How we Purnell's like to party

It's amazing how frank our society has become. I am constantly shocked at some of the questions I get asked. Like yesterday, somebody asked me if I was still happy after 14 years of marriage. I tried to think of some witty way to say, "none of your bee's-wax," but the person asking was a bit too quick. (probably because I've been married to him for 14 years) Seriously though, I do get asked that question a lot and not always by my hubby. I guess it's hard for some people to believe that Carl and I would still find each other interesting after so many years, and what is our secret? I simply tell them that is the beauty of mental illness. Crazy people are interesting people. They laugh, realize I'm serious, and never ask me anything again. That could explain why we're not invited to more social gatherings, but I digress. Honestly, I find that life is interesting enough no matter what your mental state and Carl and I have had enough interesting experiences to last a lifetime. Heck, most of our anniversaries would fit under the 'interesting' category.

Our first anniversary was spent with a 3 week old baby in Richmond Utah, at a Carlson reunion, with my dad. Wayne graciously agreed to watch Bryant so Carl and I could go out to dinner. I believe we hit the Wendy's drive through and continued on to the only private place we could think of...the Richmond cemetery. At the time hanging out in the cemetery seemed perfectly logical. Looking back, however, I can see that spending your first anniversary in a cemetery can be considered...well...weird. (just another example of a mental illness bonus-everything is weird, therefore nothing is weird...which, in a way, is weird)

Another memorable anniversary is the one where we 'camped.' As a kid I loved camping. Maybe because all my camping experiences involved my grandparent's fifth wheel, meaning we always had running water and flushable toilets. Thinking myself to be some great outdoors-man, who just loved roughing it, I eagerly suggested camping for our 3rd anniversary. (doesnt' that just sound like such fun?) Carl, who claims memory loss at any of these events, agreed and so we pawned Bry off on our friends, packed up our meager camping gear, and headed up Logan canyon. Four hours later we headed down Logan Canyon, stopped at a store so I could use the bathroom, and home we went. In my defense, it was my very FIRST experience with an outhouse. I discovered that you take a certain number of risks when using an outhouse. The most memorable being, bug bites itch no matter where they are.

After so much fun Carl decided I was no longer allowed to plan our anniversaries. For our tenth he wanted to go all out and party Purnell style. I found out that Purnell style is almost as much fun as Tiffany style. Our destination: the beautiful white sand beaches of Cancun, Mexico. Unfortunately, that was also the destination of one hurricane Emily. Looking back, our spidey senses should have tingled a bit when we noticed how many people weren't on the plane with us or the line of people waiting to LEAVE Cancun. But no. We were blissfully clueless and ready to party 'Purnell' style. I don't want to put all the blame on the category 5 hurricane. We probably could have still made it the romantic week of our dreams even with a hurricane roaring all around us. No,it wasn't Emily that killed the romance, it was the 30 other people bunking in with us. That's not to say that our time spent with these 30 people wasn't entertaining. It was. Somehow Carl and I ended up with the east coast crowd. New Yorkers to be exact. Take a roomful of New Yorkers, add in an open bar (for those that drink), and you have the formula for hours upon hours of endless entertainment. Good times. (here's a question: why do drunk people particularly enjoy conversing with sober people? Carl in particular.)

Hurricane Emily comes rolling
in

Carl looking quite
dapper

Our nifty hallway haven--
until they made us move
(something about safety,
windows, and flying broken glass)

This is a few days after the sixth Harry Potter book came out (you can see it lying
between Carl and I)  Desperate people, who didn't have the same brilliant foresight
as myself, were offering me ridiculous amounts of money for it.  In my brilliance---I said no.
Sadly, that is one of the smartest things I did on this trip.

The girl next to me was one of our 'open bar' buddies.  Carl and I didn't have the heart to tell her
she didn't have any cell service.