How I Got Here

I always knew I wanted to be a mom.  I'm not sure what influenced me more--the teachings of the Church regarding the divinity of motherhood or my mom's own powerful example of motherhood.  When I was a child and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always responded that I wanted to be a mom. 

When I was in college, it didn't feel like it would work out.  As a senior in high school, I steadily dated a young man who went on his mission during our freshman year of college.  When he returned home, we dated a little bit but it didn't go anywhere.  As I look back I recognize that it was mostly my fault.  I was impatient and didn't want to wait around for him to make his move, so I moved on.  In the end, the next young man broke my heart and moved on to someone else.  The damage I had done to the first relationship was irreparable, and I graduated from college still single, somewhat broken-hearted, and wondered if my dream of being a wife and mother would ever come to pass.

Being single opened up a world of possibilities.  I toyed with the idea of taking the LSAT and applying for law school, just because I could.  It seemed a romantic, exciting prospect (too much TV). I also considered serving a mission.  Another option was to go for a graduate degree.  However, I went with the last option, which was to find a job in the field for which I had studied and start my career.

That field was elementary education.  In the year 2000, it seemed almost everywhere in the southwest needed teachers.  In states like California and Arizona, you didn't even need certification.  They offered emergency certification for your first year, higher pay than almost everywhere else, and you could get certified during that year.  I decided to try California.  It was an exciting prospect to move to California.

I took a job teaching second grade in a tiny school district in a little town in the high desert area of Los Angeles County.  I took that job after interviewing and meeting with several principals in school districts all over Southern California and even one in Northern California.  The job just felt like the right one for me.

And so it was.  I moved to Southern California to my very own apartment.  I didn't know a soul.  The first thing I did upon deciding that was the job for me was to find the LDS Institute.  I found a place to live on recommendation from some other teachers.  I also met a few teachers at my school who were LDS and they helped me through the transition.  My parents were far away in Michigan; my brothers in Japan and England and Utah, and the nearest family I had was my aunt in Northern California.  I started attending Institute every Wednesday night and the local singles ward on Sundays and all other activities.  I was very busy, teaching, attending school meetings, singles ward activities, and Institute classes whenever I could.

Through Institute, I met a young man who was recently returned from his mission.  Our courtship was very fast, about one month, and our engagement was about six months.  We got married on June 21, 2001.  We stayed in Southern California for one more year while I taught school and he finished his associate's degree at the local junior college, playing football and also working.

We moved to Idaho with the intent for him to finish school.  I found a job teaching a bilingual kindergarten.  He worked part-time at Sears and part-time as a second grade teacher's assistant.  I became pregnant, and our circumstances changed.  So we packed up and moved back to California, where my husband got his old job back on the fast track to management and I stopped teaching and became a stay-at-home mom.

Since then, I have devoted my time and energy to making motherhood my career.  I have struggled on and off with the isolation of it all, but recently have realized that this is my dream life.  I always wanted to be a mom and be the primary caregiver to my children, stay at home with them, and teach them, and I get to do that.  I am so grateful for that.

Favorite Toys

My favorite toy(s) as a child were my Barbie horses. I had three of them. Dallas, Dixie and Honey. I played with those things so much that I ended up breaking off most of the their legs from the knees down. They did not survive my childhood even though my Barbies did.

Honestly, though, I had forgotten about my Barbie horses until my daughter started getting into My Little Pony. I remembered that I had two My Little Ponies. One was a purple unicorn with a white mane and tail and the other was a white pegasus with an orange mane and tail. I was explaining to my husband how I didn't really like the My Little Ponies as much as I liked the Barbie horses because the Barbie horses were more realistic. I never did get into My Little Pony very much.

Upon remembering this, I decided to see if I could find any of these Barbie horses on E-bay. I ended up finding ALL of them on E-bay, plus ones that were before my time and even later. I bid on all the ones I could and won almost all of them. Now, I have a full set of the Barbie horses I had, two of them are mint, in my closet and all the extras I won went into my daughter's toy box.

My husband laughs at me for buying the mint ones. He asked if I would ever let my kids play with them and I told him probably not. I just wanted them to look at and remember some of my favorite times as a child, I guess.

Remembering Church Callings

I don't really remember church callings that my parents had before I was about eight years old. I know that my mom served in the primary presidency for a lot of my childhood and during some of those years my dad was in the bishopric. He also taught my primary class when I was nine.

One calling my dad has had numerous times in many of the different places we've lived is being on the stake high council. I remember going with him to different wards in the stake to hear him speak and to see my friends on those wards. That was always fun for me. Plus, he is a good speaker and I always enjoy his talks.

Another calling my dad had at one time was in the young men's presidency right about when I was 12 years old. We had a ward activity, a dance, to which the beehives and deacons were invited. I remember dancing with my dad at that activity.

My mom, aside from primary when I was younger, often served in the Relief Society, either as a teacher or in the presidency. She is also a good teacher and always set a wonderful example to me of how to serve through her callings in Relief Society.

When I turned 18, my mom was the Relief Society president. I had no interest in attending Young Women's anymore, even though I still had half of my senior year in high school to finish. There were several other young women like me who were tired of Young Women's, but not really ready for Relief Society. She made the transition easier for us by making a separate Relief Society class for us taught by another young single adult sister, one who had just returned from a mission. We were able to connect with Relief Society and feel a part of it even though we were still so young and many of us still in high school. I think that a lot of young women who turn 18 during high school can kind of get lost when it comes to church. They are too old for Young Women's and have often completed the Young Women's in Excellence but feel out of place for Relief Society. I don't know how the other girls my age felt about it, and I don't even remember how many of them came to church and attended that class at that point, but it certainly helped me.

Favorite TV Shows

I did not watch a whole lot of television when I was a child. I don't remember if that's because my parents didn't really allow us to watch very much TV or because I just wasn't interested. I just don't remember much TV from before I was in the sixth grade.

When I was in the sixth or seventh grade, though, a favorite show that we always watched together as a family was The Wonder Years. That show starred Fred Savage. It was a show about a young boy, early teens, growing up in the 1960's, named Kevin Arnold. Much of it revolved around the social ups and downs of adolescence, as well as some family issues. My favorite episode was one that was a parody of the original Star Trek, where three of the girls that Kevin liked were torturing him into deciding between them, similar to an episode of the old Star Trek. I thought it was hilarious. Another episode I remember quite well was the one in which a geeky girl, Margaret Farquar, has to work on a project with Kevin. Of course, he is embarrassed that he has to be seen with her, and she has a crush on him, and it all ends in him hurting her feelings but learning that even the nerdiest people are still people with feelings. Most of the shows ended with good messages like that.


Another show we watched as a family when I was in high school was Home Improvement. That show starred Tim Allen and was about a man who lived in Michigan who had his own cable tool show, a wife, and three kids (all boys), and the mishaps that happened to him. I liked it because it was quite funny and, like The Wonder Years, it usually had some good messages. I even enjoy watching the reruns today and seeing them from the perspective of a married mother of boys rather than the perspective of a teenage girl.


I know I watched other TV, but those were two of my favorite shows.

High School Clubs

Ninth grade squad, I'm in the front right holding the spirit stick

Varsity squad, my senior year, I'm on the second row, second from the left

In junior high school, I was in the pep club in seventh grade. I also joined speech club that year but didn't really participate very much. From eighth grade through senior year, except for tenth grade, I was involved with cheerleading. I also participated in other extra-curricular clubs, like National Junior Honor Society and National Junior Beta Club in junior high school, but again, my participation was limited.

Cheerleading was pretty fun. I originally wasn't even going to try out. I was a gymnast but had quit taking private gymnastics in the sixth grade. One Thursday afternoon during football season, in the seventh grade, I was out in my front yard doing some tumbling passes. A tenth grade cheerleader lived across the street from me and she and some of the other girls on her squad were painting signs for upcoming football games on her driveway. They saw me tumbling and called me over. The girl was a friend of my older brother's and I knew her. All the girls were quite impressed with my tumbling skills and asked if I was going to try out for cheerleading at the junior high school. The girl offered to help me with the tryouts if I decided to try out, so I took her up on her offer. I made eighth grade cheerleader and was one of twenty girls on the squad.

Although I enjoyed cheerleading, I never really felt part of it. The cheerleaders were the popular girls and I never was really one of them. I think I only made the squad every year because of how advanced my tumbling skills were. I could do a series of back handsprings from one end of the football field to the other, about twenty in a row. I was also skilled in the stunts, able to pull difficult stunts like scorpions and pencils because of my balance, flexibility, and experience in gymnastics.

At the end of ninth grade, we were supposed to be moving, so I didn't try out for the tenth grade year. I participated in school gymnastics instead until we moved. The new school had no gymnastics team, so at the end of that year, I tried out for cheerleading again and made it. The cheerleading coach was an elitist and had already hand-picked her squad for my senior year when everyone was a sophomore. I was the new girl and because I had so much cheerleading and gymnastics experience, I got high marks from the judges and made the squad, but because I wasn't on the lady's original list, she never really did like me and always put me in the back and never really let me fully participate. By my senior year, cheerleading was something I did because I liked the gymnastics part of it, but I really wasn't part of the group. In fact, I don't really have any friends that I've kept up with from cheerleading my senior year. I have more friends from cheerleading in eighth grade that I've kept up with than people I cheered with in high school.

I enjoyed cheerleading because I was able to use my gymnastics training in it. I am glad I participated. Cheering at football and basketball games was really fun and exciting and every year when these sporting events roll around, I miss the excitement of cheering in front of the crowd. But cheerleading did not define who I was, it was just something I did for fun.