends for a nice evening of socializing. Many friends brought food items, so there was plenty to eat. We had a great sound system set up and a "DJ" played a selection of music from the 1960's and 1970's, that our son Lance recorded. Towards the end of the evening we danced to a few songs and others joined in. We had over 100 people attend the celebration party. We are known for hosting parties so since we had missed having our Christmas open house in Utah, we had this little social, ha, ha. People we know from all over the country came (but the Netherlands is only 1/5 the size of Utah). We had a great time and went home with dozens of flowers, cards and some boxes of chocolates. Two of our guests included Nellie Van Schijen-Maas, and her daughter Ellie from Hilversum. Forty three years ago my companions and I had the priviledge of baptizing them and four other children in their family. We have visited with them a few times before, but it was very special that they drove the 60 miles to see us this time. An important side note is that Kae and I gave each other new rings to commemorate the day. Her ring is a new small gold band that she wears alonside her original rings. We are so greatful to our family and all of those others we love who have helped make these past 40 years together so enjoyable.

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