SOME THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT ME

I was tagged either just before William was born or right after. I'm finally getting around to posting. (no hurry here...)
The whole thing was just toooooo long. So here's a portion. Check back in the coming days for 'the rest of the story.'

1. How did you and your spouse meet and how long have you been married?

My oldest sister, Ruth, introduced us. (Ben is her nephew. His dad and my brother-in-law married to Ruth are brothers. Completely legal, just a little strange to think about.) We met during a time when we were both preparing to serve a mission. (embarrassing to admit, but I didn't realize he was as young as he was until after we were both on missions.) Anyway, since I left first, and realized the value of mail in the MTC, I made sure he had one letter when he got there. He wrote me back and we kept each others mailbox from being too empty while he served in Germany and I in Florida--that is until I came home. Unfortunately, I forgot to keep those letters coming once I started trying to keep up with post mission life. But miracles happen and I happened to be visiting my sister, Ruth, in Wyoming just weeks after Ben came home from Germany. With me being there only for the weekend, she invited Ben to come over after church 'for dessert'. We sat down and started talking, mostly about mission stuff, exchanging stories and things like that. Somehow, more than 12 hours passed and we were still enjoying the conversation. We exchanged addresses and phone numbers and parted, he to his home and then to Powell for school and me off to Provo. That was in Aug 1996. I had a school break in October and took a long trip back to Burlington to see Ben. Same thing happened--sticking around all day and staying up all night talking! I knew (we knew) then that there was something more. We talked often over the phone, thru snail-mail and email. He came to visit me in November and proposed. We were married in January 1997 in the Salt Lake Temple and settled in Ogden for school at WSU.

2. What is one or more of your favorite childhood memories?

So many to choose from, but I think the one that takes the cake would be a Christmas memory, probably soon after we moved from Burlington WY to Driggs ID. As I recall, on Christmas Eve (or shortly before) there was a miserable storm that dumped a ton of snow. When we (kids) woke up on Christmas morning, there was nothing under the tree. Instead, we found a note on the table from Santa, along with a glass of 'reindeer milk' (aka eggnogg). Each note was a little different, but the jist of it was that Santa had been running a little late, and with all the snow, he wasn't able to land his sleigh, so he had just pushed out presents out of the sleigh and we could find them in ______ place. So we actually had to get dressed and go outside to find our presents. Some were hidden in the barn, others in the shed. Mine were near the firepit. I got an ever-coveted umbrella and a book of fairy tales. If there were more, I'm sorry I don't remember. Those were the things that impacted me. I still have that book of fairy tales that I read to my kids (even though they're boys, and they like them in a different way, we still enjoy reading them).
Other memories that would take a very close second would be of Thanksgiving. My oldest sister, Ruth, and her family would always come for Thanksgiving. She would bring the bird, and my mom would make the stuffing and lime (green) jello with cottage cheese and walnuts in it. So while these wonderful women were slaving away in the kitchen, us kids (me, my little brother Ben, and little sister Maren, and niece and nephews Lori, Billy, Tommy, maybe Shane and David too) would disappear out into the cold and snow and stay there until it was time to eat. By that time, of course we were frozen to the core! But there was an unwritten law, it seemed, about going inside to thaw before lunch--It just couldn't be done!!! We would slide down the roof of the woodshed (someone would always seem to catch a nail or three), jump off the barn roof into the 6-8 foot snowbank and see who would go the deepest. We'd take innertubes and sleds and hike 'up the hill' and race to see who could go the farthest on fresh snow and blazed trails. Then race back 'up the hill' to do it again. Just the thought of it now wears me out!! When it was time to come and eat (and thaw out!) we'd go inside, hang our snowclothes and boots all around the woodburning stove so they could dry while we were eating. Then after lunch, we'd re-dress and hit the snow again until it was too dark to be outside. (Thankfully for the parents, we were far enough north, and up against the west mountains enough that the real dark came by 4:30 or 5:00pm ) I think kids having fun just really don't feel the cold!

3. Most everyone had a crush on someone growing up, did you? Tell me about it.

Probably the biggest and longest crush I had was thru most of elementary and into jr high school. It bothers me now, to think about it because he became such a jerk! His name was Brandon Byington. I met him when I was in 3rd grade and started at Tetonia Elementary. I had that crush on him until 8th grade! Then he became such a jerk (maybe that's typical of boys that age, but he never grew out of it!) I knew him all thru High School too, but never had any interest in him after 8th grade.