I bravely agreed to be interviewed by my good friend Courtney. It was nice to think back on all this stuff. Thanks, Courtney! In the spirit of Internet tags, if anyone dares, leave a comment with your email address and a request to be interviewed by me! I will send five questions to the first five commenters who will then post the answers on their blog. Its actually pretty fun. Enjoy!
1. Of the many places you have lived (at least as a married adult), what is your favorite AND least favorite about each?
This could be a long one, so I'll skip the places we lived in for less than three months:
-Provo, UT (May 2004-July 2005) My favorite part about living a BYU married ward was my neighbors. This was, and probably still is, the best ward we have been in. We were so close with all our neighbors (literally because the ward consisted of about three apartment buildings) because they were such awesome people. Sadly, I haven't really kept in touch with anyone, but that is how school wards go.
My least favorite part about that place was the lack of a dishwasher. Nate worked at Dominoes and at the League of Credit Unions and at the Karras Campaign and went to school full time. I worked full time at Open Court (40 minutes away at 5am every morning) and went to school full time so we never had time to do dishes. A few times we even loaded up a laundry basket full of dishes and took them with us to Nate's parents to run them through the dishwasher.
-South Bend, IN (July 2005- May 2006, August 2007- May 2008) I wasn't thrilled about this place in general but if I had to name a favorite thing it would be Notre Dame. The campus is beautiful and the people are amazingly nice. The football games, especially our first year when they were moderately good, were so fun. It is something that Nate and I recommend to everyone. Also, one of my best buddies in the world (Kasey) was there at the same time while her husband was in law school with Nate.The leaves changing was beautiful too.
My least favorite part was pretty much everything else. I worked a ton there and didn't make very much. The weather was truly awful. We had blizzards, tornadoes, monsoons, flooding, electrical storms, and weeks upon weeks of rain in the fall and spring both. It made it pretty and green, but you could never go outside. I had to start tanning to keep away the intense cabin fever.
-London, England (September 2006- June 2007) In contrast to South Bend, I loved almost everything about London! Our flat was beautiful, our ward was so cool, our neighborhood was quaint and super close to everything, we made lifelong friends, traveled the continent, spent many full days in museums, and saw tons of west-end theatre. Nate had more free time than ever and we took advantage of that. We are currently still paying for that adventure but it was worth it.
Pretty much the only things I didn't like was the high cost of everything and the fact that we were so far away from our families (but luckily they, and many others, came to visit).
-Boise, ID (June 2008- Today!) I love Boise. I didn't think I would because coming from AZ, we had the perception that Idahoans are super weird. Some of them are but they are a lot better than a lot of places I've been. I love our cute apartment and our cute dog that we can finally have here. I love the friends we have made and the weather (most of the time). Probably my favorite thing is that I can finally go back to school. I really love Boise State and finally understand (a little) those Bronco fanatics.
My least favorite thing is my neighbors. If we were staying in Boise longer, we would definitely be moving to another place!
2. If you could go back and re-live any one day of your life, what would it be?
-If there is one thing I have learned as I get older, it's that I am not as smart as I thought I was. The older I get the less confident I am. If I were to go back to any one day and try to fix something, I think I would just do a worse job than I did because I would over think it. I would love to go back and relive some of our travels with a little more money. Particularly that day in Salzburg in the rooftop restaurant where we stayed long into the night ordering tomato sandwiches because that was the only thing on the menu we could afford. On second thought... that was a good day just how it was. I would maybe go back to my wedding day to try to remember who came, and make sure my photographer got a picture of BOTH my sisters.
3. You have a cute lil' pup, Bowie. What is the most challenging thing about having a dog?
-This is probably going to make me sound like a "dog person", but the most challenging thing has just been worrying that he might be hungry or sad or sick or lonely. I suppose I project my maternal instincts on my dog because I don't have kids yet. He is such a cool dog and I am so impressed with what he has learned so far. He is finally house trained, crate trained, and obedience trained (mostly). We are finally to the point where he is learning fun tricks and we actually like to have him around. Now if he could just sleep past 6:30 in the morning!
4. If there were no concerns about cost of education and length of time to complete it, what would you choose to study?
-If I could do anything with my education it would be what I started out to do: Medical School. I have wanted to be a doctor since I was two years old and that has never really changed, but my circumstances have. I was premed at BYU but I think I was too young and overwhelmed to do well in the program then. I think I could do it now, but ironically, I feel like I'm too old. We have put off a family for so long and now I feel like I just need to hurry and finish school so I don't have that excuse anymore. I'm sure I will find others though! I have always loved English and feel like this is the program for me right now. I just need to stay at one school long enough to finish!
5. How did you and Nate meet?
-I moved to Utah about three days after I graduated high school. I got a summer job at the Thanksgiving Point dinosaur museum. I worked with a gal named Ambre who called up a guy she knew in HS (Nate) to see if he would take her on a date. Nate came down to the museum and asked me out instead. He said it only took him four or five dates to know he wanted to marry me, but it took me significantly longer. About a year later we got married. We have been married almost five years now!
