Yes, this is a long tale. It covers over 55 years of love, adventure, and a marriage that, to the end, remains stronger than most contracts. This is the story of Pete and Vicki, told by Pete. Warning. It's ending is not a happy one. But it is worth the read and gives you insight into why this business is special, different, and worth your time and patronage.

 

As children, Vicki and I played in the “same house”, but ironically never met. It was my best friend David’s home, where Vicki played with David’s sisters. We were around eight years old. Fast forward to Wednesday, March 22, 1967.

 

Vicki was visiting her cousin in Riverside,  CALIFORNIA. Her cousin went to my high school. Vicki just happened to visit on that day, and we met. It was love at first sight for me - not so much her. I wouldn’t quit talking to her and was sent to the back of the class. Vicki returned on Friday. Again, I wouldn’t quit talking to her and once more was banished. That Saturday I went to her grandmother's home to visit her. The next morning was Easter, and Vicki finally relented and invited me to go with her to church.

 

So started our romance that would last over 55 years. Oh, we had our ups and downs, our spats, even broke up once. But I would not change a thing being with her. We had to marry in Juarez, Mexico be Californiause at that time a girl could get married at 18 without parental consent, but a guy had to be 21 even if he was in the military. My mom refused to sign, as Vicki was not  Catholic. Unfortunately, the US government did not recognize Mexican marriages for military personnel and Vicki was not entitled to any benefits.

 

We were expecting our first child, and the medi Californial benefits were needed as my income at the time was $122.00 a month. My folks finally consented, and Vicki and I were married again on Nov 12th, 1970. This time I  Californiame home on a one-day pass from  Californiamp Pendleton, picked up Vicki, then her mom from work and went to her church. Her pastor and his wife were there, married us, then I took Vicki’s mom back to work, Vicki back home and returned to  Californiamp Pendleton.

 

No honeymoon. Vicki never complained.

 

Three days later, our first daughter Christi was born. I spent three years in the Marines, and missed deployment to Vietnam three times.  In June of 1973, our youngest daughter Bridget was born. The following month my tour of duty was up and it was time to move on to civilian life. At this time Vicki and I purchased our second home and were living in Riverside, California.

 

 

I went to work for Rohr Aircraft. After one year we decided to move to Washington State. No promise of a job, but with self-confidence and a letter of recommendation from the Director of Rohr we moved. Three weeks later I was working for Boeing. For 35 years Vicki and I lived in Washington State. Through that time, we have had many adventures. For instance, our first winter we had 28 inches of snow and went for 36 hours without power. I spent 23 years with Boeing, during which we went through labor strikes, promotions, cutbacks, layoffs, and more. There was always a job to be had if someone wanted to work.

 

 

We eventually purchased our third home in Federal Way, WA. The house was originally built in the late 1890’s. In 1907, it was the Gate House for a church camp. The original deed prohibited alcohol and tobacco on the premises. Vicki saw that and refused to purchase it as we smoked and drank at the time. It took some convincing to get her to sign.

 

The owner had rented the house out to a divorced couple - Six months out of the year she lived there and six months he lived there. Their four boys lived there all year long. What a mess we had. Every room had paneling. The boys had started fires in the middle of the wall in the living room. The boys had not been taught what Kleenex was for, as they used the walls. The fish pond out front had everything in it including parts of the kitchen sink. The house had a septic tank, old cast iron pipes and two pole wiring for the electric, with no ground. On top of that we had rats. I promised Vicki I would clean that house and totally remodel it for her. It took two and a half years, but I accomplished it.

 

In October of 1982 the Good Lord decided it was time for me to quit running and spoke to my heart. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. The best thing in my life I have ever done. Of course I found with that comes challenges. No one ever said accepting Christ would be easy.

In November I ruptured a spinal disk and was off work for a while. In December Vicki had her purse stolen with all our Christmas money in it. We also had our waterbed that was upstairs in our bedroom spring a leak.

 

Then on Jan 9th, while at church, our house  Caught on fire.

 

 

We had gone to church in another town, and a friend notified us our home was on fire. It was the longest 30-minute trip in our life. When we arrived, there were 21 volunteer firefighters fighting the fire. It took them a total of four hours to completely put it out. That is a traumatic experience -- watching everything you own go up in smoke. Our pastor and friends from church brought the girls home, and we stood in the middle of the street in the rain singing “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow”. When asked why, my response was I have my wife, my children, our dog and we are safe. All the rest is “things that can be replaced”.

 

For the next five months God worked miracle upon miracle.

 

Building permits that normally took six months we had in two weeks, electricians, drywallers, plumbers, a/c, heating specialist and neighbors all coming out of the woodwork to help us rebuild. We lived in our 17’ travel trailer for five months as we rebuilt our home. Of course, the girls wanted to have their friends spend the weekends with them, so things did get crowded. We had a plumber come out on a Saturday and connected the house to sewer from septic. He and his son spent eleven hours and furnished all the materials.

 

He charged us $60 for the entire job.

 

This was just one of hundreds of miracles God performed. Our trailer did not have a bathroom, so I placed plywood sheets on the ground to keep our feet from getting muddy and we ran inside to the bathroom to shower and use the toilet. As there were few walls and no heat, the girls learned to take short showers. We cooked on a cook stove on the back porch and washed the dishes on a sink between two sawhorses using the garden hose. A five-month camping experience in the rain, snow and cold.

In September of 1983 I reinjured my back and had to have back surgery. Two months later I was able to return to work. I remember being so embarrassed as we would go to the grocery store and instead of carrying out the groceries myself Vicki made sure the worker there did, even if she was 100 pounds soaking wet. The doctor said, "Here is what you must do," and she made sure I did it. Thanks to her I never had back surgery again.

 

We had gone from a 1,400 sqft A-frame house to a full 2,600 sqft five- bedroom two story house. It didn’t take long for God to show me why he gave us this new home. We took in 43 foster children, and dozens of friends and family that needed a place to stay. Our home was set up to where we could sleep 13 people without putting any on the floor. Ours was the Kool-aid house. At night I may go to bed with a half dozen kids there and wake up at 4:00 am to go to work with a dozen sleeping on the couches and floors. The longest foster child we had was for almost 2 1/2 years. We had one of our daughter’s friends live with us for almost five years, but she was not in the system.

 

We had children of different ethnic backgrounds, some who couldn’t speak English, some that were abused and others molested. They arrived by taxi, police, and case workers. They arrived on their birthdays and at 2:00 am. Vicki always made sure they had a birthday party, presents and guests. Clean clothes, all the food they wanted to eat and a heart full of love for each and every one of them.

 

After losing a foster child we had grown attached to, John, which we had for 2 ½ years, the emotional toll was getting too much on Vicki and we had to give up doing foster care. That didn’t stop our involvement with our kids and other kids. We were both Brownie Leaders (not enough mothers so I had my own troop), active PTA members, Missionette Leaders at church, Sunday School teachers, church deacon, track, softball and bowling coaches.

 

Vicki also did day care for a couple of years. When Vicki would pull up to the kid’s school, dozens of kids would be yelling, “Hi mom!” To this day, many of those kids now in their 50’s are still calling her “mom”.

 

Vicki and I loved to ride motorcycles. We rode Triumphs for fourteen years then I had Vicki ride with a friend on his Goldwing. That was it, she wanted one and I bought her one the same night. Vicki rode until she no longer was capable of it.

 

 

In January of 1988 Vicki was visiting her mom in  California, I was working 2nd shift at Boeing and the girls were home. A neighbor was driving on the street behind us and saw smoke. He contacted the neighbors behind us, but it was not their house.

 

Our garage was on fire.

 

They called the girls, had them leave the house to a neighbor and called the fire dept. The girls called me, and I rushed home from work. The fire was out by the time I arrived, but the Fire Marshall had called the Arson Investigator in as it was almost five years to the day we had had our first fire. It took the investigator four hours to determine we had a short in an extension cord that was plugged in.

 

The Fire Marshall told me it was the “Hand of God” that kept the garage from exploding and taking out part of our house, and the house behind us. Directly above the flames were two full cans of kerosene. The heat blew the lid off a gallon of lacquer thinner (extremely flammable) and blew the can fifteen feet across the floor not spilling a drop. There was an 80-gallon air compressor that would have acted like a bomb had the window broken and gave oxygen to the flames. Two motorcycles, ammunition and more. Once again God protected my children. Vicki and I rebuilt the garage bigger and better, bought Vicki a newer and nicer motorcycle.

 

Vicki and I enjoyed decorating for Christmas. My dad did when I was a kid, and I followed in his footsteps. In fact, I used the same templates he did for building some of my decorations. We started out small then switched to the mini lights. Each year we added more lights and decorations. It became an annual local site, with folks from Canada, Idaho and Oregon driving all the way to see it. Fire Trucks, ambulances and police cruisers - all would turn their lights and sirens on. Tour buses, church groups and more would make sure to see what we had added that year.

 

In the month of December, we would pass out over 10,000 candy canes. I would always dress up like Santa and greet the cars giving candy canes to everyone in the car. I had special foot long candy cane I would give to the children five and under. Their eyes always lit up when I pulled the special ones out of my coat. At our peak we had over 35,000 lights. We would laugh and say the airplanes lined up for SeaTac Airport using our house. We had a full size sled and reindeer in which people took pictures, Vicki’s Buick Riveria was decorated, winter wonderland scenes and a full size Nativity Scene with a full size Santa on his knees, hat in hand and head bowed at the manger.

 

It took three weeks to set up with the first night our girls having a house full of friends over to sort through Christmas lights, seeing which worked and which didn’t from the previous year. Vicki decorated the inside with over two thousand lights and decorations to the point we never turned on overhead lights from Thanksgiving night till after New Years. Over the years we literally met thousands of wonderful people.

 

We would have other Santa’s come by to say hi. On one occasion a Santa was in a sleigh being pulled on a trailer. As they were leaving Vicki reached up to give him a hug and the driver ran over her foot with the trailer. The girls and their friends use to sing “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” when they saw her.

 

Vicki and I were entrepreneurs at heart. I worked full time for Boeing but we always had something on the side. Wood working, a trucking company for a couple of years, and a BumperBoat operation, that being the most fun. We had that for two years and had twelve employees all of who liked the perks of free rides when not working.

 

In 1991, we had our first grandbaby Chantel. Christi was the first granddaughter. Chantel was the first great-granddaughter. I told Christi I was too young at 39. What a joy when Chantel was born. Today we have seven grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren with two more on the way. We have been truly blessed.

 

 

In 1999 Vicki and I made the decision to leave Boeing. We had many friends and co-workers that passed away just before or just after retiring. We decided to leave early and travel around the country and see things and people we had never saw before, or it had been years since we saw them. For thirteen months we traveled the country in our car. We saw things and people that, had we waited, would no longer have been there or would have passed away. It was the trip of a lifetime.

 

Folks would ask how we could spend that much time sitting next to each other day in and day out. We would smile and say we were “newlyweds.” From a financial perspective it was not a good move, but from the joy we experienced it was more than worth it. Vicki and I went on to many adventures. For a while, I did concrete cutting for a couple of different companies working on freeways and airports until I was tee-boned in my truck while driving home from work and was laid up for 18 months. We were involved in nutritional and water businesses. We sold our house in Washington and started a construction company building houses in 29 Palms, California in 2006. We soon learned of the corruption in that industry, starting with the cities and states. We worked at that until the bottom dropped out in 2008-09 and we lost everything.

 

Vicki and I returned to Washington State and I went to work for a couple of contractors working every type of job imaginable. I progressed to doing a lot of my own contracting, we began living in RV’s starting with a 22’ Travel Trailer, then to a 34’ RV and finally to a 36’ with two slides. Eventually Vicki decided she no longer wanted to live in Washington State as all of her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids were in Arizona and California. We moved to Arizona into an RV park and I set up my equipment in one of my granddaughter’s garages. We were supposed to be retired, but I, like my dad, had to be active.

 

I worked with our youngest daughter for a while, then our oldest daughter and son-in-law, and started a “Hide-a-Gun” wood working business. We did very well selling these at gun shows. Covid hit, the gun shows were shut down, which basically put us out of business. We were resilient enough and switched to selling political memorabilia as it was election season. Things slowed down after the election.

 

Then - Vicki’s health started to deteriorate.

 

First, they had to do one surgery, then a pacemaker, then she was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and the first stages of Alzheimer’s. We were familiar with that disease as Vicki’s mother, grandmother and an uncle on her dad’s side had all died from Alzheimer’s. Today her younger sister, three brothers and two uncles all have various stages of Alzheimer’s. It was devastating. Many told us we should prepare for a hospice, others we should put her in a home.

 

Neither suggestions, albeit given in concern and love, were even considered. This was my newly wed, my soul mate, my better half.

Life began to change for us. As Alzheimer’s progresses, the brain begins to shrink and motor skills begin to change. Not only memory, but how to eat, dress, walk and do normal activities. It also influences mood swings with sufferers becoming argumentative, rebellious, angry and more. I watched Vicki’s health deteriorate to the point I told family I didn’t think she had much time. We were preparing for the worst.

 

Vicki lost the ability to be able to climb stairs and, after having to have the paramedics out for numerous falls, we moved in with our daughters. Spending time with one, then the other. We had to sell the motor home as we no longer could use it.

Then, Vicki came down with a virus the doctors said had probably come across the border. They had no idea what it was or how to treat it but threw various antibiotics at it. Many people had the same symptoms. Vicki went comatose for several days and when she recovered, she could no longer walk. She was now completely bedridden. Alzheimer’s had progressed to where she has no control of her legs, body functions, or speech.

 

Sometimes she can answer questions and speak a few sentences, other times not at all. Many nights she has lain in bed calling out to Jesus to take her home to be with her mom and dad, and many nights I believed it was my last night with her.

Loving someone and sharing 55 years of your life together then having them change before your eyes from your best friend, lover and spouse to your one-year-old child devastates your world. I love Vicki as much as when we were first married, but I have had to realize she is not the same person I married and never will be again. On the days when she forgets who I am, I just tell her “I am your best friend”, and she smiles.

To maintain my sanity, and to help with medical expenses, I started “Vicki’s Custom Laser Engraving”. It started as more of a hobby, however one day, hopefully, it will pay for the cost of the machines and materials, as well as Vicki's medical needs.  Until then, it gives me something to do when she is napping. Laser engraved items make great gifts as my kids and grandkids have learned.

Until the day the Good Lord calls Vicki home, I will enjoy the good days she has and share our past together through songs, pictures and memories with her.