A Match Made in Hollywood
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[0 Comment]Candace Cameron Bure is an American sweetheart, the kind of older sister every kid wishes for. And over the course of eight seasons on the ABC sitcom "Full House," kids and adults alike got to watch as she grew up—from cute 10-year-old to attractive young woman.
Valeri Bure is a lightning-fast Russian skater who some thought was too small to play in the National Hockey League (NHL). Born in Moscow, he played on his country's Olympic silver-medal team in 1998. Now, in his fifth full NHL season, the Calgary Flames's right winger looks forward to a long, successful career.
A former child star from California and a professional hockey player from Russia. Not a likely match, right?
Well, look beneath the surface of Valeri and Candace Cameron Bure and you'll find two soulmates who, three-and-a-half years into marriage, remain starry-eyed honeymooners.
"It's been wonderful," says Candace, sitting in the living room of their home in the Santa Monica Mountains. "We talk a lot, and we have so much love between us that it's been a great journey so far."
During the summer, when neither Val nor Candace is working, they live the laid-back L.A. life: taking walks, going to the beach and hanging out with friends, including Candace's "Full House" family. But during the long hockey season, their life together gets more challenging. Val travels half the season and Candace bounces month to month between their apartment in Calgary and their home near Los Angeles. Living in two cities, and two countries, became even tougher after their 1½-year-old daughter, Natasha, joined the family.
"It's hard to go on the road and miss my wife, and now it's even harder to miss the baby," Val says. "If I could change it, I would change the schedule so I could play all 82 games at home so I could be with my family."
With the Bures' second child due in February, the heart of the NHL season, their life will get even crazier. To help ease the strain and maintain a little more family sanity, Candace has set aside her acting career for now, choosing to focus on home. For both Candace and Val, fame, fortune and career success take a back seat to love, laughter and all-out commitment to each other.
"Money is part of our life, but to me it's not that big of a deal," Val says. "I'd rather be home with our family and just enjoy ourselves rather than make some more money and not be able to do that."
And Candace, for all of her early show-business success, couldn't be happier. As a child, she says, a solid family life outside television prepared her for life and helped her avoid taking unrealistic expectations into marriage.
"I've never compared what real life would be like to anything on TV or in scripts," she says. "What I've known of marriage and married life is just from my mom and dad and other friends and grandparents."
Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1999, Winter
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