Jay and Tammi Garbutt met at a grade 10 social dance class at Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive in Red Deer. Tammi was almost 16 (Jay says she is much older than him) and Jay only a few months younger. They dated for eight years, got engaged and were married two years later on June 4, 1994.
Jay remembers the day they met and said, “Back when I was young and thin, defensive captain of the football team, our two phys.ed. classes, which had been segregated, were brought together for social dance class. Tammi raced, literally raced, across the room to beat some other girl, who was warm for my form, and we haven’t been apart since.”
Right after the wedding, they went to Banff for a few days. About 7 or 8 months later, they went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks. Jay explains: “It was heaven. It was different than normal, as her dad tagged along on our Banff honeymoon and my folks took us to Hawaii. Both were more of a family affair than a honeymoon.”
When asked, what Jay loves about Tammi, he replied. “What I love about Tammi (she says be nice), I don’t know if I can narrow this down to one thing. It is always nice to know that a woman likes you first. Being around her makes me feel like a better person. They both laugh. Tammy said, “Jay is hilarious and has a wicked sense of humour.”
They have had many adventures and have done a lot of travelling. One unusual trip was the Florida vacation. Jay tells the story, “We got off the cruise ship and the hotel rooms were not ready. They let us have our swimsuits and gave us our towels. We were about 200 yards out, not very deep as we had come across a lot of sand bars. Then Tammi said, “I don’t think that dark thing was there a minute ago.” Everyone turned and said “What is it, what is it?” Something popped out of the water, triangle shaped. Jay yelled to them, “It’s exactly what you think it is, get out of the water!” Everyone thought it was a shark! Jay said, “I was helping
Tammi’s friend, Michelle, even though she was a life guard, only now she can’t swim too good, back to the beach. Tammi and Michelle’s husband made it to the shore very quickly.” Jay explains, “It turned out to be a manatee. The mighty majestic sea cow.” All these people on the beach commented, “That was something to see, once in a life time.” Tammi said, “That’s enough of that, we’re staying at the pool.”
The key to a successful marriage is that I think you have to like your spouse.” Tammi said. Jay explained: “We spend an inordinate amount of time together, Tammi is my assistant but we are pretty good at compartmentalizing things, except when it is very busy.”
Jay continued, “We pretty much have learned to leave work at work. We try to have a lot of fun, we maybe spend more time together than other couples, but we have also decided that the home team is the most important part and it comes before anything else. We enjoy being with each other, we understand each other and we have so much shared history.”
Jay expressed, “If you are deciding that this is the most important relationship that you are ever going to have, you decide to forgive easily, because you know that you are a fool yourself, and hope it will be reciprocated.”
