502. Swedish Pancakes (recipe) for Breakfast for our 60th Wedding Anniversary today!

It is right now 6:37 a.m. and I can't sleep.  So much has been going on in my mind about the last 60 years.  When we were married in 1955, life was quite different.  Wayne had returned home from the army, after serving there after his mission to Sweden in 1950-1953.  He had the GI Bill which helped us get through college, and we were both ready to be married.  He had turned 25 years old in the last week, and I was still 20, but would turn 21 on October 6th soon. 

  
First of all, (in the present) this morning, after eating only blended food for 2 or 3 weeks, Wayne was able to eat a Swedish pancake, with apricot jam and whipped topping on it, without it being blended.  The recipe for it, our family favorite, is: 

 Swedish pancakes,
  4 eggs, 3/4 cup flour, 1 1/2 cups milk, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, 2                                         tablespoons oil, and 1 tsp. salt. 

 Batter is quite runny.  Cook on hot griddle, being sure to use cooking spray in the pan, turning over when top is no longer shiny.  Serve with jam, jelly, syrup, or strawberries, and whipped cream.  Delicious, and the favorite of all the family.  This recipe serves around 3 people.  You can double, triple, etc. the recipe.  Whenever we get together, the family loves to have these Swedish pancakes, and they are easy to make.

  The radiation for his esophageal cancer is working!  He is just over half through.  I have told about it in blog  # 491, on August 29th, 2015.  Also it is mentioned in blog # 499 on Sept. 18, 2015, his 85th birthday last Friday.  

The blog # 496, on Sept. 12, 2015, tells about the family reunion on Sept. 5th, 2015, where all of our children, many grand and great grand children, and all of his twin brother Blaine's children came to celebrate (early) this 60th wedding anniversary!  There are pictures of the family in the blog, # 496.

We met on a blind date in August of 1953.  Wayne had just returned from his 2 1/2 year mission to Sweden, and I had completed one year at Dixie College.  He lived in Murray, south of Salt Lake City, and I lived in St. George, and we were going up to a family reunion in Salt Lake.  My best friend from St. George, Rosemary Snow Hasler, had married Richard Hasler who was a good friend of Wayne's.  They wanted to introduce us.  That night they picked us up at an old Church in the Salt Lake Valley, where I was at the reunion.  I remember we were on an upper floor in some small recreation hall, and the first time I saw Wayne was when they came up the stairs to find me.  That night the 4 of us rode around in their car, and the men talked about their high school days, etc.  That was about it.  At the end of the evening Wayne told me that he would write to me, as he was drafted into the army, and would go in the army the next month, in September.  I told him "Pal Miles, St. George, Utah" would get to me. (It would in those days, and it did -- the next May!) 

That winter I was very busy in Dixie College, and I didn't hear from Wayne for 8 months!  He had gone to basic training, visited home in Salt Lake a time or two, and now was over in Trieste, near Italy.  This was his first letter to me:

 Trieste

May 18, 1954

Dear Pal,

I'll bet you don't even remember me.  I met you last summer in Salt Lake when Richard Hasler and his wife, Rosemary, introduced you to me.  I thought I would write you a few lines in my spare moments, and tell you a little about what has transpired since our last and only meeting.  I went back to Fort Ord and completed my basic training, and shipped out to Camp Kilmer, N.J.  I left the states the latter part of February, and arrived in Germany the first part of March.  They later sent my twin brother and I here to Trieste, which lies between Italy and Yugoslavia.  We have been here two months, and I am finally getting around to writing to people I should have written to long ago.  We have it quite good here.  We only train half a day and work on issued equipment the other half.  It could be worse.  It is a long way from home, but I am used to being away from home being that I fulfilled my mission in Sweden previous to my induction into Uncle Sam's Army. 

How's the world treating you?  I hope you are well and happy.  I enjoy seeing happy people.  I enjoy making people happy who find it hard to remain so.  When we enjoy the sweet  blessings we receive because of our membership in the Church of Jesus Christ, that alone should be an incentive for us to get the most out of life.  I get a little down-hearted sometimes because of how things go, but I don't let it get me completely down.

I can't remember what your full name is.  You told me to just call you Pal, so I am doing so.  Have you heard any news from Richard and Rosemary?  I haven't heard from them for quite a spell.

Well, I'll sign off for this time.  I hope you will write me a few lines and let me know how everything is with you.  Seeing that you are a Pal, I'll sign off  as a buddy.

Wayne

P.S.:  Don't take as long as I took.

I had a job waiting for me in Salt Lake after I had graduated with a 2 year Associate Degree from Dixie. I had loved Genealogy for many years, and I had gone up and taken a type test, and passed it. That summer I worked in the (old) Genealogical Library. We typed the old wide family group sheets and Temple index cards.  How times have changed!  Now you can clear names from the Temple right from your own computer (which wasn't invented in 1955!)

  I waited to answer him until I had moved to Salt Lake for the summer.  During the following winter I went to BYU, and we wrote letters.  During that year I had a very strong impression he would be the one I would marry, when reading one of his very inspirational letters.  A few years ago we published all our letters in a book, for our posterity.

I was working in Salt Lake again the next summer, when he came home from the army.  We did get acquainted through letters well enough that when he got home we were engaged in 3 weeks, and married 2 months after that, in the St. George Temple.  He started college just 12 days before we were married, so our first 4 years of marriage were going to college! 

  Wayne sent this to me during that winter of 1994-1995, while in the army.

This is a picture of me about the time we met on our blind date, in 1953.

Another picture of Wayne in his full army uniform.

This is a picture I sent to Wayne when he was in the army.

This was taken on our honeymoon in Zion's Canyon.

Today we will mostly stay home, but go to a good movie this afternoon.  We would go to the Temple but it is closed for cleaning!  The day we were married, we came out of the Temple and it was raining hard!  That was unusual for St. George.  We had crepe paper streamers tied to the car, and they were wet and fading, but we had a wonderful day, and a lovely reception that night.  After a 2 day honeymoon (all we could afford) back to school!

Since then we have had 9 children, 29 grandchildren, and 14 great grandchildren.  They now live in Oceanside,California, Mesa, Arizona, Menan, Idaho, Bountiful, Utah, Eden, Utah, and St. George and Santa Clara close by.  We aren't able to travel and visit them now that Wayne is on dialysis, but we love it when any of them come and visit, or call or write!

            This was taken around 2 years ago.  We have changed in 60 years!

 WE LOVE ALL OF YOU, AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE THE REASON FOR US BEING HERE, AND GETTING MARRIED--EXACTLY WHEN WE DID!  YOU ARE THE JOYS OF OUR LIVES!