I met him briefly on my 16th birthday in the summer of 1985, and didn't see him again until school started that fall. He was the TA in the guitar class I took and asked me out. We became very close friends throughout high school and then I left for Army boot camp at the end of the summer of 1987. When I came home for Christmas, we spent every moment together. When I found out I was pregnant a month later, he proposed marriage. I accepted. And just like that, we were doing it the hard way!

We shared a UFO sighting on New Year's Eve, 2013 in El Cajon, California (look it up on YouTube)! Alone in our apartment with a balcony that looked out over our parking lot, neighbor's houses and foothills, deep into our conversation, Mark noticed large red lights out the window and asked if I had put them there. I said “what lights?” I looked and saw a row of big red lights and then more rows shining through fog. They began moving slowly up and sideways and then faded away. We asked “why us?”

Our dream home needs a few dream improvements. We need safer walkways and better drainage for the sometimes extreme weather we get, and we are trying to make nice spaces for the grandchildren to play in.