Working in Utah

I thought I would dedicate one post to all the jobs we worked while we were living in Utah. That way there won't be multiple boring posts about the jobs we had. So this is how we earned money while going to BYU.

Brian had applied to some nicer jobs on campus when we were still in Tennessee, but he didn't hear back for any of them. (These jobs you usually have to know someone to get the job, but it was worth a try). So when he got back he went to the custodial office and was able to get another custodial job. Fortunately his schedule allowed for him to take an afternoon shift, so he didn't have to work early morning. Unfortunately he was fully awake while he was cleaning and was fully aware of how bored he was.

Because I was in the Junior Core I didn't look for a job right away. After I got into the groove of the semester I realized I had some time and energy left and we were getting broke fast, so I started to look for a job. Unfortunately at that point all the good jobs were taken, and I had to work around my group members work schedules so I didn't take up the few times that our group could meet together. Well one day kind of on a whim I saw an add for dish help at the Cannon Center. I got the job immediately and I soon found out why. The work was bad enough, but I could easily handle the disgustingness of food left over, and even some of the creations made by freshman to make out lives harder. The real hard part was our supervisor didn't actually do much and go upset when we didn't finish up early enough. He was the only boss I ever had who made me cry (I didn't cry at work, I managed to make it to my car). The real kicker was at the end of the semester I was quitting, but they were bringing in the new people for the next semester to train, so there was about twice as many people in the dish room. I had an exit type interview and mentioned how relaxed the dish room was because there were so many people there. The supervisor replied that there was supposed to be that many people to have a full crew. No wonder it took us an extra half an hour each night. I was so glad to get out of that job.

After I got really upset that day in the dish room I started actively looking for a new job. I remembered that when I was in high school a neighbor in our ward was impressed by how well I did at an accounting competition and said I could have a job if I ever wanted one. He was a partner in a small accounting firm called Johnson and Associates. I called Steve up hopeful he could make some work for me. I was really lucky because they were going into busy season, and one of their employees had just left. Steve wanted me to work 20 hours and I wanted closer to 10 because I was still in the Junior Core and you had to get special permission to work more than 10 hours, so we settled on 15. I started out doing payroll for his clients and the quarterly payroll reports. I also did the secretarial stuff during the summer when they had less employees. I worked on entering the books for the small companies they did taxes for, and by the end I was putting in the individual returns they did during busy season. I worked there until Joshua was born, part time until I graduated and then full time for four months afterwards. I really enjoyed working there and learned a lot too.

Brian was able to move up in the working world too. He only had to be a custodian for one more semester, and then he was able to get a job as a TA for a low level chemical engineering course. He was able to do his homework if no one came in during office hours, and was able to set some of his own working hours. He only worked as a TA for one semester (that's all they will hire you for sometimes anyway, because the class is over).

For the spring and going forward until we moved away Brian was able to work as a research assistant. He worked on updating a chemical data base that BYU had that commerical companies would pay to subscribe to the information. It was a really nice job because he could work as little as 10 hours a week up to 20 hours if he was in school, or full time when he wasn't in school. He was also able to work remotely from our laptop and choose his own hours almost entirely. It was also a real resume booster, so it was an all around winner job.

I also had one other job. One summer term I was going to school and wasn't taking very many classes, and there wasn't very much for me to do at work, so I looked for a job on campus. I was able to pick up 10 hours a week working at FARMS.(I don't think it is called that anymore). They were totally cool about working around my school and other work schedule and for me only working a term. I entered their income and did a few other secretarial things as needed. Then I trained my replacement and it was done. So there are our jobs for when we went to BYU.

Junior Core

The fall of 2005 was the starting of the accounting junior core for me. I was nervous going in because of the stories I had heard about how hard and time consuming it was. Brian and I agreed that I wouldn't work, at least initially, so that I could focus on school and find out how time consuming the core was going to be.

I was excited to find myself in the smallest section of students. That would mean more professor attention and make it easier to know the other students. We were immediately put into groups of five, to be our group for the entire semester, and given the Waren case. I got along very well with my group, it was new and refreshing to have group members that would actually do work. Up until this point most of my school group experiences involved me doing most of the work. I also go to meet someone who became one of my best friends, Suzanne. We were the only two girls in the group and got along right from the start. The case was very time intensive and we spent many hours together those first couple of weeks getting it done. Suzanne and I would joke about how we saw each other more than we saw our husbands. (Later we were able to get our husbands to meet too, and they got along swimmingly).

I think the case was meant to be a group bonding experience because it wasn't especially hard, it covered fairly easy accounting principles we learned in the past, but it was really detail intensive, and took a lot of time. After that case was over we didn't have to spend so much time together as a group, even though we did a lot of our homework together. Our group got along really well and asked if we could be a group again the next semester. But we were told that we couldn't.

I didn't get along as well with my group the next semester. The second semester you could start to see the drift between the people who wanted to get into the MAcc, who continued to be really over achievers, and those who didn't want to get into the MAcc, who were getting tired of the really intense workload. There was no real drama, but we had some group members that pulled more weight than others. They did all pull through for me when I spent a week in the hospital, and even came and visited me there.

It was a good year and I learned a lot, but I was glad when it was over.

Other things we did while living in Tennessee

It was super nice to be only working and not going to school full time while we were in Tennessee. Brian did take one calculus class at the University of Tennessee, but the class wasn't as competitive as those at BYU so it wasn't too bad.

Bob and Terry were worried about me leaving my horse behind in Utah for the summer, so they arranged with their friend who lived near their house for me to come ride her horses. She had two horses one was young and hadn't had tons of training and the other one was really old, but calmer. I rode the young one because I like a challenge, and if I brought Brian or one of his family members they could ride the older horse. I usually made it over once a week, I would go when Brian was working, then I could go over to Terry's for dinner It was a great setup.

Another thing we did that summer was go on a giant family vacation. Bob was unfortunately working out of town in Wyoming, but Terry, Brian, all his siblings, and I crammed into their mini van (there were just enough seat belts), and went to Ohio. We stayed with Bob's aunt and went to a nearby amusement park with wooden roller coasters and a water park. It was really fun, but the part I remember most is Brian's sister was driving close to a 100 miles per hour, was pulled over and Terry talked him out of giving her a ticket.

At the end of the summer Brian's sister Jesse, put in her papers for a mission and was called to the Albanian Mission. She went through the temple for the first time the day before Brian and I left to move back to Utah. We went down to the Atlanta Temple, and Jesse went through for herself and Terry, Bob, Jeremy, Brian and I did family names. After the endowment session we sealed the families together that we could at that point. It was a wonderful day, but when Brian and I got back to Knoxville we had al ot of packing to do to get ready.

Brian and I had ended up working a couple extra days longer than we planned on, and we had started packing and cleaning but hadn't gotten very far. Fortunately Bob and Terry came over that night and helped us cram all of our possessions we had there into the car. Remember we had had another wedding reception while we were in Teneessee. Amazingly we made it. But I wasn't able to do a final deep cleaning like I had hoped for. (Sorry Mamaw).

And the next morning at 6:00 a.m. Brian and I left to return to Utah. The drive was painfully long, but we made it uneventfully.

Working in Tennessee

Before we were married and moved to Tennessee I had sent my resume out for several jobs I looked up online in the Knoxville newspaper. I had gotten one call back and that was from a temp agency, so I was kind of worried when we went out there. Well on the last day of what should have our honeymoon we were just chilling because I hadn't felt well enough to go to the cabin I got a call for an interview. The next Monday I went out and interviewed at an apartment complex that was doing renovations and they needed someone to oversee the renovations so the regional manager that was doing that could go back to doing regional managering things.

I was hired that day and started the next week. The regional manager ended up doing most of the overseeing because they kept changing their minds about how they were going to do things and what they were going to do. I ended up doing the paperwork for the accounts payable for the renovations and for the regular day to day goings on of the running apartments.

Then a nearby apartment complex that was run by the same company had their manager go out on maternity leave. I had like 3 days training and they had me manage the place for the summer. Fortunately I never had to evict anyone, because they never taught me how to that. On my last week there the regional manager (she had finally figured out what she was doing renovation wise and had hired another lady to run the renovations), and the vice president of the company came by to see how things were going at the complex I was managing. I showed them around the complex, I only had one vacancy and someone was moving in the next week, and I only had three late rent payers, and I knew them by name and apartment number and when they planned on paying. The vice president was so impressed that he told me if I ever wanted to he would find me a permanent managing job. I felt pretty good about that.

When the manager came back I only had a couple of weeks left until we left for Utah again. The managing company had a third complex in the area whose manager had left and had not been sending in the bills to be processed and paid. I spent the next couple of weeks there teaching the new manager how to deal with the accounts payable paperwork and trying to catch her up on the piles of bills laying around.

Brian had a harder time finding a job. He couldn't start work until about 10:00 because he was taking a calculus class in the morning. He also had to stay close to either where I was working or to where we were living because we only had one car. He eventually found a job at Kneaders. The good part was we could get decent food at 1/2 price and sometimes he would bring home something left over from the bakery (not very often though because they donated the leftover food), the crappy part was a lot of the time he didn't start work until 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon, and I got off work at 5:00. He would work until 10:00 or 11:00 at night and sometimes I would fall asleep outside Kneaders in the car waiting for him to get off. He had a lot of lonely days and I had a lot of lonely nights because of the opposite working schedules.

Brian once had to help a secret shopper. When he got the report back he found that he got a perfect score. He did a good job for them, but he was happy to get out of food service when we moved back to Utah.

Tennessee Reception

After our honeymoon we had another wedding reception in Tennessee. I wasn't excited because I still was not feeling well and I was was done with weddings and receptions after the long day in Utah. It ended up being fairly fun. I don't remember having to help set up, I think since we were supposed to be still on our honeymoon when they set up stuff, we managed to get out of helping. I had also refused to have anything to do with planning this one (what could I really do anyway I was living in Utah), so it was wonderful to just show up and have it planned and ready.

My parents flew in for the reception. It was nice to see them once more before spending the whole summer in Tennessee, a new place and new people.

The reception was a lot more relaxed than the Utah one. There was no line and we just mingled. I actually got to sit down and eat food. That was a refreshing change.

One of Terry's friends made us a cake for a wedding present.Because there was no line we were able to dance

and I was able to have a dance with my dad too.

Then the whole wedding/reception part was over. It was really fun, but both Brian and I agree that it is good we only have to get married once.

The Honeymoon

We had a very interesting honeymoon. We had decided to move to Tennessee for the summer, but since we didn't have anything we needed to go through the gifts we received to take things out we needed. So we spent the whole day the day after the wedding opening gifts, writing the list for thank-you cards, and packing up what to take and taking the rest to a storage unit. It was super exhausting and took a lot longer than we expected.

The next day we planned on driving 6 hours to Cheyenne Wyoming. Then we planned on messing around there for the evening. The next morning my dad woke us up to tell us that I-80 was closed from snow and we could not go to Wyoming. Instead we decided go through Denver Colorado on our way East. Denver was over an hour of a longer drive and we didn't have a place lined up to stay, so we ended up getting in pretty late.

The next day we were going to Winter Quarters Nebraska and were going to go to the temple there. We had called ahead and had our name ready for the last session of the day. But it adds another hour to go to Nebraska from Colorado instead of Wyoming. Also that day the car's check engine light came on and Brian spent an hour on the phone with my dad trying to make sure the car would make it the rest of the way across the country. (Just as a side note, the car's check engine light still comes on every time we go on a long trip, I think the car is just tired). On top of that Brian and I had forgot that you lose time as you go from West to East, and had not counted an extra hour in our driving time. With all the lost time we got to Winter Quarters 2 hours after the session was supposed to start.

Even though things were not going as planned we were excited because our next stop was Nauvoo Illinois. We planned to go to the temple there and to see the sites and were going to stay for several days. When we left Nebraska neither of us were hungry so we decided to look for somewhere to eat breakfast. Well there is nowhere to eat in Nebraska, soon we were starving and found that there are no restaurants. We ate snacked for hours until we finally got to a place that had somewhere to eat.

We got into Nauvoo late that evening. I had this nasty pimple that I was trying to hide (who wants a pimply bride). That night I was messing with it and realized it wasn't actually a pimple it was a crop up of the staff infection I had had earlier. The next morning I told Brian and he took me to the local emergency room. The doctor said it was just a rash, and I had to get my Utah doctor on the phone to convince him to give me antibiotics. It had taken me longer than before to realize something was wrong, so I was feeling quite sick. I ended up spending most of our time in Nauvoo laying in our hotel bed, while Brian played on his playstation. I did end up feeling well enough the last day to go to a couple of sites. I did not go to the temple because I was afraid of making old people sick.

From Nauvoo we were to drive to Knoxville, and then we were to go to a cabin in the mountains for a few days. When we left Nauvoo we ended up on the wrong road and had to take out the atlas to figure out how to get back on track. On the road we ended up taking we were behind a semi going slow so Brian didn't have to pay attention to his speed. Then we thought Brian's bike was coming loose off the car. So Brian pulled over to fix it. When he got back on the road he continued to just drive and not watch his speed. Well there was not a semi in front of us, but there was a cop behind us, who we didn't see trying to pull us over for a long time because of the bike. He was not enthused and gave Brian a ticket.

Later that day I was driving and some body on the interstate told us to get off. Turned out we had a flat tire. We went to the first place we saw to get it fixed, a Sam's Club. When we got there we bought a Sam's Club membership and went back and asked them to fix our tire. They said they couldn't fix our tire because they were not Sam's Club tires. We were so annoyed and told the guy working there our whole sad story about being on our honeymoon, and me being sick, and he agreed to fix it.

After that we made it uneventfully into Knoxville, but really late. We never did end up going to the cabin because I didn't feel good. But I did have a job interview the last day we would have been at the cabin.

Someday we will try for a honeymoon again.

The Wedding Day

This post will be a lot of pictures but hopefully I can get some of the stories of the day in too.

Our wedding was in the morning around 10:00 I believe. We had to get to the temple early to get ready. I wanted to be married in my wedding dress, the only issue was that the sleeves were not long sleeves, but that wasn't to be a big deal because the temple has sleeves you can put in under your dress. I expected it to be just sleeves, but it was a sweater thing, that was a little bulkier than I expected. My mom and I had a panic moment when she was doing up my dress, because the zipper would not go up, but with me holding my breath she could get it done up. It was really tight, and it was hard to breath but I made it in.

From there the temple workers took me to the Celestial Room, and Brian and I got to sit and talk while our guests for the ceramony were brought in and seated in the Sealing Room. We didn't have tons of people there because our families are fairly small. Then they brought us in and the sealer gave us some advice and then we had the ceramony. It was beautiful and special, and I loved looking in the double mirrors as Brian and I went back for forever. I also loved the calmness because the rest of the day was crazy.

Next we went out and did pictures on the temple grounds.

Here is everyone that came to our wedding and to the temple to wait. (Not everyone could go in for the ceramony).

Here is my family and extended family.

Here is Brian's family and family friends that came

It was crazy all the pictures that were taken, my roommates stuck around to help out with the lighting and moving things around.

Our photographer was a little slow, but he got some good pictures.

And here is us by the beautiful Mount Timpanogos Temple

Brian and I were hoping to have a break to rest between pictures and getting my hair done for the reception, but the pictures took too long, so we just had a quick lunch and we were off to get my hair done. My dad and siblings worked on finishing up the decorations for the reception and getting the food. My roommates went back to my parent's house and fell asleep. They were laying all over the place.

The reception turned out really beautiful and I had some gorgeous flowers.

Here is the wedding cake If you look closely on the right side you can see a finger swipe.

Here is the groom's cake. (I had never heard of a groom's cake, but I guess it is a Southern thing, and Brian really wanted one).You can't see it in the picture, but this cake got a swipe taken out of it too. I just laughed about the cakes, my dad did too, but it was a good thing for the kids that swiped the cakes that they were gone before my dad got back to the church.

I love fresh flowers, and and loved my bouquet, too bad they don't last longer. I spent most of my night in the never ending line, and had to sneak bites of food, I was starving by the end.

We cut the cake, but didn't go for the cake smashing in the face.

And Bree caught the throwing bouquet. She was the next one out of everyone who dove for the bouquet to get married.

Finally the line ended and Brian and I escaped into our decorated car.After the day's before's driving issues my roommates had written on the car something to the effect of "Don't die on the way to the honeymoon, its a long time until the Millenium". But we made it safely away.