First Meeting

Julie and I got married on the 30th of June 2012. We are having a great life together and continue to go on our adventures as they see fit to present themselves in our daily lives. 

This particular photo was taken on June 29th 2012. It is one of our many wedding photos taken to celebrate the union of Julie and I. The rest of the photos can be found here. I'm sure you'll appreciate them as we do. But I would like to start our little story before our marriage. The first day we met was in December of 2011. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I know it was on a Monday.

      Julie and I were at a midsingles family home evening lesson in Tempe, AZ. The exact address of the church building is 2707 South College Ave. Tempe, AZ 85282. The lesson was about Mother Mary and how she had to let go of her son Jesus Christ. It was a touching lesson. I kept looking over at Julie and she noticed. Julie was man-hating at the time, and of course I didn't know that. I saw that she had slight tears in her eyes. I felt compassionate and wanted to comfort her in some way. The lesson ended and afterwards there's usually time for socializing and a dessert of some sort. I think that this time it was cookies and icecream. I got a cookie, and went over to her and told her, "If you want to talk, I'm here." She thought to herself, "Who is this man who wants to 'Talk' with me?" She had no clue that I was sincere and only wanted to talk. I asked for her phone number and she turned me down. I wasn't rattled, but I would eventually prevail in the end. Now, she knows that this was just the first of many tries that I would ask for her phone number and that this was not the end of us meeting and getting to know each other. We continue getting to know each other till this day.

Our First Date

Us having fun at the place we went on our first date.

      We have a lot of adventures together. This is one of them. We were revisiting the place where we had our first date. It was at Tempe Town Lakes. There were many times that we came back to this place.

      On our first date we talked about, what Julie always laughs about, the reality of how Snow White would have been overwhelmed with poop from all of the birds that she kept around. It would have been very difficult to clean Snow Whites house. There would be poop on her arms and shoulders where they hung out all the time too! LOL! It just seams like a silly little dream of a movie to have such things happen. But, it is a dream of a movie and that’s why it’s called fantasy fiction.

      There were many times that we came back to this place to see the sun rise and to deliberate about marriage. We also talked about our life together and many things that, that entailed. On this date in particular we began to talk about marriage. We rode our bicycles to the place from my house. Julie met me at my house and then we rode from there down to Tempe Town Lakes. You can see the Mill Ave. Bridge in the background. We have always had fun riding our bicycles around town.

After this date we texted each other for a bit. Julie stated to one of her good friends that she would probably keep me around as a friend. Little did she know that I would try to marry her! :-)

Our outing on 5-13-2012 (seventeen days before our marriage)!

On this outing we were chillin at Starbucks and Julie wanted to go down Mill Ave. She hadn't been on Mill Ave. before. At Starbucks Julie had a strawberry blended cream drink and I had water. I think that we got a cake pop as well. Cake pops are on a stick, and they are covered in a hard shell of frosting. Let me post a photo of them. That would do it justice.

These are cake pops :-)

Julie decided that she didn't like cake pops after eating one. She said, "They taste too much like cake batter." I, for one, liked them and wouldn't mind having them more often!

Julie at Starbucks that day

After the stop at Starbucks we went walking down Mill Ave. to see the sights. At first we went to Hippie Gypsy, then we went to an herbal shop... The herbal shop reeked of marijuana :-( So, we jetted out of there and took the escalator up to the second story where there was a restaurant. We didn't go in because we were already full from eating at home. We took photos of the sun shining behind us through an opening.

We just had a fun day. After all the walking and riding our bikes around we were tired. Then I showed Julie where to get back on the Light Rail so that she could get back to her place, then I rode home to my house in Tempe, AZ.

That was a fun day :-)

Date night 5-18-2012

On this date we went to Oregano's pizza bistro. I had noodles with chicken strips mixed in, and thousand island dressing - my favorite.  I'm not sure what she had.

Between now and the previous post we had been spending a lot of time together. There was hardly a day that went by that we didn't see each other. There was small talk about marriage, but we were still in the dating stage.

We Had a nice view of the ocean from Southern and Dobson too! There was nice greenery!

Mainly we were just having fun socializing and flirting/teasing each other lol!

I found that we had a lot in common and were perfect for each other. Where one or the other lacked, the other one made up for it. Although she made up for my errors more than I made up for hers :-)

By this time I was thinking, " You know, President Hinckley said, 'Marry someone who will drag you to heaven.' I think that this wonderful young lady would be the one that could help me do that."

Trip to Bagdad June 17th 2012

Julie and I went to Bagdad, Arizona to see the her family. We saw Tyrone and his family; Jake and of course Roberta (Julie's Mom). Garnet Solomon, Julie's father, past away on December 13th 2004. We are sad, but know that he is in a great place free of pain and suffering. Julie misses him dearly. We had dinner at Tyrone's house with his family. The children went to bed before we ate. Later Jake came over after he got home from work and was able to freshen up a bit.

Bagdad is a mining town owned by a company called Freeport. The housing costs are very cheap ($300/month or so). There is a rare cancer that has taken quite a few people in that town. I don't know if the rare cancer is from the sun, or by what they are mining out of the open pit mine. It is a small town with only one grocery store. For the big shopping, people go to Prescott. Bagdad is located seventy miles west of Prescott. Wickenburg is the halfway point on the way there.

That was our trip. We only stayed there one night and two days. We stayed at Roberta's house. She had the most room in her house. Mom (Roberta) still lives there and doesn't work in the mine. It is a great blessing for her, seeing as most of her family still lives and works there.

Our Wedding Day! :-) Saturday June 30th 2012

Our Wedding Day

Two weeks before the wedding we had most of our plans made, but we still had a couple of things to go over. I will copy and paste the agenda here from the e-mail that we sent out.

E-MAIL:

Week before the Marriage:

This week is Julie's, and all of the plans listed below are optional based on Julie's approval. It is her wedding and the items below need to be talked about to Julie. She is planning everything going up to Saturday. She has the final word about everything. :-)

Julie works from mid-day, 12:00pm (noon), to 9pm. Monday through Friday.

June 25th Monday: Nothing but normalcy.

June 26th Tuesday: She works from 8am to 4:30pm and goes to her dress fitting at 5pm.

June 27th Wednesday: Julie will be in Glendale all day. Apache Taxi will pick Julie up at 6am and Carol Hartwig will drive her home. We are meeting with the bishop at the 1st Ave and Center church at 8:45pm.

June 28th Thursday: Uncle Ron is picking us up at 7:30am to get our marriage license in Mesa.

June 29th Friday: Mom is picking me up (not Julie) between 11:00am and 12 noon to decorate the building. Julie, make sure you have your phone on at home on your gmail account for decoration detail planning. We will be picking up the keys for the building sometime today. The keys will be in the little green watering can near the front door.

June 30th Saturday: This day is Julie's, and all of the plans listed below are optional based on Julie's approval. It is her wedding and the items below need to be talked about to Julie. She is planning everything this day. She has the final word about everything :-). Hair done and pedicure in the morning for Julie starting early 8 or 9am. Meeting at the church at 3:30pm for family photos. Meet bishop Mortensen at 5pm in the building. Wedding is at 5:30pm. Dad (David) Hartwig could sing "Sweet Hour of Prayer." We could have background music (hymns) as well. Russel will download hymns from the church website and play them during the wedding down time. Both Roberta Sipes and Carol Hartwig might be giving talks about each of the bride and groom. Julie really wants the wedding to be in the Chapel. We will try our best to make this happen. Of course do everything Julie wants. It is her wedding (and mine too, but with all respect, it is her wedding even though she is marrying me. Her marrying me is just a formality ;-). Don't worry about the food. Mom (Carol Hartwig) has the meal planned.

Saturday Night June 30th through July 4th 2012: We will be on our honeymoon. Pack Sunday Clothes, food, swim suit, cd player, computers. The left over wedding food will be packed in a cooler that we are getting for our wedding gift.

Saturday Night June 30th 2012 (again): Someone needs to return the keys to the building coordinator this night.

If there are any questions for Julie please call her and leave a message. Email her, if needed. She will return your call as soon as she can. Another good resource for planning is Carol Hartwig. Please call me as well if you need to. Mom Hartwig (Carol) does a great job planning. So please feel free to call her more often. We will forward the messages to Julie when she is available.

At the latest be at the building at 5:15pm. 3:30pm for those who are in the family photo shoot. For those who still need it; the wedding address is here: 15 West 1st Ave. Mesa, AZ 85210. Please park anywhere. There is parking all around the building.

Please print out the photo of the building coordinators map/address. It will be very useful for returning the key late that evening :-)

The Wedding Invite Youtube Video is here:

http://youtu.be/mf3tfjttm68

Thank you!!!!

- D. Russel Hartwig

E-MAIL END.

That was the plans for the wedding, and the Youtube video is still there. We had a wonderful wedding!!! Our photos were taken the day of our wedding on Saturday June 30th 2012 (that morning) and are found here. and here are some previews...