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.}