Hitched.

Ron Tjaden and Marlis Kemper didn't know the final game of the year would end up in overtime.

Even though both of their boys were seniors on Barlow High's varsity football team, neither parent had ever met the other until the Bruins' fateful last game of the '02 season.

On that chilly November night, as the team edged a 27-20 victory over crosstown rivals the Gresham Gophers, another game was happening off the field.

Marlis, 49, says she'd noticed Ron at some of the games. He's a good-looking fellow, she says, and it was hard to miss his fetching Dutch-Indonesian complexion and handsome salt-and-pepper locks. "He looked single," she says. That night, Ron flashed her a smile from across the stands. Her interest was piqued.

But Ron says Marlis flashed him the first smile and that he obliged and smiled back. Ultimately, this savvy single guy didn't take the exchange too seriously--this 49-year-old mack daddy was dating five ladies and had grown wary of flirtatious women who, more often than not, ended up being off-limits.

But Marlis wasn't one of those unavailable flirts: She'd been single for 13 years. Later in the game, Ron learned that Marlis wasn't married. At that point, he came up with a plan--Marlis would eventually be thirsty or hungry, and so he planted himself near the concession stand.

Sure enough, toward the end of the third quarter, an unsuspecting Marlis emerged from the stands. It was then that Ron dropped the tried-and-true pick-up line:"Don't I know you from somewhere?" And though Ron admits the line is more of a cliché than a creative selling tool, Marlis caught the pass. By the end of their conversation, Ron had asked her on a date.

And though Ron's line had been a success, he was unaware that at this stage, Marlis had a game plan of her own.

Even though she said yes to the offer, she wasn't about to let Ron think she was desperate. She gave him only her name and told him that she owned Trinette's flower shop on the back side of Mount Tabor. "I wanted to let him do the pursuing," she says.

Intrigued by her coy response, Ron looked up the number for the flower shop and called Marlis the next Monday. The two hit it off immediately, and Ron quickly cut the other ladies loose. But it would take another month before either of these two sly parents would spill the beans to their unsuspecting kids. "We didn't know how to tell them," Marlis says.

By Christmas, the couple had even bigger news--after dating for not quite two months, they were getting married. The engagement shocked friends and family.

Ron recalls that one in-the-know friend was particularly surprised and wanted to know why he was giving up the single life.

Before Ron could answer, his 16-year-old son offered an amusing--and telling--response to his friend, remarking, "My dad's been at the buffet bar, and he doesn't like it."

While the engagement may have been met with some initial skepticism, the two families were ultimately happy with the announcement. After having spent much time in the dating trenches, Ron and Marlis knew early on that this relationship would end up in marriage and just decided to rush the process with a spring-break wedding and more than 250 invited guests.

And now they've got a big, Brady-style family. With six kids between them, the newlyweds are searching for a new home that can accommodate such a large team.

WWeek 2015