Teenage Years

My teenage years were a blast. Mostly because of the friends I was blessed to have and for the way I chose to live my life. I had good examples that showed me the right way to do things. I didn’t always do them right, but I tried! Here’s my mother’s view on my teenage years,

Teenage years, you were a fun teenager to have in the house you got along with everyone and I am glad that you decided to become lifelong friend with the Acequia bunch. I tried to get you to come to school at Acequia but you refused. It would have been fun. I remember that boy friends were no important to you and just having a big crowd was good enough for you. Although you were a very good girl I could always tell if something was wrong if you were not where you said you would be I always found out. But I have to tell you when you went to college I missed you a lot. (I don't know, not at all) You loved the game of volleyball and were really good at it . I loved the fact that you let me be a part of your high school life and let me hang around all of your friends.

7^th Grade

This was the year I moved to the Junior high. BIG DEAL! I was going to get a locker-little did I know they were near impossible to open. Plus I could get salad bar at lunch, I didn’t HAVE to have a hot lunch. WHAT? Junior high was looking like it was going to be great.  The year started off with my mom trying to convince me to try out for the volleyball team. She wanted me to do something other than read and gymnastics apparently wasn’t my forte so I guess she felt If I tried enough things I would eventually find something I was good at. Haha! I had played on a few city league volleyball teams but never had any real training. But one of my good friends was trying out so I decided to go for it. Looking back it’s a joke that I made the team. I had no idea what I was doing. But somehow I did. I remember sitting the bench most of my 7^th grade

season....and not even caring. I think that was due to the fact that I was oblivious about life in general and that only the horrible players sat the bench. I was just excited I got a good seat for the game! 

Towards the end of my 7^th grade year Megan’s parents decided to get a divorce and

sell their house and move apart from each other. Megan didn’t want to leave 3 months before the end of the year so with my incredible persuasion skills I convinced my parents that she needed to move in with us. We shared a bed in my room and had a great time living together. It was like having another sister in the house. I remember the day she moved to Boise. Her dad came to pick her up and we both started crying because we knew our friendship would never be the same. We were lucky to have each other during those years and it would affect us in the future even though we didn’t know it at the time. 

During this time my dad also lost his job working at a car detailing shop because it was sold to a franchise company. It was a scary time. Even though I was only 13, I knew it wasn’t going to be good if my father didn’t have a job for a while. They gave him warning that the company would be sold and he started looking right away. I remember him being very weighed down with this burden. We were even facing the possibility of moving so my dad could find employment. I was 180% against that. After a few weeks of worry our prayers were answered and he was hired on as a financial manager of a large farming company called Jentzsch-Kearl Farms and is still working there today.

8^th grade

 

I started off my 8th grade year with another random sickness. Whooping cough. I looked up the definition on the internet and it says:

“Also known as pertussis, this is a feared infectious disease that can strike the respiratory system and affect other organs of the body. It has three stages-an initial stage with watery runny nose and eyes, a progressive cough stage with characteristic (sometimes severe) coughing spells, and (if the child survives) a recovery stage.”

Ha. did you catch the if in that definition? IF the child survives. Luckily I did. The coughing would come on at anytime. Usually right after I finished eating a meal or started exercising I would have coughing attacks that would end in me not keeping my meal down! I had it for about a month during the beginning of volleyball season. We would have to run a lot and after about the first lap around the gym I would be coughing too hard to move. I like to look for the positive in every situation so the plus of having whooping cough was that I lost 10 lbs. in one month! WHOO! I would never recommend that diet to anyone however. 

Once whooping cough left me alone volleyball became much more enjoyable. I actually was playing in games and started to find my place on the team. Girls that I hadn’t really noticed from the year before were being nice to me on the team and I liked it! Our team didn’t do too bad that year and we enjoyed playing together.

One of the random classes I had to take that year was shop. Why they made girls go cut wood and make bridges out of popsicles I’ll never know but it was fun anyway. I sat by a girl named Karee Jurgensmeier. She was on my volleyball team and ironically she had been my pen pal in 3rd grade while she was at a different elementary. Our personalities clicked and we quickly became friends. She was an “Acequia” girl. She had come from the elementary my mom worked at. All those girls were scary In my eyes! But this one was funny! We had a blast making random wooden objects and parachutes and paper airplanes together. Karee introduced me to her group of friends. I had always thought they were stuck up and rude. I was still skeptical but I was warming up to them as 9th grade got closer.

9th grade

Volleyball was now the familiar way to start out the year for me. I remember being so nervous for tryouts that year because I was moving to the high school and I would have to try out with seniors! Such a scary thought. My mom was having a garage sale the day of tryouts and I was walking around barefoot like I always do in the summer because I love how nice green grass feels on my feet. My father had just finished re-shingling our house and I ended up stepping on a roofing nail and it went through my foot. OUCH. My mom pulled it out and realized it was rusty. She decided I would need a Tetanus shot so I didn’t get some kind of poisoning from the rusty nail. I was glad she was  concerned but not glad I would have to get a shot in my arm the day of tryouts.

But this one wasn’t my call. The doctor put the needle strait into my right arm (the arm I use to serve). After it was over I remember thinking, ‘’Hey this isn’t that bad”.... two hours later I remember thinking....”Hey, my arm won’t move.” Having your arm not move is unfortunate, having your arm not move during volleyball tryouts, well that’s just hilarious! I went anyways and decided to try my luck. Karee assured me I would be okay as we started warming up. My arm continued to get more and more sore. We got to serving and I was done for. I was lucky to raise my arm let alone make contact with the ball. I can’t even imagine what my coach thought. I would have been laughing hysterically at my attempts if I wasn’t the one doing it! I went home that night and iced my arm and prayed that I could move it for the second day of tryouts. A miracle happened when I woke up and I was able to show the coach what I could really do the next day.

That year of volleyball was my favorite of all the years I played. I had a coach who believed in our team. I became best friends with the girls on my team and those friendships would last forever. We have so many good memories of going to tournaments and doing 10 minute wall sits during practice or running stairs until we thought we were dead. Even thought I wasn’t the best volleyball player or even close to it, that year my coach gave me the confidence I needed to continue on with the sport and have faith in my abilities.

I decided to try my luck at a new sport that spring. Tennis! My dad and I would play every now and then but I had never had formal training. I pretty much did it because Karee convinced me to. Our coach was one piece of work! She was anti-mormon which meant anti 95% of her team. But it  was always fun to laugh at how ridiculous her comments about the church were. I ended up being on the varsity team even though I had minimal skills. That’s how good our team was. The experience was really fun and I still love playing tennis to this day.

My last trimester of 9th grade I enrolled in a cooking class....mostly so I could eat for free during the day. I walked in the first day and saw Cristine Harman sitting at a table. I did not like her. (or I thought I didn’t) All through Junior high I was afraid of her mostly because she looked like she ruled the place. She was loud and intimidating! I ended up sitting by her because a couple other friends of mine did. It was the best thing that could have happened. Turns out she was HALARIOUS. We had the best time in that class and our friendship carried on outside of school. She was one who liked to live on the edge and I was NOT that way at all. The fact that we were friends was completely ridiculous considering our personalities then.

The last night of our 9th grade year all the Acequia girls got together at Cristine’s house and I got invited. This is where I made friendships that would be set in stone for the rest of my life. Who knew a bunch of girls making a napoleon dynamite movie (in which I starred as Deb) would still be friends 7 years later? From that point on we did everything together. They changed my outlook on who I was and who I should be. Each one of those girls (Karee Jurgensmeier, Cristine Harman, Kalli Mackay, Sadie Eames, Keisha Lloyd, and Joelle Poteet) were the reason I made it through high school! So many amazing and fun memories with those girls that I will never forget.

10th grade



EFY with all of my friends



Volleyball was rough my 10th grade year. I didn’t know how to control my frustrations on the court and would let them out on my teammates who messed up. I was not the person I wanted to be on the court. (I would realize that and change it later.) I was on the Junior Varsity team with all of my friends which made it okay. About ¾ of the way into the season the varsity coach pulled me into her office and told me I was being moved up to the varsity team just a few games before tournament started. I was soooooooo nervous. I could have died. All the Varsity girls were big and scary! She was basically putting me on the team to threaten the older girls if they didn’t perform she would replace them with me. Great! Now they had a legitimate reason to not like me! But we went through practices and as always I coped with the pressure by cracking jokes and lightened the mood. I remember the first game I stepped on the court as a varsity player. I literally almost started crying because I was so scared. I was very jealous of all my friends because they were still on the same team together and I was a loner on the varsity bench most of the time. I was glad when that season was over.

About the same time volleyball ended I started my first real job. I worked at my mom’s elementary school, Acequia, as an after school aid. I would help students with their homework and play games with them. This is where my love for teaching began. The students brought joy to my life and I loved seeing concepts click in their heads and them being excited that they could do it on their own.

I turned 16. Everyone talks about turning 16 like it is an epic stage in your life where you grow up and become a woman. I woke up and felt exactly the same. Yes, now I could date. But I looked forward to getting a cell phone more than dating. haha! I begged my mom forever to get me a cell phone. She finally agreed on my birthday that she would pay for the phone if I paid the bill every month. I was ecstatic! I now had something I could call mine! Freedom! but then the bill came and I was a little less ecstatic about it from then on.

I went on my first real date with a boy I thought I liked. Turns out I found out real fast while we were on the date that I did NOT like him. Young love...so overrated. I decided that friends were way more important than boys and chose to spend almost every waking moment that year with Joelle Poteet. We played volleyball together, had every single class together, and would drive to school together every day! We would laugh and talk and laugh some more and almost wreck our cars and skip classes (with the teachers permission somehow) and have the best time ever.

The friends that I had were (and still are) amazing. They changed my view on life and what I was here for. Church leaders and my parents had quite an influence, but it’s pretty safe to say that if I wasn’t friends with all of those girls I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today. I remember being in seminary and our teacher would ask everyday if we had read our scriptures 10 minutes the night before. In the beginning I didn’t really care if I had or not . But my friend Karee made a comment one day that changed my whole perspective. I can’t even remember the exact comment but I do remember where we were when she made it and at that point I decided I would read my scriptures every day and say my prayers each night at morning. This came at such a crucial time in my life. I could have gone down one road or the other. From that point on my focus shifted towards doing what was right, not because I was told to do it, but because I desired to do it. I wasn’t perfect by any means but the desire meant a lot to me.

I was so fragile during those years, but because I chose to follow the teachings of the church I was incredibly blessed. It was also around this time that I prepared to receive my patriarchal blessing. A new patriarch had just been put in and it was Easter Sunday that I went to get my blessing. I walked into the patriarch’s home with my mother and father and they sat and talked to me for a while and then he asked me to come into a room with him and my father came along. We started with a prayer and I felt the spirit so strong. Then he began to give me my blessing and I remember that being a time where I felt the spirit stronger than I ever had in my life up to that point. I knew what I was doing was right. Heavenly Father knew ME. He knew what I needed to hear to give me guidance to make it through this life. That blessing has given me comfort every time I read it, and it will continue to do so for the rest of my life and into the eternities.

11th Grade

During my 11th grade year Cristine Harman and I started to get really close as friends. Her family was going through some rough times and her parents were gone a lot to Utah to take care of everything so she would be left home alone. I would come and stay the night with her and we would lie in bed laughing and talking for hours. That is where our friendship began. I remember we were Teacher’s aids for the psychology teacher at our school together. One day we decided that we were going to skip the next day because it was our first class and that meant we could sleep in. So we told our teacher T.J that we weren’t going to come the next day because I was spending the night at her house and we wanted to sleep in. He said sure, okay! So without another thought we slept in the next morning. I woke up to 5 missed calls on my phone which were from my mother. She was wondering why the school called her to tell her I had missed my first class. The perfect plan to skip had gone down the drain for us. We got up in a flash and flew to school. We asked our teacher why he had counted us absent and had the school call our mom’s. He said he was worried something had happened to us when we didn’t show up. My mother was not very happy with me that night when I got home and she told me Cristine was a bad influence. HA!

I ran for student body. Scariest thing of my life to get up in front of everyone and tell them to vote for me. But I made it somehow and probably did a whole lot of nothing. It was great for my college applications though! The group of girls I hung out with started hanging out with a group of boys our age. Some I had known my whole life and some were new. The boys all played basketball together and it was tons of fun to go watch them and support them. We would hang out on the weekends and play random games. Usually ping pong. In our high school we had a lot of LDS youth but not very many that were active. It was such a huge blessing to have a big group of friends who I could hang out with and not have to worry about being pressured to do the wrong thing. I think a lot of problems occur in high school because people get mixed up in the wrong group of friends. I am grateful for each one of them for keeping their standards so it was easier for me to keep mine.

The last trimester of my Junior year I joined a club volleyball team that would travel around to play in tournaments. It was a lot of fun. One night I got home pretty late from a practice and it had just snowed. I was texting a boy I knew from one of my classes who was also one of my best friends cousin. We had never really talked much but he just started texting me one night and I thought he was really cute so I was excited. 

Anyways, I was on my way home and came over a canal bank and made the horrible decision to try to text and drive. I was focused on texting and veered off the road into the ditch bank. It caught me off guard (obviously) and I threw my phone across the car, grabbed the wheel, and steered like a mad woman. Luckily I was going fast enough to plow through all the snow and get back on the road. Once I was back on the road I stopped my car and sat in shock. Then I texted the boy (Trenton) and told him what had just happened. He freaked out and asked if I needed his help or if he needed to come pull me out. I told him I was fine and continued to drive home. Later that night he texted me and asked me if I wanted him to come pick me up in the morning so I didn’t have to drive on the roads to school.

I had never met a boy who was so thoughtful. I felt like he actually cared about me and he didn’t even know me. Well, I like to play hard to get so I told him I would be okay. I think it was from that point on that our relationship began to grow. Before then he intimidated me like no other. I didn’t even know he knew I existed. We had a class together at the end of each day and we would always joke around with each other and when we got done with our work early we would play cards together. I looked forward to that class more than anything all day. Neither of us would admit at that point that we liked each other but it was getting more and more obvious as time went on.

On the last day of my Junior year a bunch of my friends decided to go boating after school got out. I was contemplating whether or not I would go during class and Trenton said, “You’re going!” He didn’t even give me a choice! Well once I knew he wanted me there I was going for sure! So Cristine and I went to my house and changed into our swimsuits and headed out to the river. It was a gorgeous day outside and we were so excited! We got to the dock and our friend couldn’t get his boat to start. So we decided just to jump off the dock, and go kayaking, and lay in the sun. I didn’t think it was possible to have so much fun, but Trenton and I both realized that day how much we liked each other. We were always laughing together and he would help me and encourage me to jump in the water when I was so afraid! But we still wouldn’t admit it to each other :)

The next day I started the summer working for my father in his office. HARDEST job of my life. Working for your father is probably not the best idea. Especially when he expects perfection and enthusiasm from a 17 year old girl who hates excel spreadsheets. He would send me to clean out the storage room and go through boxes and boxes of files. I think he fired me about 3 times and I quit almost every day. Somehow we are closer for it. I spent quite a few nights crying myself to sleep because I didn’t like going to work. Well, my father whipped me into shape and almost any job seems like cake now! The only thing that got me through the summer was the fact that I could talk to Trenton during work by texting him. We texted non-stop. About what? Who knows! But it was nice to have someone to talk to. At that point I was the only child living at home.

I remember on the 4th of July that summer Trenton called me up and asked if I wanted to go jet skiing after the famous Rupert 4th of July parade was over. I was SO excited. Family parties were great, but there was no one in my age group and so I usually got stuck with the little kids. So I had lunch with my family and headed to the river to go Jet skiing with Trenton and his cousin (my friend) Sadie, along with Joelle. There were two jet skis so two people rode on each one. I rode with Sadie and Joelle with Trenton. Both of us laugh at that whole scenario today because we both wanted to ride with each other but we never got the chance. That night I really wanted him to come to the Harman firework show. But he went to twin to spend the evening with another girl. LAME! I was mildly heart broken and decided I was going to get over him and move on because he wasn’t ever going to like me the way that I liked him. That firm resolve I had almost lasted a week. HA!

A week later our group of friends decided to watch a movie together and I was hoping Trenton was going to show up. He didn’t. I was bummed the whole night trying not to let anyone notice. But Cristine noticed. She decided that she would let Trenton know he was being dumb to not show up because I liked him and he was ruining it. Well, it worked because the next day he told me he wished he had been there and that he liked me. When I read that I almost fell out of my chair at work. Trenton Scott McKenzie liked me?! Ha-ha! From then on we started hanging out every chance we got. We would play tennis and basketball and baseball and volleyball. Near the end of the summer the Minidoka County Fair was going on. Trenton and I decided to meet up at the fair just to hang out with some friends. Once we got there we were bored pretty fast and decided to go ice blocking in Burley a town about 15 minutes away. 

I rode with Trenton and Jason in Jason’s car and we had a blast ice blocking. When we got back to the fair grounds I couldn’t find my keys anywhere. We looked all over and nothing. I figured that they had fallen out while I was ice blocking. Instead of calling my mother then and asking her to bring the spare key I was deterred by a better offer from Trenton to drive me all the way over back to Burley so we could look at the hill we went ice blocking on for them. Joelle went along for the ride. We had a great time laughing the whole way there and couldn’t find the keys anywhere on the hill either. So we drove back to the fairgrounds and by this time it was 11 at night. I called my mom and she wasn’t a happy camper. She came over with a spare key and I drove home. After she explained to me that I was grounded for not letting her know where I was and for being out so late and making her come rescue me. Trenton felt horrible when he realized I was grounded. I was pretty sure my keys had to be in Jason’s car because they weren’t anywhere else. He was too lazy to look so Trenton went over to his house and found the keys behind the seat in his car. So they were there the whole time. But I get caught for everything so go figure!

12th Grade

First day of 12th grade I got summonsed to court. Yes, the innocent bishop’s daughter went to court. Why? Well I’m still asking that question, but I’ll tell you what they summonsed me for. It all started with that boy Trenton. It was our last day of summer and a bunch of us friends got together to play night games. We started out playing capture the flag and soon got bored of that and decided to go toilet paper one of our teachers who lived nearby. We all piled in the cars and drove down the road. About a ¼ of a mile away from our teacher’s house we parked the cars in a field and sneakily walked up to his house. I remember walking by Trenton and telling him I didn’t have such a good feeling about this and he said, “Don’t worry, nothing ever happens.” Well those were his famous last words because something did happen. I was helping Trenton toilet paper a tree when I heard the front door open. I was a goner. Trent said that I was out of sight before he even realized someone was at the door. I was running faster than I ever had in my life. I had Trenton’s keys and figured it would be good if I could get to his jeep first and start it and be ready to go. So I pushed the unlock button (or so I thought) and the alarm started going off on the jeep. There went our cover! I couldn’t get it to stop for the life of me and about 20 seconds later Trenton showed up laughing at me and turned it off and we all piled in the car and drove away. Well as if that was enough rebellion for one night we decided we couldn’t leave his house unfinished and went back to do more.

Senior Year Volleyball 2008

This time we weren’t so lucky. I hadn’t even stepped foot on our teacher’s lawn before I heard gunshots. Ya he was shooting a gun. So we ran back to the car but he caught one of the slower kids and put him in a headlock and threatened him that if he didn’t tell him everyone’s name who was there he would beat him with a bat. So he told him. I was SO nervous that night because they called the cops and they came and filled a report. We had all gone back to our houses and I called Trenton probably 10 times the next day freaking out about how my parents were going to kill me.

About 3 days later after volleyball practice I got a lovely voicemail on my phone from my mother who wanted me home immediately to explain why I had been summoned to court. OH boy. This wasn’t going to be good. Not good at all. I got home and tried my best through tears to explain what had happened to my parents. I was again grounded. A week later we were in court.  About 12 LDS kids who hardly ever did anything that was contrary to their parent’s laws let alone state law sitting on the front row of the court room. They had each of us tell our side of the story and had all of our parents there. Many of them thought it was ridiculous that we were even in court. (It was) They came to the conclusion that we all had to write a letter of apology to our teacher. We did at that was the end of that. One good thing came out of that whole ordeal. My dad met Trenton for the first time....in court. What a better place to impress the father of the girl you like than in court? I can’t think of one.

Shortly after Trenton completely impressed my father in court he asked me on our first official date. He wouldn’t tell me what we were doing all he would tell me was that I was supposed to meet him at Cristine’s house and that we were doubling with Jason and Cristine (who were also going on their first date).  I was soooo excited. I had never actually been on a date with a boy who I wanted to go on a date with! So the day finally came and I patiently waited with Cristine until Trenton and Jason drove up. They finally pulled up in a truck that was pulling a red horse trailer. HORSES? I had never ridden a horse in my life. I know, small town girl who lives approximately 1/16 of a mile away from the country has never ridden a horse. I was sheltered, lay off me. Anyways, Trenton came to the door with a giant smile on his face like he always does when he is surprising me. I got over the initial shock that I would soon be mounting an animal that was 8 times my size and helped Trenton get them ready. A.k.a stand and watch him do his work. It was a pretty windy day and it had just finished raining but the country was gorgeous!

Trenton explained to me that I wouldn’t be riding an actual horse but a mule. Sweet. Mules are way more calm that horses. So I got on “Molly.”  Getting on a mule is way harder than it looks. Anyways, I was afraid to move with the horse so I made Trenton basically walk Molly and I around the whole countryside. Quite comical now, but I needed it then! After we finished riding we went inside and Cristine made us all dinner and then we sat down to watch a movie. Trent and I sat on a couch together and he didn’t waste any time trying to pull the moves. I put my hand in the air to describe something and he grabbed it to hold it but I quickly pulled away. He wasn’t getting it that easy! I remember having a great time laughing the whole night.

It got close to midnight and so we decided we should get the horses back in the trailer and head home. Well, easier said than done? The weather and taken a turn for the worse while we had been inside and the horses were not cooperating. AT ALL. Trenton and Jason were both getting pretty frustrated after 20 minutes of trying to make the horse go in the trailer. And I decided to go sit in the dirt. Always helpful. That’s me! I guess I figured me not being in the way was helpful. About 30 minutes after my curfew the horse finally went in the trailer and we headed home. Trenton was so nervous that I was late and kept apologizing the whole way home. I thought the whole thing was funny! He dropped me off and went on his way and got inside and my parents were dead asleep. They never would have known what time I had gotten home! Or so I thought. The next day my mom asked when I got home and I told her the whole story and she laughed! Poor boy has horrible luck.

Speaking of horrible luck...it happened to follow us on our second date that next weekend. It was the homecoming dance and we were both excited to go with each other. We spent the day playing volleyball with our big group and watching a movie at Jason’s house. We had originally planned to play mud football, but there was not mud so we improvised.  After that he took me home and I went to get my hair done and came home and got my dress on and he was back to get me! We headed over to the dance to get pictures first and then we went to a reception center to have a dinner with our group. It was delicious! For dessert the chef made a banana dessert with some kind of wine in it that she swore cooked out....I believed her and joked with Trenton that we were going to get pulled over for drunk driving later.

Somehow my jokes always come true.

After we ate we went to the dance and had a blast there. Trenton gave me a piggy back to his truck because I couldn’t walk in my heels any longer. We went and changed into normal clothes at Jason’s house and then went to another friends house to finish out the night watching a movie with everyone. On our way over there I see blue and red lights flashing behind us and then I hear the siren. GREAT. I was so confused as to why we were being pulled over. I was pretty sure Trenton was going under the speed limit. So Trenton pulled over to the side of the road and the cop asked us if we had been drinking that night....ummm do I look like a drinker? Rhetorical question. So he is waving his flashlight all over Trenton’s truck and I am sweating bullets because Jason’s mom had given us a basket of goodies that coincidentally had root beer in the old fashioned bottles which made it look like beer bottles. They were sitting in the back seat and I was praying the officer didn’t see them.

He let us go on a warning that we shouldn’t swerve while driving so much and to be careful. Okay? We finally made it to our friends house and started watching the movie. Neither of us can remember why but both of us were laughing so hard that we were crying most of the night. Everyone started to leave so we decided he should take me home. He went the long way to kill some time and then we see blue and red lights flashing AGAIN.

Yes, twice in 1 night. JACKPOT!!

This officer I’m pretty sure just wanted to chat. He wanted to know how the dance was and blah blah blah. And then he told Trenton he was going 7 mph over the speed limit and that he needed to slow down and he let us go. So we laughed pretty hard that every time I was with him we were in trouble with the law. He dropped me off hoping for a goodnight kiss but I blessed him with a hug!



Homecoming 2008

 I remember going to bed that night and not being able to get over how fun the entire day had been and how much I liked Trenton. I woke up the next morning so excited to talk to him again and let him know how much fun I had the day before. Little did I know where all of this first date would take us.

We began dating from that point on. We would spend every weekend we could together and doubled with Cris and Jason all the time. We did everything from going to see Christmas lights to golfing to going on bike rides. During the winter months Trenton and Jason played on the high school basketball team so we would go and support them for all the games that we could.

Spring came and we all had to start making decisions. Where were we going to college? I chose to go to BYU-Idaho mostly because tuition was cheap and I was familiar with the campus. I was completely shocked when Trenton told me he was applying to BYU-Idaho. I remember him telling me and for the first time I thought of life outside of high school with this boy and I liked it!

I know he went through a lot and made a lot of sacrifices to be able to go to school where I was going. I didn’t see it or appreciate it at the time but I do now more than I can find words to describe.

Graduation came and it was a weird feeling. Seeing everyone I had spent the past 18 years of my life with one day and the next day was a new phase of my life. But I’m the kind of person that doesn’t dwell on situations that make me sad so I just get over them. So I started work for the summer in my dad’s office again. Why would I do that you ask? Well, Rupert is a small town and I had limited options. Or Subway wouldn’t hire me...one of those two.

Trenton and I had a really good summer together. A lot of our time was spent working on a performance for the Prophet Thomas S. Monson who was coming to dedicate the Twin Falls Temple. Each stake was practicing a different dance style. My stake got swing dance. I ended up loving it! We practiced hard and it was an amazing thing to be a part of. The time for the performance came and we all dressed up and put on our show for the prophet. It was amazing to be so close to the Lord’s chosen servant.



President Monson speaking at the celebration

The whole arena was filled with the spirit. I remember in the opening number I was on the front row and I could see the prophet easily and I couldn’t hold back the tears because of the incredible experience I was having.

The whole production was amazing and I am so glad I got to have that experience. The next day the Twin Falls Temple was dedicated and my family and I were lucky enough to be in the temple during the dedication because my dad was Bishop of our ward at the time. It was a special event that will always be remembered.

Once the dedication was over it was time to focus on preparing for college. What a task! How was I supposed to live on my own! All the things you never think of that you have to buy just to make it through one day at college!