Troy and I built a life and a family together 30 years ago but have just recently built a marriage... We got married at the JOP on June 10th, 1995. Eventually, as relationship sometimes do, slowly faded away and we realized we had lost "us". Just when we thought we'd hit the bottom of the barrel we found a seed of hope. We planted the seed, nurtured and cared for it and eventually the seed grew and then blossomed. We now treat our relationship just this way, knowing the more time and energy we put into it, the happier we'll be. We learned to love and appreciate our history, the good and the bad, because it is a piece of "us" and we wouldn't be where we are now without it. Coming up on our 30 year wedding anniversary, we decided what better time to renew our committment to each other in front of our friends and family who have been vested in us from the beginning. We love you all and are so thankful for each and every one of you.

Our paths crossed many times before we officially met. When I was in grade school, my brothers played on the same all-star baseball team as Troy for one summer. I thought he was soooo cute and snapped a photo of him without him knowing with my disposable camera. I also saw him in Walmart once and followed him. (This was all before we knew what stalking was...) Troy graduated OHS in 1991. He was 17 and I was 15. My group of friends started palling around some with his group of friends. We met one night in a new subdivision they were building near our home on the North side of Ottawa. Julie, Erin and I met Troy and his friends in someone's newly poured basement and had a few Milwaukee's Best. We were soon dispersed in separate directions when a cop came down the road. We saw Troy a few days later in the parking lot at Handy Foods. We laughed, shared stories, showed off cuts, bruises and Troy's severe case of "contact dermatitis". Soon after that, Troy and I became inseparable. He was shy and didn't try to kiss me for almost 3 weeks. We both knew he had already committed to go into the Marines and was supposed to leave at the end of the summer. A few short months was all we had to start the rest of our lives. We cherished every moment and watched Grease on repeat all Summer. We made it official on 07/21/1991 at Allen Park. Troy told me I needed to make a choice: 1. stay together and commit to a 4-year long distance relationship 2. break up and end our friendship as he thought it would be too difficult to manage the distance as friends. The answer was clear before he finished saying it to me. I had no doubt in my mind I wanted to be with Troy. I remember the day he left like it was yesterday. I met him down at the recruiter's office. It was the hardest of what seemed like endless, difficult goodbyes over the next 3.5 years. When Troy was in boot camp, I wrote to him every day to try and keep his spirits up. My family did not care for Troy much but gave in once they saw how committed we were to making it work. Troy missed Christmas that year and sent me a letter saying, "USMC stands for U Suckers Missed Christmas". In Spring of 1995, I was finishing up my Spring Semester at IVCC. The plan was to stay with Troy just for the Summer, but fate had other plans. We called my mom to tell her she was going to be a grandma and first thing she said was, "When are you getting married?" Within a week we were married at the JOP in Jacksonville, NC with our friends Scott & Michelle as witnesses. We were married on June 10th, 1995 on a Saturday afternoon. Afterwards we went to Taco Bell, my fav, and took pictures of us holding our tacos with our rings on! Troy was supposed to get his honorable discharge from the Marines later that year but the baby was due in January. Troy extended his term 3 months in order to get the Marines to pay for the birth. Lauren Christine Summers was born at Onslow Memorial Hospital on January 16th, 1996. She had so much hair, my brother, Gene, sent her a haircut coupon. A few weeks later, my mom and Bob came to get Lauren and I and brought us back to IL in one of the largest snow and ice storms in NC history. We lived in my mom and Bob's basement for 6 months before moving to Bloomington, IL. We got jobs and signed up for school. I typed box scores at the Pantagraph every Friday night and Troy worked at Dan Obrien detailing cars. We lived off $800 per month and had to collect food stamps for a year to make ends meet. Eventually Troy quit taking classes and got a better job to support me while I finished school. In 2001, I managed to finally graduate from college with a degree in Computer Science and got a job at State Farm. Soon after, we welcomed Mya Rose Summers on September 15th, 2002. We loved living in Bloomington. Our kids were involved in numerous activities that kept us extremely busy. We stayed there for 24 years before State Farm moved us to Texas in 2016.

In 1991, nobody had yet coined "ship names". Troy and I were ahead of the times when we decided our ship name would be "True". TR for Troy and UE for Sue. We signed all of our letters to each other with "True". Troy played baseball for Winners Circle in Ottawa. We still have his jersey with number 32 on the back. I loved to come watch him play and eventually stole his jersey and wore it everwhere. I then took number 32 as my official number in softball. We then added the number 32 to our ship name, "True32". Eventually the number 32 became Lauren's number in sports and then also Mya's. As Troy and I recommit to our relationship, we will tattoo "True" on our ring fingers.