Today's post.... my parents... which sadly, I don't have a picture of on my computer. I could probably find a print and scan it but that takes too long. So what can I say about my parents? Well I guess I could start with a little background info. I gave some before in my introduction so sorry if its repetitive.
My mom was born in Dallas, TX. Her dad worked for American Airlines as a flight engineer. Once LAX was growing and so was American her family moved to La Mirada, CA (my mom was 6 weeks old) and that was where she grew up.
My dad was born in Lewiston, ID and his dad worked for Chevron so they moved around a lot. They lived in Walla Walla, WA and Spokane, WA and Scottsdale, AZ and then his family eventually ended up in La Mirada, CA when he was a teenager.
So they both went to the same high school and that was where they met. They eventually started dating and later on when they were seniors my dad passed my mom a note saying "will you marry me. check yes or no" with two boxes to check. Yeah, that's their engagement story. So funny.
Well my mom was raised a Catholic and my dad Mormon. So that made for quite the conflict in planning their wedding. It eventually was too much of a pain so my parents decided to go to a courthouse and were married there. They then used the little bit of money they had for their honeymoon which was a flight to San Diego and stayed down there for the night then came back the next day.
So they had my bro in Sept (they were married in Dec) and had lived in Whittier, CA and Reseda, CA then eventually moved to a house my Grandpa Zapka (my mom's dad) owned in Simi Valley, CA. My dad had been going to school to learn about sheet metal and hvac stuff. So he's been doing the same job pretty much his whole life. My mom worked as a temp for a bit. She worked in the Knott's Berry Farm hotel. She also worked for an accounting firm in Beverly Hills that handled a lot of movie stars accounts. Some of the ones they handled were Pam Dawber (she was Mindy on Mork and Mindy) Tim Burton, Judd Hirsch (he was in Taxi and Independence Day) and Jack Nicholson. There were others but I can't remember them all. She actually had an opportunity to stay at Jack Nicholson's ranch. He let all the women at the office use it one weekend. How cool is that? My mom quit right before she had me and they were all really sad to see her leave but she knew she wanted a different life and didn't like the industry. They gave her gifts for me and my baby blanket ( I called it my sheepy cuz it had a sheep on it) was actually from Judd Hirsch. Pretty sweet. I think about all the perks that could come from working for celebrities but my mom cared about taking care of her family more. My brother at the time was going to a private school in Beverly Hills. It was the same school Kareem Abdul-Jabaar's son went to. It was a good school but my mom felt bad he was there all day while she worked and she was about to have me. She wanted to make sure she was taking good care of her kids so she quit and my bro started going to the elementary school down the street from where we lived then she had me.
As mentioned before my mom accepted the opportunity to hear the missionary discussions and then wanted to be baptized (when she was 8 months pregnant with me). Then my parents prepared themselves to be worthy to enter the temple and we were all sealed together on January 16 1985 (I think that was the right date). My parents did everything they could to give us what we need and things we wanted. They taught us what was right and helped me gained the strong testimony I have today. My parents also planned a family vacation every year. Even if we just went camping we always had fun together. They would take us to museums or go down to Ports 'o' Call by the Queen Mary. We'd take a family trip to Disneyland every year since my parents grew up in that area. I always loved spending time with my family. Even as a teenager.
To this day I still love doing stuff with my family. Even if its just sitting around and talking. I love my parents so much and am so grateful for the great example they were to me. Even though we've had our issues with extended family and they haven't always been there, my parents have and I'm so glad they live so close. I don't know what I'd do without them. They're the best!
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