1995- Unwittingly Exceptional

This is me the moment I found out I got into BYU. Which was actually 1993. I was at a youth overnight activity and when I got dropped off, my mom had this sign on the garage for me. A brilliant young men's leader had the notion to take a picture, and I'm so glad! This is my look of pure joy I had as I whirled back around. For a long time this was the best moment of my life. I'd wanted to go there since I was a little kid. In retrospect, I know it would have been fine if I went somewhere else first but I can tell you that at that time, when I had so little perspective on life, it would have devestated me.
Well I loved the dorms and BYU as much as I knew I would, but I had ups and downs of course, and by the time I hit 2nd semester of my sophmore year, I wasn't quite as enthusiastic. My roommate and great friend Janette REALLY wanted to get out of the apt. scene and move to a house. Having had kind of a sour "boy" experience first semester, I was ready for a change too. Luckily we got our contracts sold and Janette found this house:

Not only was this house a totally old and tiny but unbelieveably was broken up into 4 sections. We were in the attic section called the "Annex C". The roof was 1-2 feet above our heads and I carried the feeling of clausterphobia that whole semester. It had a tiny washer and dryer in a room under the house that resembled the pit of despair. I was skeptical. And I was still missing my missionary who had only been gone 6 months. Well everything has a silver lining right? Even houses and seemingly depressing semesters.

The house's best perk was that you could open the kitchen window and climb out onto the roof. We slept up there a couple times, layed out when the sun came out in the Spring, and sometimes ate dinner up there. (on a side note, Janette was reminding me the other day on the phone how I used to make a packet of "Stove Top" for dinner and eat the whole thing. Is that gross or what?!)

Well as life often goes, this was possibly the greatest semester of my college years. In fact 1995 turned out to be exceptional. I had no idea what was in store for me. Life can be really awesome that way.

It was not the house that made the semester great (not by a long shot), but the roomies. Janette, of course, is one awesome girl and I loved sharing my room with her, but all these girls were great in different ways and we just fit well together. We liked to pretend to be more awesome than we were. We used to go dancing at "The Edge".

We invited guys in the ward over for "Seinfeld Parties" a couple times. One time after the party was over, we wanted to make a fire in the fireplace (another house perk). Except for the fact that we had no wood. However, we did have an broken chair. Being up in the attic, we threw it out the window a few times until we had chair pieces we could burn.

Lesson learned: Lacquered chair pieces + fire= LOTS of smoke.

Lesson for landlord: Take care of your home (ie- don't leave old broken chairs laying around) because your tenants will take even less care of it. Especially if they are 20 yr old tenants.

One Friday night as we (Janette, Brandon- a Seinfeld party attendee and Janette's future husband, Diana- Janette's sister, and I) were driving to Salt Lake to go dancing, one of us said "What if we just kept driving and drove all the way to San Fransico?" That's all it took. We all said "Let's go for it!!!" We drove through the night taking turns sleeping and driving. All we had was our DL's and debit cards. Janette's from there so we had a place to stay. It was so awesome. Such a feeling of freedom! Here we are in front of the Oakland Temple.

The semester ended and I said goodbye to the "Annex C" forever. In July I was home and went to YSA beach party at Corona Del Mar.

And met this guy! This picture makes me smile whenever I look at it, because I so vividly remember contemplating whether I should ask to take it or not. I was going to BYU-H for a semester and even though I liked him, and we had spent almost every day together for about a month, I wasn't sure if I'd ever see him again. You just never know and I didn't want to forget him. So, feeling super lame-o, I asked. Being the sweet guy he is, he said "sure" and didn't think the worse of me.
I had to add this one because I have SOOOO many pictures in overalls. This began in 94 and went up through when Emma was born in 2000. Then she has pictures in overalls until she was about 3. My dad could never get into the trend and always made comments to me about looking like a farmer, etc. He grew up watching his dad wear them to go roofing and working. Now I can finally agree. This is me and 2 of my sisters- Miranda and Sally summer of 95.

Next I was off to my extended VAY-CAY also known as BYU-Hawaii. I took 3 religion classes I could transfer back to BYU because I had heard they were so easy there- as opposed to the Y. It was true. That was awesome. I went there with my best friend Hiedi but we ended up not getting to room together. This is my sweet Japanese roommate Candace.

I made some fun new friends also. We took the bus every Saturday to somewhere new. A different beach, Matsumoto's shaved ice, the mall, the swap meet...we hitchhiked one time in Honolulu. The guy that picked us up said he did so, so that no crazy person would. I'm not sure what we were thinking.

I had a Hawaiian culture class and we went to the big island. It was amazingly beautiful. I got to pick taro, visit a volcano, jump into a waterhole in the middle of nowhere, walk on a black sand beach, and go to a Macadamia Nut factory.

The whole time I was in Hawaii I couldn't stop staring at the water- quite the contrast having grown up going to the beach in SoCal.

Janettte surprised me and showed up at my door with her brother one day. He was there for work and drove us all around the island. One of the best days ever.

Hula class performance with Hiedi. They stuck us "Howlies" in the back (don't blame them at all) but it was still so much fun.

I was ready to come home after the semester. As great as the experience was, I had some island fever. When I went to the Young Adult ward again I saw Dana there and our relationship changed forever. I was shocked at how happy I was to see him. I felt like I really knew him. I saw what a good man he was. He told me he didn't want me to go back to BYU. Luckily for me, he came up to Utah after I did. And the rest is history! This is our first picture together- December 1995.

Thanks for going down memory lane with me. This is what happens when I scan in old pictures :) I can't believe this was 14 years ago!