The Addinks: Us... and beyond

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

This post comes with a soundtrack. I know, I know... the cheese meter just pegged itself at Gouda (Mmmmmmm... Gouda.) You'll have to deal with it...

Paige was student teaching down in Sioux City. Her last day of teaching was March 2nd. I called her teacher, and told her that I wanted to ask Paige to marry me on her last day of teaching. The teacher was already throwing a party, so that worked perfectly. She said she wouldn’t breathe a word to Paige. She did however tell the entire class, the principal, and most of the teachers. Pretty much everyone knew what was happening that day but Paige. How an entire class of first graders kept their mouths shut, I have no idea.

I snagged the ring from the sock drawer, and picked up the prettiest flowers I have ever seen, and made my way down to Sioux City that afternoon. When I showed up, the teacher found me in the hall and said “I hope you don’t mind, but I called the paper and they came to do a story.”

Huh?

As if I wasn’t nervous enough, now there are reporters there too? The introverted engineer is in way, way over his head.

Paige opened all her gifts from her students. The last one was a white wrapped box, with a blue ribbon. Inside it was another box. Then another. I can’t remember how many boxes I did. But it was a lot. And the final box held her ring. I think Paige only made it into the first box before she figured out what it was and started shaking.

I walked to the front of the class, took a knee, gave her the ring, and asked her to marry me. She said yes, of course. How could she resist a catch like me? ;)

The next day, we discovered that the story wasn’t tucked back in some special interest section. It was on the front page of the Sioux City Journal. Must have been a slow news day. In my 8 AM engineering class, my professor whipped out the paper before class started and showed everyone in class who hadn’t already heard through the grapevine. I think we must have been mailed about 50 copies of that paper.

"The" paper

About a week later, they also did a story in the Sioux Center News, which also was mailed to us by everyone we knew. It’s the most famous I have ever been (or ever hope to be again, unless I win the Nobel prize or something.)

The rest, of course, is history. I dragged her off to Arizona after graduation, we got married in Michigan in December, honeymoon in Manzanillo, and before you know it we are up to our elbows in young'ns.

Writing these posts just reminds me that I love Paige even more today than when that odd, awkward engineering major plopped down at her table and squeaked out "I really like you." Looking back, I can see all the little ways that God was leading me right to her, as improbable as that path might have seemed to me at the time. Both of us going to Dordt when none of our siblings did, tagging along with the Montana clique, getting rooms next door, Paige going out with my roommate in order to drive me so crazy that I actually worked up the cojones to ask her out. Even the fact that I had never been on a date before (half dates don't count.) She is my first real love, my first date, my first kiss... first everything.

God truly did bless the broken road, and lead me straight to her. I couldn’t have asked Him for a better woman…

My lovely bride and me, December '99...