My Wife Zsuzsa - Part 8

 The next day was Sunday, August 6, 2000, and we went to church again on Sunday morning with the whole family. We decided to repeat our Sunday afternoon from the week before, so we again went to the American River and repeated our picnic, rope-swinging and tree-climbing ritual, and afternoon of relaxing together by the river talking.

At this point, we had been in love for almost a week and were already talking about getting married. I remember on this day walking by the river and talking about our plans for the future. I told her that I planned on being a missionary to Europe or starting a church in the US. I also explained that married life would not be like these two weeks of pure fun and spending money. I would actually have to go to work every day, and we would probably be very poor in the beginning. I also explained that being a missionary or starting a church would involve a lot of sacrifice. When the afternoon was over, we headed for the evening service at church.

One of the highlights of our second week of fun activities was going kayaking on the American River with my brother Clint, his wife Spring, and our cousin Joel. Afterward we went to an all-you-can-eat Chinese/seafood buffet. One of the fun things about this restaurant was that at the front door, they had a wall covered in hundreds of snapshots of various customers who would come in. They took a picture of our group with a Polaroid camera, and my brother Clint, in his typical comedic fashion, labeled the picture with "our names." He gave us all silly nicknames having to do with seafood. Zsuzsa became "Sue Shi", and he became "Cal O. Mari." On a previous visit with my sister to the same restaurant, we were trying to figure out why the fish we were eating were filled with something yellow. We asked the waitress who told us with a Chinese accent, "Everybody pregnant!"

On Thursday of the second week, we headed for a second day at Marine World. Our first day spent together had been at Marine World, and we had had a wonderful time, so we thought it would be fun to go back. This would lead to our second fight (we only had two fights on her whole 17-day visit, even though we spent every waking moment together).

To be continued...