The scene: A softball game at the BYU 108^th Ward opening social in April.

A few days later, Holly drove Harold to the Salt Lake City Airport, where he boarded a plane to go to ROTC Field Training for a month. A couple weeks after Harold returned to Provo from field training he went to Oregon with Holy for the break before Fall Semester at BYU. On September seventh, Harold proposed. The two were married December 19,1986.

The newly weds spent a few days of bliss on the Oregon coast, then Christmas at Morrows' home. On Christmas day they headed down to Ridgecrest, California for a second reception, and to Huntington Beach, then back to Utah.

The rebelled and blew its transmission outside of Santa Barbara, eighty miles from the Danish capital of America-Solvang. Harold and Holly were forced to relax in the luxury of Don and Loraine Toomey's home in Solvang. It was wonderful!

They returned to their new apartment in Provo, Utah a few days later.

Holly had a rather rough beginning. Shortly after returning from the honeymoon, Carlisle Manufacturing Company hired her as an assembly line seamstress. After a couple months of coming home every day brain-dead, aching, broke and unmotivated, the search began for other employment.

She then became a Greeter/Dispatcher at the Sears Automotive Center. She was much happier there, but it was only part-time employment.

In August, WordPerfect Corporation (the producers of the best word processing software), hired Holly as a Typographer in the Publications Department. There she typesets the software manuals, brochures and other documents published by WordPerfect.

She loves her work and is cheerfully helping a particular Electrical Engineer through school.

Harold is a second year senior majoring in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in computers, minoring in Mathematics and Aerospace Studies. He will graduate in August 1988, then receive his commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.

He hopes to begin graduate work next September in an engineering field, postponing active duty for a year.

Becoming an accredited genealogist has caught Holly's interest. Beginning in 1988 she will take Independent Study Courses to aid her in becoming a licensed genealogist. This will be great for extra income in the future (if needed) and for work she can do in the home. Plus she loves genealogy.

It was rapid summer for Harold and Holly-literally! Seeking adventure they took a Kayaking class together at BYU. To save money the enthusiastic couple made two kayaks in their backyard. Sounds easy, huh? That part wasn't so rapid.

After practicing their Eskimo rolls in a swimming pool, the class kayaked down Provo Canyon River in the rain. That was just the beginning of the adventure...

For the grand finale the class took a three-day field trip, during which they had two runs a day down different sections of the Snake River in Wyoming. After two runs down gnarly rapids, Holly was the only one who still hadn't tipped over. "Fear kept me well balanced in my kayak," was Holly's only comment.

Holly's kayak broke (not one of the ones they made) and Harold nearly drowned, so for the last river run they relaxed and were the shuttle for their class.

It was Harold and Holly's first camp out together. Harold looked out the tent door and saw a tree, and Holly washed her hair in the freezing river, and they both lived happily-ever-after. The end.

Last November WordPerfect Corporation decided to send any employee and their spouse to COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada for a day. COMDEX is the world's largest computer show, which has over 5,000 booths and lasts for an entire week.

Harold and Holly couldn't pass up the opportunity so on November sixth they boarded the chartered bus at 4 a.m. While in Las Vegas they picked up Top One hats from the WordPerfect booth (a take-off of "Top Gun"-the movie). Knowing that they couldn't possibly see all the booths Harold and Holly decided to hunt for the printer that would best fit their needs. By the day's end they knew all they ever wanted to know about printers. They were exhausted; somewhat like you might feel if you've just spent twelve hours trying to see the EPCOT Center in one visit. It was exciting to see all the innovative computer products inventors create!

At 5:30 that evening they reboarded the bus, taking with them everything from plotted F16 Air Force fighter jet posters to microchip key chains and full stomachs from their first prime rib dinner. Exciting, huh?

In August of 1987 Harold and Holly became the proud parents of Turk, a turquoise parakeet. -Better than a Cabbage Patch Kid, this one chirps, he even whistles. Shy and quiet, Turk said nothing for an entire week. Having improved tremendously, he is relaxed and continually sings, plays with his bell on his homemade perch, and eats everything in sight, and has remarkable crash landings.

We have really enjoyed writing this newsletter for you. Even though you probably haven't had as much fun reading it as we have had writing it, at least we've caught you up on this past year's events.

You are in our prayers, and we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and an even better new year.

With love,

To view the original scanned "Toomey Times" Christmas Newsletter, click on the scanned pages below: