Twenty-2

The good/bad year. (But let's be honest here, aren't all years, weeks, days or even hours, good/bad?)

Good: Greg.

Bad: School/work

First, the good.  Greg.  As it turns out, being married is pretty awesome, especially to Greg (not that I have any thing to compare it too, but I'm glad we worked our the differences from year 21).  And being newly weds is even better.  I spent about two weeks unpacking our first 400 square foot apartment--washing all the dishes, lining the shelves, perfectly placing the pillows.  We bought couches and a mattress.  We were set.  Then we spent the rest of the summer riding our bikes around Provo and falling in love with it and seeing it for the first time as non-students (well, just me, Greg still had two more years of school).  We grilled out at least twice a week, riding our bikes to some of our single friends' complex and using their grill.  Greg grilled the best steak I have ever had that summer.  I still compare all steaks to that steak.  Words cannot explain.  The worst part was Greg worked nights a few times a week, which I hated.  I had never slept alone in a house before and being apart, even for necessary things like work was just unpleasant.  I made me tuck me in before he left for work and I called him more than once because I heard a weird noise.  Luckily for me, he soon got a better and day-time only job.

We entered BYU's pinewood derby and won an award for "Your Major on Wheels"--Greg majored in Political Sciece.

One night we bought a bunch of stuff to roast over a fire and rode all the way to the end of the Provo River Trail trying to get to Utah Lake just to find the trail was closed.  I was bummed.

The best steak ever.

Once school started, our bike riding and constant grilling was confined to weekends.  We also added walking all over downtown Provo to explore the culinary treats of a reviving downtown area.  We were lucky in that I had a full-time job and Greg worked part-time off-campus at an office so we had weekends to ourselves and money to burn (relatively speaking--remember we had just come from the student life so anything above $10 an hour was AMAZING).  

The weekdays.  That was a different story, but  I'm still pretty nostalgic for that first year.  I left for school/work at 6:30 am every morning, trying to wake Greg for family prayer each morning.  And counted the blocks until I'd be home and see Greg again when I left at 5.  Greg did a mixture of class and work and would meet me at home sometime around 5. Then we'd lay on the bed and I'd teach Greg the fine art of listening to a woman complain without giving any advice because said woman just wants to whine.  He got very good at it.  Then we'd make dinner together.  We specialized in mini-pizzas (pizzas made on refrigerated crescents) and grill-cheese sandwiches. Then we'd head up to campus.  Greg would drop me off at the in-door track and then head to the library.  I'd run a few miles then meet him on the first floor of the library, where he had saved me a comfortable seat and had carried my girly and heavy bag for me.  He'd study and I'd do lesson planning and grading.  We'd head home around 11 and go to bed, just to start it all over again the next day.

Sometimes we didn't go to the library.  We also spent a lot of time at Hollywood video that year.  We had a monthly pass to check out as many movies as we wanted.  Sometimes we binge watched whole DVDs of House or Heroes instead of studying.  We'd put all the couch cushions on the floor and have a slumber party in the front room, which was not super comfortable, but fun nonetheless.  

We were Dr. House and Cameron for Halloween that year.

The Hari Krishna Festival in Spanish Fork before it got crazy popular.

We also went on several trips.  Because of my (along with all other plain white girls' obsession with fall) and Utah's deer hunting break in October, we went to Manti for a night and also fell in like with Manti, its temple, and its one and only bed and breakfast.  We went to San Diego for Thanksgiving.  We went to Seattle for Christmas. Then, just after our anniversary on a roadtrip with Greg's old roommates to another roommate's wedding in Newport Beach (that was weird being the only married couple crashing for one night with a bunch of single guys--we stayed with my grandma the rest of the time) and then flew to Charlotte after.  Holy cow is it easier to travel without kids.

At SeaWorld in San Diego with my cousin Kjersti.

in front of the LA temple

The the Chinese Theater in Hollywood

We also went on our first camping trip to Manti for the Manti pagent.  Greg was not super thrilled with our accomodations.

I also did a lot of running that year.  In fact, I won a race for once and ran my one-and-only half marathon.

winning a 10K

That was the good.  The really good.  I'm getting all half-smily, teary-eyed and longing over here just remembering it.  

And then there was the bad.

That was work.  I taught at a charter school for the academically gifted and wealthy, which was fun.  I didn't have too many behavior or language problems to deal with.   I enjoyed the students and the teaching.  My problem was the principal.  He had a firm idea of what he thought a teacher should look like and act like and teach like, but failed to tell me any of this.  Not until half-way through the first quarter did he finally articulate to me that I was supposed to teach a grammar lesson with grammar homework each week.  This happened more than once--he'd get on me for not doing something without having told me that I was supposed to do it in the first place.  It was rough, to say the least, not having the support of the principal while fumbling through my first year of teaching five different subjects without a textbook.    But Greg perfected the art of listening to me whine and we got through that first year teaching together.

Just before my 23rd birthday and after our first anniversary, we found out we were expecting our first child, which brought on another good/bad year.