Our time at BYU-Idaho

Matt and I met at BYU-Idaho the first weekend I was there before school started. Some of my roommates (there were 18 of us in 1 house) had invited Matt's apartment to come over and watch movies. Matt and Jason (Matt's roommate) showed up that night. I didn't talk to him at all that night. A couple of nights later we were on campus playing hide-and-seek with a huge group of people (50+) and as we spread out over the campus I ended up walking around with Matt. He called me the next day and asked me to go on a date country dancing. BYU-Idaho had country dancing every week where they would teach you dances and then they played music the rest of the time and we would all practice the dances we had just learned. We ended up going quite a few times and by the end of the school year we knew a couple of different country dances.

This is a picture of a service project we did at the sand dunes cleaning up garbage.

This is one of the dances that they had at BYU-Idaho. I think it was in September sometime so right at the beginning of the school year. I almost didn't scan this picture in because I can't stand how my hair looks, I had never had an updo before and this is why.

Matt and I spent most of our time together when we weren't in class. (Usually at his apartment since there were only 6 guys living there instead of 18 girls at my house.) He would always cook dinner for me and then his roommates would finish off anything that was left. I remember how surprised I was at all of the cooking equipment, spices, etc. he had brought up to school with him. He never followed a recipe either, he would just throw things together and it always tasted really good.

Before one of the dances later in the year one of my roommates (who went with one of Matt's roommates to the dance) and I put together a whole scavenger hunt throughout Idaho Fall's for them to go on while we set up a dinner by the falls. We had finger painting too which ended up in a paint fight.


We came down to Salt Lake on the weekends quite often since there was more to do down here and we were planning the wedding and trying to get things done for that. One weekend we decided to hike up to Ensign Peak.

We were engaged on October 6th, 2002 after watching the Saturday afternoon session of conference downtown with a bunch of our roommates. They all took trax back and Matt and I went on a walk around City Creek park where he proposed.

This is another weekend we were in Salt Lake and we went to a place by Provo that had a bunch of the blowup toys and a ropes/obstacle course.

This was at the end of the obstacle course you climbed into a hanging canoe.


Another picture taken at the house I was living. We were borrowing movies to go and watch at Matt's apartment. With 18 people and 1 t.v. I don't think I ever got to watch anything on it that I wanted to so it was easier to go to Matt's apartment.


This was another dance they had at the school. These pictures remind me of high school dance photo's with all the cheesy props and backgrounds.

We occasionally would go and workout on campus. You had to wear clothes they provided for you which I always thought was weird but they had really strict dress codes. Even more strict than BYU. You couldn't wear shorts or capri's on campus, only pants unless you were going to the gym and had on their shorts.

We both had a great time at BYU-Idaho and we were planning on going there the next year for school since I had a scholarship but things didn't work out that way. We had put a deposit down on a small 1 bedroom house to rent the next year for $350/month. Matt was a technician for an alarm company for the summer and so when school ended he went to Denver to work until the wedding in May. Then after that we were heading to St. Louis where we would live and work for the summer. The day before the wedding we were out picking up the tuxedos and the company called Matt and said they didn't have enough work out in St. Louis and told him he could be a salesman if he wanted but they didn't need any more technicians. The sales positions were commission based only whereas the technicians had a base salary. Matt didn't want to sell alarms systems so he ended up telling them no and things changed from there.

Two doors down from my parents there was an older couple that lived there and they had an apartment in their basement. They weren't able to do much on their own anymore and we talked with them about living there and we would help them clean, cook dinner, do yardwork, etc. So we found a place to live pretty quick. Then after the reception in Colorado the next weekend after our wedding we moved in to their house and began looking for jobs.

Looking back now we're very grateful all of that happened because it brought many other opportunities we wouldn't have had if we had moved back up to Idaho after the summer.

Well, that's a very condensed version of our first year together up at school. Next up will be the wedding! I'm glad I'm documenting some of these memories while I still remember them because as time passes everything blends together and there are so many things I don't want to forget.