The Blur of Fall 2002

In looking back at our early days, I'm realizing what a whole different world we're living in now!  As I'm trying to decode what exactly was happening in our lives during those first several months in Oregon, the only thing I have to go on is less than a handful of pictures {this was pre-digital age, of course} and a scant personal journal record.  And spoiler alert -- that's not a whole lot to go on!  Hahahaha.  It's really easy to forget that I didn't always carry around a camera/iPhone in my back pocket.  😂

It's funny how time and memory work, though, because it's easy for me to look back on those days with rose-colored glasses and remember all the happy moments we had while downplaying anything that wasn't quite so happy.  If I really stop and think about it, though, I can easily remember how lonely I felt for much of the time we lived there.  Being an introvert and quite reserved/shy by nature, moving to a brand new place where we knew NOBODY was really, really hard.  Especially since I've never felt like I've been super great at making friends.  Combine that with the fact that we were both working full-time and had only one car -- which Scott needed to use pretty much every weekend to drive to whatever sports events he had to cover for work, (leaving me stranded at home by myself a whole lot of the time) -- and I think I just had the perfect storm of a situation to leave me feeling sorry for myself and wishing I had more friends.  The situation was probably made even sadder and lonelier by the fact that the life we had left in Provo was filled with family on both of our sides and a few college friends who were still hanging around!  The good thing is that not having any friends in a new place makes you so much more grateful when you DO find them.  And thankfully we did find them! And there WERE happy memories.  Like this one...

{From a journal entry on October 31, 2002}

Well, it's 6:30 in the morning and I'm too excited to go back to sleep...we're going to have a baby! I'm so excited I don't know what to do.  I want to wake Scott up and tell him, but he didn't get in from work until 3:30 AM and I want him to get as much sleep as possible.  I'm so excited! We just found out on Tuesday that Scott's sister Kristin is expecting as well!... I guess I should try to go back to sleep,  I don't want to be tired today -- it's Halloween and I know the kids will be wired.

In case you couldn't tell from the journal entry, I was so excited to find out I was pregnant!  Hahaha.  Once Scott finally woke up and I shared the news, he was excited as well.  :)  

As the blog post title says, the fall of 2002 was a bit of a blur.  Work and church and getting through my first trimester are the main things that stand out from those months.  {A fun little piece of trivia from my first trimester is that my morning sickness caused me to OD on both Wheat Thins and the Dixie Chicks.  Hahahahahaha.  Seriously, though.  I think it was close to 5 years before I could stomach wheat thins again.  That and the Dixie Chicks album "Home" (which was the only CD I had in our car at the time) were so intrinsically linked to my morning sickness, that I couldn't handle either one of them in subsequent months and years without feeling like I was going to throw up again.  Fun times.  😉}  That and our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, where Scott saw first-hand how  quickly the Hansen family finishes dinner.  We had driven down for the holiday from Oregon to Fresno, CA where my family had moved a few months after our wedding and I'll never forget how startled and dumbfounded Scott's face was when he looked around and realized that while he was still eating his first course of salad, the rest of us were all basically done with our meal.  I don't know if that's something necessarily to brag about, but it's certainly something to record for posterity.  Hahahahaha.  😊

And that's all I've got for the Fall of 2002...

Oregon Trail

31 July 2002 

Scott got a job at the University of Oregon!  We found out last week and we're moving out there next week.  Pretty crazy, I know.  We still have to find a place to live -- so far we've looked online and we've found a few, but some are just too expensive for what we'll be making.  Scott is doing an internship, so it doesn't pay so much.  I still need to find a job, but it doesn't seem like there are any teaching jobs open out there in the Eugene area...Something will work out.

{Another actual journal entry from yours truly.}

For approximately 13 months of our newlywed lives, we called the Pacific Northwest home.  And we loved it!  By the end of the summer, Scott had been offered a position as an intern with the University of Oregon's athletic media relations department.  After accepting the offer, we basically had 2 weeks to pack up our stuff, move to Oregon, and start our new lives.

I look back on us from the vantage point of now, and two things strike me the hardest -- 1.)  We were BABIES (seriously -- check out the pictures; we were so young), and 2.)  We were either blessed with  a titanic amount of faith and hope -- or we were ludicrously naive.  Hahahaha.  I prefer to go with the former.  (Although, the reality is that we probably had a touch of both.)

As we set forth on our great adventure, we were able to pile all of our earthly possessions into the minivan that Scott's parents let us borrow for our journey on the Oregon trail -- which was thankfully devoid of the dysentery, cholera, and snakebites that plagued the original Conestoga travelers.  You would think that such an epic road trip would have created all kinds of lasting memories, but because we were just focused on arriving at our destination rather than making a real trip out of our Provo-to-Eugene journey, the only thing I really remember from the drive was passing through the Columbia River Gorge area at sunset and thinking how absolutely gorgeous it was and what a beautiful part of the country we were moving to.

(Obviously not my picture, but how gorgeous is the gorge??  Hahaha.  Also, this will be a must see on our pacific coast road trip we're planning for the summer after Ethan graduates.)

Once we arrived in Eugene, we were blessed to quickly find a place to live (which was technically in Springfield, but literally right on the border of Eugene where both Scott and I worked), and I was thankfully able to find a preschool that was hiring when none of the elementary schools in the area were.  Our apartment was un-air-conditioned -- which I swore I would never do again after my summer of 2001 in Provo without any air -- but when we moved in, we were told that the weather is so mild and temperate in Oregon that we wouldn't even need it.  LIES!!!!  Hahahaha.  The first week we were there, the weather hit some record highs and we consequently had to sweat it out to 104* temperatures while sitting in front of our box fans and spraying ourselves with water.  Hahaha.  Those were the days.  ;)

 (Scott celebrated his 25th birthday during the first week or two after arriving in Oregon.  We didn't have any candles on hand, so obviously the next best option was a votive candle in a holder.  Hahaha.)

A couple of months after we had settled in, Scott's parents drove out with our Ford Explorer to swap with their minivan.  While they were in town, Scott was able to show off his office complex at the University of Oregon, and we enjoyed a trip out to the coast with them.  With hindsight, I can say that one of my biggest regrets during our Oregon days is not doing enough exploring around the Pacific Northwest.  :(  With both of us working full-time -- me during a regular Monday through Friday 8-6 workday and Scott working weekdays plus weekENDS covering whatever sport was in season (which -- spoiler alert -- there is ALWAYS a sport in season) -- our ability to do much exploring was basically non-existent.  (All the more reason to go all out when we finally go back in a few summers!)

 (I'm not really sure what I'm doing here.  Hahaha.  But I do remember that the coast was WINDY.)

I wish I remembered more of the details of our Oregon days, but unfortunately, most of that year is a blur of working, sports stuff, Scott and I both serving in presidencies at church (Elder's Quorum and Relief Society), and me being pregnant with Ethan and bringing him into the world the next summer.  

I do have fond memories of the darling little kids I taught in my Pre-K class, though, and I was so grateful that I was able to find my little job at Oak Street Child Development Center -- and even more grateful that I had majored in Elementary Education with an emphasis on Early Childhood Education!  When there were no elementary positions that panned out, it was such a blessing that I felt competent and prepared to apply for a preschool position instead.  :)

Summer of 2002

When I think back to our early days (and the summer of 2002 was the earliest of our early days), there aren't a whole lot of specific things that stick to my memory.  Way back in the land before digital cameras and smart phones and all the other technological advances we take for granted now, it was a lot harder to keep every aspect of life up to date.  Here are some random things I do remember from off the top of my head:

• I spent a lot of time that summer alternatively working on my tan by the DT pool and doing TONS of family history research.  And yes -- I recognize that those two endeavors are wildly discordant.

Actual journal entry -->  {16 June 2002 ---- I'm pretty much a pathetic journal writer.  I've basically got this rut of averaging one journal entry a month.  Well, we've been married for over a month now, and things are going good.  Aside from feeling like a total slacker because I don't have a job and I spend many if not most of my days at the pool, I'm doing great.  We still haven't heard back form any jobs for Scott, and I know he's a little worried, but I still think everything is gonna work out.  I've been working on genealogy a bit.}

• Our basement apartment that we were sub-renting from some friends who were gone for the summer had awesomely cold air-conditioning.
• (I'm pretty sure the only reason this fact sticks out in my memory is because the summer before I had lived in an UN-air-conditioned house in Provo and it was SO HOT.)
• American Idol season 1 premiered that June and you better believe we tuned in for every episode.  

• Kristin and her crew were in town for part of the summer, and we spent a lot of time hanging with them at Scott's parents house.

• The post graduation limbo was real -- both Scott and I were trying to figure out "real job" options and neither of us had a clue where we'd end up.
• My sisters, Emily and Sarah, were still kicking around Provo for the summer and we hung out with them quite a bit.
• One of my best college friends/roommates got married a few months after we did.

• (And fun fact -- she married one of SCOTT'S roommates)

(At some point that summer, Scott and I and Heidi and Thomas plus my sisters and 2 other former roommates spent a day at a waterpark.)

• My sister, Emily, hooked me up with a "job" in Midway, Utah that I absolutely hated.  I literally sat next to a golf course all day long asking golfers if they wanted to enter a drawing to win a stay at the timeshare that was right next to it.  It may sound cushy, but it was the worst for someone like me who HATES having to bother people while they're in the middle of something.  And we all knew the raffle was nothing but a ruse to get people on their mailing lists.  The only good thing I can say about it is that I had a lot uninterrupted reading time when the golf course was slow.
• And finally, we spent a whole lot of time watching true crime type shows for some inexplicable reason.

Like I said -- super random.  Hahahaha.  By the end of the summer we were excited to finally know where we'd be going!  While on a road trip to Fresno to see my family who had just moved there, Scott heard back from the University of Oregon and was offered an internship in their athletic media relations department.  I never in a million years would have thought that I'd be moving to the Pacific Northwest, but life comes with all kind of interesting twists and turns.  ;)

And in case you were wondering, I asked Scott what HE remembers from the summer of 2002, and here are his responses:

• Waking up whenever we wanted.
• You (meaning Jessica) getting very frustrated by hockey.  {The Stanley Cup was taking over our lives.}
• You (meaning Jessica, once again) got a fish. {Hahahahahahahaha.  I totally forgot about this -- buying a pet fish was perhaps the most random thing I've ever done.}
• Working weird hours.  {BYU's athletic media relations department let him keeping working his job there while he was searching for a "real" one.  Consequently, he could kind of go in whenever he wanted so long as he didn't work more than 8 hours a day.}
• Watching a lot of Trading Spaces {on TLC}.

And that's a wrap on the Summer of 2002.  Ah memories, like the corner of my mind.  

The Beginning

Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved a boy.  And, by some super stroke of fortune, he loved her back.  And despite some major stress and anxiety on the girl's part as to whether or not they should be together, she persevered through her fretting while holding fast to her answer that he was exactly the right person and they were in exactly the right place.

A fairly short engagement followed, and as the wedding day loomed, she reminded herself over and over again that she was doing the right thing and he was the right choice.   The day of the marriage dawned beautiful and bright and as they waited together in the temple to go and be married and sealed together for time and all eternity, all of the confusion and doubts and worries disappeared from the girl's mind and she KNEW that she was in the right place with the right person.

The rest of the day fluttered by in a sequence of beautiful skies, gorgeous flowers, picture taking, and reception-ing.  The boy and girl were happy to see so many friends and family members turn out to show their love and support, and at the end of the day, they drove off happy and in love and enormously grateful that they had each other.  Because love is a beautiful thing.

{Rest assured that the day wasn't COMPLETELY perfect -- the boy caught a violent stomach bug (or food poisoning, they were never quite sure which) at some point during the past day or two and spent the majority of their wedding night curled up on the floor in the bathroom and puking out his guts.  Thankfully, this episode was not an ominous foreshadowing for their life together after the honeymoon was over.}