Carla Lantz and Dena Lantz

[00:02] DEENA LANCE: Okay. My name is Deena Lance. I'm 49. Today's date is Sunday, April 24, 2022. And the location is the Ozarks, Missouri. The name. I'm hanging out today with my beautiful wife, and she will introduce herself now.

[00:20] CARLA LANCE: Hi. This is Carla Lance. I also am 49. However, I'm six months older than Deena Lance. Today's date, again, is 424 22. And we are here to talk about us.

[00:34] DEENA LANCE: So that's our favorite conversation.

[00:37] CARLA LANCE: Well, it's the easiest one.

[00:38] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[00:39] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. So let's start. Let's begin in the beginning.

[00:43] DEENA LANCE: In the beginning, yes.

[00:44] CARLA LANCE: Can you talk about the first time you knew of me or met me?

[00:49] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely. I was the Doula foundation. You know, in the Ozarks is a foundation that I like to support. And so we went to an opening to support that and of the Jordan Valley Community Health center. And it just so happened that the person who did everything behind the scenes to start the healthy start program for Jordan Valley was being interviewed, and I had not met you at all. I remember watching them interviewing you, and I knew pretty much my life was over. I knew at some point that I.

[01:31] CARLA LANCE: It was terrible.

[01:32] DEENA LANCE: It was not terrible. I knew I had to know who this amazing woman was, and I needed to know why I was so drawn to her and why I knew that moment that that's the one person I was gonna marry.

[01:44] CARLA LANCE: I thought I would need the Kleenex as well first.

[01:48] DEENA LANCE: It's okay.

[01:49] CARLA LANCE: Okay. All right. So I. I remember that night. I remember being interviewed and completely overwhelmed. I was still living in Joplin and working in Springfield. So, you know, I'm an hour and 15 minutes away from home, and I. I'm sad to say that I. I don't really remember you that night. What I remember is when we had dinner with friends. What was that? Maybe a couple of weeks later after that?

[02:20] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[02:21] CARLA LANCE: And I remember walking into the restaurant, and you were in a chair by the fireplace with a book, and your hair was long, and you had a blue scarf wrapped around your neck, bright blue. And when you smiled, it was just like the whole world lit up in there.

[02:44] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, that was scary.

[02:46] CARLA LANCE: No, no, no, it wasn't scary. It felt like something was happening. Something was starting, something I was not looking for or ready to make happen at all. So I don't remember what I had to eat that night, but I remember that we started a friendship.

[03:08] DEENA LANCE: I was your accountability partner.

[03:09] CARLA LANCE: Yeah, my accountability partner. Because I didn't eat lunch. I was supposed to eat lunch and make time for myself to stay healthy. And I wasn't eating lunch. And so you said, I will help you remember to eat lunch every day.

[03:22] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. And I would give you great choices in lunch because I actually worked at a restaurant at that time. It was the bartender. So loving and living hospitality as always.

[03:32] CARLA LANCE: Right.

[03:33] DEENA LANCE: And you would start coming in every day.

[03:35] CARLA LANCE: Yep, I did. Every day. I drove across town and I had an hour lunch break, and I would spend that with you. And so, yeah, it started with food because you always fed me when I sat at the bar. But then I would notice more and more about you. One, you always gave me food to take home. You knew that I had kiddos at home and you wanted to make sure to feed them as well, even though you didn't know them yet.

[04:01] DEENA LANCE: Well, you were working long hours.

[04:02] CARLA LANCE: I was.

[04:03] DEENA LANCE: And so you were traveling from joplinous to Springfield every day. And, I mean, that's a long trip. A couple of years later, when we're traveling, that, yeah, we'll get there. Yeah.

[04:16] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. So that was the first thing. The food and the caring for me was the first thing. The second thing that I remember at the very beginning was text messages. You're the first person that really consistently texted me and sent me. I mean, I guess I was just isolated before and out of technology, but I remember the text messages that we started exchanging. And then the last thing, the end of it all, you had this orange blazer and an orange, like, sleeveless sweater that you wore to work. I think you'd been managing because you had on your manager clothes. And I remember no one was at the bar, and I thought that was odd. And they said, oh, she's coming from the hotel. And I looked over and I saw you come around the corner, and you were wearing these black slacks and this orange, bright, bright, bright orange, like, sleeveless sweater and this blazer. And, like, that was. That was it. It's so shallow, but you look so amazing and so strong and so professional, and it just kind of. Everything shifted in my mind.

[05:29] DEENA LANCE: Agreed. That's the way I felt about your interview. I was like, wow. Wow.

[05:33] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[05:34] DEENA LANCE: Who's this power girl? I mean, I had never met anyone, so, I mean, when we were dating, one of the things that just, my jaw dropped was when you took me and showed me your billboard. And there's this billboard on the street, Boonville, with your gorgeous face. And again, doing what you do, caring for people and providing health care. And I remember that we had a date that night. We took pictures underneath of it. Yeah, that was a good date night.

[06:17] CARLA LANCE: I remember that. Yeah. I think you've always been more impressed with that, with the letters behind my name and the billboard and the commercials and all of that stuff. And I'm just like, the visual effects don't affect me. The work that I get to do, that affects me. That means.

[06:36] DEENA LANCE: That's what those letters. I mean, honestly, from my point, that's what those letters is. Steady, hard work, showing up and giving the best because you believe and want to do something and give the best of who you are to the world.

[06:52] CARLA LANCE: You're a dork.

[06:54] DEENA LANCE: I know that. I know I'm your dork.

[06:58] CARLA LANCE: All right, so we had a date. A date in Springfield. And then, in true lesbian fashion, in about ten days, it became clear that you were in an unsafe living situation. I was living solo with the kiddos in Joplin.

[07:16] DEENA LANCE: And so we sat them down at the table.

[07:19] CARLA LANCE: But you moved in. Yeah, I moved in really, really, really quickly.

[07:23] DEENA LANCE: Oh, yeah.

[07:23] CARLA LANCE: But you know what it's like looking back on our story now, or if I heard our story from other people, I would be like, okay, you guys were idiots. But for us, it just. I mean, honestly, we had dated two weeks, and you proposed. Remember?

[07:40] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[07:40] CARLA LANCE: Do you remember where you proposed the first time?

[07:42] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[07:43] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. You gonna tell me?

[07:45] DEENA LANCE: No, you go ahead.

[07:48] CARLA LANCE: You took me home. It was Tyler's. Tyler's confirmation. Yeah, Tyler's confirmation.

[07:54] DEENA LANCE: That's my nephew.

[07:55] CARLA LANCE: So you took me to church.

[07:56] DEENA LANCE: Which Lutheran? It's a lutheran church. Come on. Can't be that scary.

[08:01] CARLA LANCE: Yeah, it was for me. It was scary. Met every single member of your family, and there's a lot of them.

[08:08] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[08:09] CARLA LANCE: And then because I was getting a little overwhelmed, you're like, hey, I'm gonna take you to my favorite place. And so you took me to. Is it South park? Is.

[08:20] DEENA LANCE: No, south park is. It is not. Is one of the parks, but it is. It's Sunset Park. I took you there.

[08:27] CARLA LANCE: In Quincy.

[08:28] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. And then I took you to Quincy.

[08:32] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. To the island.

[08:33] DEENA LANCE: To the island.

[08:34] CARLA LANCE: Plus, it's fun to say Quincy.

[08:36] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[08:37] CARLA LANCE: But at Sunset park, you showed me where there was this. This rock wall that you said you would sit on. You'd bring a book, read a book, and sit and look over the Mississippi river, and it was there. And you were like, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to get married to you. And I said yes. Without even a hesitation.

[09:00] DEENA LANCE: I proposed to you that night. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you would've been like, security. Security. Please. Creeper. Stranger danger.

[09:09] CARLA LANCE: Stranger danger. But it just. It happened so fast and so such a whirlwind that it seemed natural to take you home to meet the kids. So let's see, this would have been 2000, 910. Like the very early parts of 2010.

[09:27] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[09:28] CARLA LANCE: So the kids would have been twelve years younger. So Riley would have been ten and Chloe would have been.

[09:34] DEENA LANCE: She just turned ten. Yeah, because she was just still just an awkward little baby that, you know, wanted mommy to snuggle. And she was your sweet little pie then.

[09:45] CARLA LANCE: She was.

[09:46] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[09:46] CARLA LANCE: Oh, how things have changed.

[09:48] DEENA LANCE: She's my sweet little pie now.

[09:50] CARLA LANCE: So Riley would have been ten ish and Chloe would have been twelve ish.

[09:54] DEENA LANCE: Yes.

[09:55] CARLA LANCE: Chloe was going on 13 because she was not a happy camper with life in general.

[10:00] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[10:01] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[10:01] DEENA LANCE: And I was a lot. I mean, my personality to an introvert is a lot. I mean, that authenticity and just truth. No votes for.

[10:12] CARLA LANCE: And you don't really have a volume button a lot of the times.

[10:15] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, I have learned the volume button.

[10:17] CARLA LANCE: That has happened over ten years.

[10:19] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[10:20] CARLA LANCE: So the kids, they lived. I had split custody with their dad and so they would live with me half of the week. And it was usually like Monday, Wednesday, Friday and half the week with him. And we'd rotate weekends, but. So on the weeks, it was easy to work in Springfield half of the time because they were gone and I didn't have to worry about picking them up and all of that. But, yeah, I remember us having dinner. Was it a spaghetti taco night, maybe?

[10:50] DEENA LANCE: Oh, spaghetti tacos.

[10:51] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[10:52] DEENA LANCE: I mean, yeah, the girls introduced me to spaghetti tacos. Who even knew that was a thing? I still say spaghetti tacos to this day. And people are like, huh?

[11:02] CARLA LANCE: Yeah, it was from iCarly. I know it's an icarly thing. And they're really, really good.

[11:06] DEENA LANCE: It was amazing. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Especially when you get that parmesan.

[11:09] CARLA LANCE: Yeah, yeah. But the girls, while being a little overwhelmed, we're like, okay, you need a place to live, of course you can stay with us. And so that kind of started our. I mean, it really, that was the beginning. Literally, like two weeks into our relationship, we are engaged, but nobody knows that but us because people would have thought we were nuts, so. And also it came about that you did not have a reliable car to be going back and forth from Joplin to Springfield. So that started our really intense time. I feel like. I think that was the best time that we really got to know each other on those rides.

[11:50] DEENA LANCE: Oh, yeah.

[11:51] CARLA LANCE: Do you remember what the days were like?

[11:53] DEENA LANCE: I do. I remember that every morning you would roll me out of bed about five, a little after five sometimes, and you would put me in the trailblazer.

[12:08] CARLA LANCE: Still in your jammies.

[12:09] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. See the safety first, buckle me in. And we would go down for an hour and 15 minutes from exit six, all the way down to exit 80 of I 44. And then you would go to work. And while you were working, I would go back to sleep underneath the Martin Luther King bridge in Springfield, safely in the trailblazer while you worked. And then I would go into the hotel and restaurant, depending on when I needed to go, 1011 noon. And then you would come, someone would bring you when you got off work, you'd have dinner, then there's a separate breakfast restaurant at the hotel and you know that very well.

[13:00] CARLA LANCE: Yeah, you'd make me a little bed in Gracie's because you were closing then and so closing meant what did you.

[13:06] DEENA LANCE: Close at eleven in midnight? Yeah, yeah.

[13:10] CARLA LANCE: And then all of the work that had to happen after closing, um, just like you slept under the bridge, I'd sleep on the floor and Gracie's on a little, a little pallet, and then you would wake me up 01:00 or whatever we got out of there. You would drive us back to spring, to Joplin. Yeah, we'd sleep together like three or 4 hours and then we get up and do it all over again.

[13:32] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. And we did that for two years, maybe 2012.

[13:37] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[13:38] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, two years. It was hard, but it wasn't hard, but it wasn't.

[13:42] CARLA LANCE: I know.

[13:43] DEENA LANCE: So many things happened in that time. Your faith.

[13:47] CARLA LANCE: That's true. Yeah, I found faith. I had never had any kind of spiritual or religious experience before and I knew just from what I knew about you that that was important to you and I was afraid of how that was going to play out with our relationship and I had an awakening and I. A passion and you got me to go to church with. I mean, I did cry like the first six months.

[14:12] DEENA LANCE: Like completely through all of, every time, though, it was amazing. Like I, every time that, you know, God or whatever, higher power, you know, I could see it inching in your heart and at first you were like scared and like get on back, but then just to see you. Yeah, just, except that's, that's what it is. I mean, there is a co creator out there. It's not just us.

[14:39] CARLA LANCE: And then you found us National Avenue, which has been our church home. Like, I think the plan was to try other welcoming, affirming churches in Springfield, but we started with National Avenue and just that, that was our church. Home immediately. And that was hard for me because I, I haven't had a community to support me. You know, I have a mom that loves me and supports me, but I. My family's small, just my mom. And when I.

[15:09] DEENA LANCE: You're an only child, obviously.

[15:12] CARLA LANCE: But, you know, when I came out to her, there was a time, two years, three years, we didn't talk because she, she just, it took her a minute to wrapper head around everything. So having this community, this lovely church community, was just bonkers. I was afraid to trust them. And then it was lovely.

[15:33] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[15:34] CARLA LANCE: So we had that. And then slowly we figured out that the cost of gas for driving all of this time in a Chevy trailblazer was enough that we could actually afford rent in Springfield and the house payment in Joplin. And so that's what we did.

[15:53] DEENA LANCE: Because we had just made a decision as a family that when the girls were done with this school year, that we would relocate us to Springfield. Because that's where your job was, you know, had called you.

[16:06] CARLA LANCE: Right. And, and we knew there was going to be better opportunities for the girls. Like they're, they're quite smart. And we had gotten them tested and put into kind of an advanced school academy. We had. Of course, we came to the library. I just. We spent that summer trying to incorporate them into the Springfield life to get them ready for that.

[16:28] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[16:28] CARLA LANCE: So we rented a house in Springfield. And on the days that the children were sleeping at their dad's house, we would sleep in Springfield. So cut down on half of that driving. It was a big, huge house that had a basement that Riley's room was down in. Our room was on the middle floor and then the attic.

[16:48] DEENA LANCE: And then there was an extra room on the middle floor.

[16:49] CARLA LANCE: Right? Yeah. And then.

[16:51] DEENA LANCE: And the two living rooms and then.

[16:53] CARLA LANCE: The attic where Chloe had her stuff eventually. But at that time, it was a big old empty house with a bed. And I think we had a tv, didn't we?

[17:03] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. Yeah, we had one tv.

[17:04] CARLA LANCE: And that's all we had in that house because that's all we did is went there to sleep.

[17:08] DEENA LANCE: That's it. Yeah.

[17:08] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[17:09] DEENA LANCE: Because we, we got off really late and then we had movers. The girls were getting ready to get out of school in one week, so we had movers coming on Friday.

[17:20] CARLA LANCE: Hold on. I think we're forgetting a big part of that.

[17:23] DEENA LANCE: Why?

[17:24] CARLA LANCE: Well, their dad wasn't really happy about us thinking about taking them.

[17:29] DEENA LANCE: Oh, yeah.

[17:30] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. So that was a very unpleasant time. And it came down to we were going to have to go back to court to change the custody agreement, and he was very insistent that the girls would never, ever move. So we're preparing for court. We're going to go ahead and move. No matter what, we're going to move. It's an hour away. The girls are going to come with us because that's. I mean, why wouldn't they come with their mom? That's how things work. So. Yeah. And then on the Sunday night.

[18:03] DEENA LANCE: Sunday night before the movers came on Friday. Dun, dun, dun. The Joplin f five tornado took everything.

[18:11] CARLA LANCE: Everything.

[18:12] DEENA LANCE: Big, deep breath. Yeah.

[18:16] CARLA LANCE: So the children were safe because they were with their father, and he lived about 20 minutes outside of Joplin.

[18:23] DEENA LANCE: And we were safe because we were in Springfield at a movie theater watching Madea.

[18:29] CARLA LANCE: Right. Some Madea movie, some dumb Medea movie. And we got out and turned our phones back on. And there's 27 million texts from anybody I could possibly think of asking if we're okay. And I'm like, of course we're okay. Why would we not be okay? Yes. Does everybody. Was there something that happened with the movie? And then finally we got the story out that. Yeah, there was a really horrible weather event that happened in some goblin and just smashed it to the ground.

[19:00] DEENA LANCE: And so they closed down I 44 that night, and we knew that there was nothing that we could do.

[19:05] CARLA LANCE: Right.

[19:05] DEENA LANCE: And so we went to the Springfield house, tried to get some rest, finally.

[19:10] CARLA LANCE: Got ahold of the children to know that they were okay.

[19:12] DEENA LANCE: That's right. And then we woke up the next morning very determined.

[19:18] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[19:18] DEENA LANCE: Even though I 44 was still closed down near Joplin, because we actually had.

[19:23] CARLA LANCE: Pets living in the house in Joplin. We had Belle, the dog. She had a doggie door. She'd go in and out. She was a happy little clam. And then we had two kitty cats, that same thing. They'd go in.

[19:35] DEENA LANCE: Nigel.

[19:35] CARLA LANCE: Bob?

[19:36] DEENA LANCE: Maggie.

[19:36] CARLA LANCE: Maggie. Damn it. Maggie.

[19:38] DEENA LANCE: I love Maggie. Yeah, that's good times. Maggie.

[19:41] CARLA LANCE: I thought we brought Maggie already back with us. I thought we brought her back first.

[19:45] DEENA LANCE: We did. We were just upstairs, downstairs. Cats.

[19:47] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[19:47] DEENA LANCE: So Bob and Nigel.

[19:48] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. So we hadn't know what happened to the pets. We had to. Had to see what happened. From what we had heard, it sounded like our neighborhood was in the middle of the path of the tornado.

[20:01] DEENA LANCE: A lot of the neighbors. Yeah. Didn't make it out.

[20:05] CARLA LANCE: So we took a ride to get.

[20:07] DEENA LANCE: Down there, and it took a long time for us to get down there. We had to go lots and lots of back roads.

[20:15] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[20:15] DEENA LANCE: We had to cut through Carthage. Cut through Carthage. There was also when we were, I'm gonna say, within a half a mile from where our house was. We had no idea. And that's when it really hit you.

[20:31] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[20:32] DEENA LANCE: Because everything was gone. And you're like, where's our house? I don't know where it is. I don't know what street is ours? What street? What turn. It was all rubble.

[20:42] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. Prior to that, you would go up the street to St. Paul's church, and there was a great big spire. What's that called?

[20:51] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, yeah. Steeple.

[20:53] CARLA LANCE: Steeple. And you turn left at the steeple. In two blocks down is our house. Well, the church was gone. The kids school was gone. Everything was gone. And so we had to park because everything, literally, it wasn't safe. There were power lines down. They were still working to try to find people. So we found a safe space to park, and we hiked into where we thought the house was. Okay now, the bright spot of the day. So, obviously I'm laughing, because with hindsight sight, we were so fortunate. You know, the children weren't there. We weren't there. You know, stuff.

[21:34] DEENA LANCE: We lost stuff. Stuff.

[21:36] CARLA LANCE: So we hiked in, and the house was 90% down.

[21:43] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, we couldn't.

[21:44] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. The one part of the house that was still standing was the brick front and the front door. No house around it. Just that part. And that goddamn dog, Belle was standing behind the door, straight up with her paws, barking. Once she saw us like.

[22:03] DEENA LANCE: Like crazy just going to town.

[22:04] CARLA LANCE: Like, she could have. There's no house around her. She could have been anywhere.

[22:08] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely right. She could have fallen in that ditch. That was the tree. I remember that. Car was over. Flipped over it. I'm like, how did she even survive that? But how did she survive almost getting hung by a soccer net when she was a puppy?

[22:24] CARLA LANCE: She was a dumb girl. So we got Belle, we got the cats. I remember one of the cats pooped in the car on the way back. I remember that. It was terrible, but we had.

[22:36] DEENA LANCE: We had life.

[22:37] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. No house. No house. That's okay, because we had a rental. Like, seriously. We were getting ready to move, so we'd moved most of the girls clothes already. We'd moved.

[22:49] DEENA LANCE: Well, yeah. And then the movers were coming for the actual stuff on Friday, and of course, they didn't come. But then National Avenue flipped into pastor. Laura was the pastor at that time. And she's like, what do you need? And her husband Fred was like, what do you guys need? And they gave us furniture. They gave us to use, you know, anything and everything that they could think of to make sure that the girls felt safe. Safe bikes, as normal as the girls could feel.

[23:26] CARLA LANCE: They paid. I remember that. That they paid for us. Since we weren't hiring movers, we were really worried about what was going to happen financially. And they paid for a truck full of movers to come down. And we were able to go through and salvage. I think we salvaged the dryer or the washer.

[23:47] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, I think it was the dryer.

[23:48] CARLA LANCE: One of those we couldn't get out, but one of them we could. And any pictures and things that we could get out of the house.

[23:56] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[23:56] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. So, you know, the tornado sucked. That was really emotional. And then within two weeks, we had court.

[24:06] DEENA LANCE: So we went to court, and we know now that we were, you know, the girls were asked who they wanted to come live with. And we know now one of them.

[24:20] CARLA LANCE: Had said us, and one of them said she would note. She wouldn't make that decision. But where the custody case was is a very small county, very good old boy county.

[24:33] DEENA LANCE: And they believed that because of the tornado and the trauma, that they believed that the girls should stay with what they know. Stay with what they know.

[24:46] CARLA LANCE: But they also believed that two women were able to be a stay environment.

[24:51] DEENA LANCE: That's right. And so big deep breath. I know this is hard. The girls were away from us for a long time, and it was really hard on my wife.

[25:07] CARLA LANCE: We went from having them half of every week to having them every other weekend.

[25:12] DEENA LANCE: And all summer.

[25:14] CARLA LANCE: Not even us. Every other week in the summer.

[25:16] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, that's right.

[25:17] CARLA LANCE: Because. Give us all summer. So it was so hard. And everything was just crumbling around us, but we. We still had each other.

[25:27] DEENA LANCE: That's right.

[25:28] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[25:29] DEENA LANCE: We still had each other in that little dark blaze. And then the girls. One was. Oh, man. One was 13. Grounded for a whole year.

[25:43] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. At her dad's.

[25:44] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. And then with. After that year, she came to live with us.

[25:48] CARLA LANCE: She did. Was it that year? I think it was two years.

[25:51] DEENA LANCE: Nope, it was one. She was grounded for a year. And then she came to live with us.

[25:55] CARLA LANCE: She already had her driver's license, but she came to live with us.

[25:58] DEENA LANCE: Thank God.

[25:59] CARLA LANCE: Right? Yeah. So, of course, she totally just skipped the whole getting married part.

[26:07] DEENA LANCE: Oh, yeah. Who forgets that?

[26:10] CARLA LANCE: Right? I.

[26:12] DEENA LANCE: But did she come? Oh, so after the tornado in May.

[26:18] CARLA LANCE: And again at the point of the tornado, we had been together about four months. Yeah. At that point.

[26:26] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[26:26] CARLA LANCE: So.

[26:27] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely. And then tragedy. And then tragedy again.

[26:30] CARLA LANCE: Right.

[26:31] DEENA LANCE: Because seeing you not being. Seeing you and the girls all broken at the same time was nothing. It was not good for our family.

[26:42] CARLA LANCE: No, it was rough.

[26:44] DEENA LANCE: But we got them back in time. But in November of that year, we decided that I. One of the bucket list things was I wanted to go to see Mount Rushmore.

[26:56] CARLA LANCE: Yes.

[26:57] DEENA LANCE: Because I had never been west of the Mississippi until I moved down to Springfield, Missouri.

[27:02] CARLA LANCE: And so it just worked out. Riley's birthday is on thanksgiving time, and it was, I think, the day after thanksgiving this year. And we weren't going to be able to see them on her birthday or on thanksgiving. So we decided that we would go get ourselves married. Because this was 2010, there was no marriage equality anywhere. We could go to Iowa or. What was the other place people were going?

[27:34] DEENA LANCE: Vermont.

[27:35] CARLA LANCE: Not that far. I was thinking there was somewhere closer. But Iowa is where our other couples that we knew had gone to Iowa. So we hired a pastor online.

[27:49] DEENA LANCE: Pastor Nicole.

[27:50] CARLA LANCE: Pastor Nicole.

[27:50] DEENA LANCE: She was so nice to talk to. And our pastor, Laura, helped us. What we wanted from the ceremony was just each other.

[28:01] CARLA LANCE: Right.

[28:01] DEENA LANCE: We didn't care about anything else.

[28:03] CARLA LANCE: We had no. And of course, we took no one with us or told anyone it was going to happen. We just eloped. And it ended up being outside of PF changs in West Des Moines, Iowa.

[28:16] DEENA LANCE: It was beautiful, though. The fountain area was absolutely gorgeous. And my friend, one of my very first friends down here, Teresa, her and her friend became our witnesses because they were close.

[28:30] CARLA LANCE: Right? Yeah. So it was November 23, 2010, cold. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. It was like two, five degrees, maybe.

[28:42] DEENA LANCE: Yeah.

[28:43] CARLA LANCE: We got married, and then we went.

[28:45] DEENA LANCE: We were not in no normal wedding attire.

[28:48] CARLA LANCE: No, not at all.

[28:48] DEENA LANCE: Not at all.

[28:49] CARLA LANCE: But we looked.

[28:50] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, absolutely. We did.

[28:52] CARLA LANCE: We looked real good.

[28:53] DEENA LANCE: And then we had lunch at PF Chang's.

[28:55] CARLA LANCE: You had that shrimp that you love with the melons.

[28:59] DEENA LANCE: So good. And then we went. Did we? Oh, then that night, we spent our. Our first night married in. Was it Hampton or something in East Des Moines? And then West Des Moines. And then the next morning, we got up real early to drive and remember that big storm? What was that? Highway? It goes all the way across.

[29:28] CARLA LANCE: Right. So Deena had an affiliation with the hotel, with the Hilton line of hotels. And so we had planned because she got a friends and family radio, the hotels were. And so we wanted to go to Mount Rushmore. The closest place around that we thought would be super fun to go is Deadwood, South Dakota. Deadwood, South Dakota. Okay. So prior to going, she said, I'm pretty sure we're going to be the only two lesbians in Deadwood, so we need to fit in. So we had to buy cowboy boots. Right.

[30:05] DEENA LANCE: And also, it was going to be like, one degree.

[30:07] CARLA LANCE: Yeah, but. But we had to have cowboy boots. We didn't have to have hats, but, yeah. So driving across South Dakota, like, a mile behind us, an ice storm was. And they were getting. They were closing the highway progressively in front of us.

[30:28] DEENA LANCE: We were the. I am certain we were the last car on that highway that runs all the way across the state. I know we were.

[30:37] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. And we had to just keep going, because if we got off the highway, it's gonna be closed down.

[30:42] DEENA LANCE: And then we had the moment that you're never gonna let me live down.

[30:45] CARLA LANCE: But you saved us.

[30:46] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. Defensive driving.

[30:48] CARLA LANCE: Right, right.

[30:48] DEENA LANCE: We did a. Go ahead.

[30:50] CARLA LANCE: A whole 360, maybe a 360, plus another 180 in the middle of the highway. And then after that is the first time I ever used Xanax because Deanna's like, here, take these and be quiet. We're gonna get there.

[31:05] DEENA LANCE: You were very shook by the donuts that were not really donuts. It was frightening. I knew that we were gonna make it there safely because my dad's a mechanic, and he really taught me defensive driving, and he's also a stock car driver, so, yeah, I know how to drive.

[31:24] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. Okay. But good news. We made it.

[31:27] DEENA LANCE: We made it. But we had the time of our lives in South Dakota.

[31:30] CARLA LANCE: Yeah, we did.

[31:32] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, we did.

[31:34] CARLA LANCE: So, yeah, Deadwood was fun. I remember we played. We bowling and went to all the little casinos. Saw wild little Hickox. Where he died.

[31:43] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. Where he got shot. My favorite was seeing Harry Potter with you in Sturgis.

[31:48] CARLA LANCE: Yes. That was fun. We got to see the.

[31:50] DEENA LANCE: And there was no one in Sturgis but us seeing Harry Potter.

[31:53] CARLA LANCE: That was Harry Potter. The first deathly house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I think the thing that just makes me smile is our first thing thanksgiving together.

[32:04] DEENA LANCE: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. 100%.

[32:06] CARLA LANCE: Two days after we had gotten married and survived the whole affair across the state, we made it to Mount Rushmore on thanksgiving. And first of all, we almost got.

[32:16] DEENA LANCE: Eaten by a. Oh, that mountain goat was giving me the stink eye. I know it was really close, but I did get a good picture of it looking right at me, and I was like, oof.

[32:26] CARLA LANCE: But thank goodness we made it.

[32:27] DEENA LANCE: Yes, absolutely.

[32:28] CARLA LANCE: So we made it into Mount Rushmore, and it was super cool. And for some reason, they had Thanksgiving dinner in the cafeteria at Mount Rushmore.

[32:36] DEENA LANCE: It was so cold, and we were like, yeah, dinner.

[32:39] CARLA LANCE: That's good. So it was one of the best Thanksgiving meals I think I've ever had.

[32:43] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[32:44] CARLA LANCE: And it was you and I and a bus full of japanese tourists in cafeteria.

[32:50] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. And it was so incredible. And the president's and the presidents. Yeah. So good to see Mount Rushmore was everything that, you know.

[32:59] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. We're still hearing today, now, ten years later, how the children weren't invited to the wedding and that we need to have a repeat of our house so that they can be a part of it.

[33:09] DEENA LANCE: And we were gonna do that on our ten year anniversary, except. Dun dun dun. Covid hit. Covid hit.

[33:19] CARLA LANCE: But we made it.

[33:20] DEENA LANCE: Yeah, we did.

[33:21] CARLA LANCE: Yeah.

[33:21] DEENA LANCE: That was naked.

[33:22] CARLA LANCE: I know. So here we are, ten years later. I'd still. I'd still marry you. I'd still say yes. Two weeks after I probably would have said yes that first night. The night that I wanted to kiss you and you pulled away from me. I still probably would have married you then.

[33:38] DEENA LANCE: Yeah. Sorry about that. I mean, I'm not sorry about that for standing up for it. I definitely wasn't ready. There's a lot of emotions and, you know, things that I. I knew one day I wanted to get married, but I just. I just hadn't found anyone I wanted to ask. I know that sounds so awful, but.

[34:05] CARLA LANCE: No, it doesn't. I mean, it probably does for my.

[34:08] DEENA LANCE: Mom and my dad. Be in love for. How old am I? 49. So 40. It'll be 49 years coming up. And it was important to me that I have for me one. I do. It's for. Yeah. So I do. As always now.

[34:26] CARLA LANCE: Always.

[34:27] DEENA LANCE: Always. Yeah. Because people are like, oh, to the moon and back or affinity. I like always. It just. It just is always.

[34:35] CARLA LANCE: I love you, pants.

[34:36] DEENA LANCE: I love you too, pants. The kids are good. Yeah, they're getting ready in three weeks. They are now 25. Our oldest is almost 25. She'll be 20. She is 25.

[34:48] CARLA LANCE: No, she's 24.

[34:50] DEENA LANCE: All right.

[34:51] CARLA LANCE: Really? Yeah.

[34:53] DEENA LANCE: I thought at 25, we celebrated with. She bought her own house. She graduated with her masters.

[34:58] CARLA LANCE: She's 24. She's 24. Wow. Yeah. So 24. 22. Not living in our house anymore. High five on that.

[35:05] DEENA LANCE: Woo hoo. Empty nesters. Hopefully not coming back because she owns her own house now and she can put her little sister in the basement at all times.

[35:12] CARLA LANCE: At all times. Yeah.

[35:13] DEENA LANCE: So, little sister in three weeks. Thank you, Jesus.

[35:17] CARLA LANCE: Graduates.

[35:18] DEENA LANCE: Graduates. Because she's been trying to.

[35:21] CARLA LANCE: She's been trying to drop out of school since the first semester. The second semester of first grade.

[35:27] DEENA LANCE: Absolutely.

[35:28] CARLA LANCE: I think this is a good spot to end our story. Just with the love and the happy ending of.

[35:35] DEENA LANCE: We made it. Yeah. Hopefully ever after.

[35:38] CARLA LANCE: Of course, it's not an ending, is it?

[35:41] DEENA LANCE: Like, hello, world, here we are.

[35:44] CARLA LANCE: We have two or three other 40 minutes. Stories we could tell, but.

[35:47] DEENA LANCE: Right. Your work.

[35:49] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. Your journey.

[35:51] DEENA LANCE: My life.

[35:52] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. But I like this. I like this part.

[35:55] DEENA LANCE: I like this part, too. I love stories of. Kind of one of my favorite stories to tell.

[35:59] CARLA LANCE: Yeah. All right. I. Thanks for listening. I love you. I love you, too.