After Jared and I got married, we moved into a basement apartment in Logan. Our Landlords were the best! It was the perfect little place to start our life together. We had a small family room, that fit our furniture nice and snug, a nice little bathroom that was re-tiled, little bedroom that fit our bed and dresser perfectly and a kitchen that you could fit at most- 6 people in (trust me, we tried). It was exactly what we needed and served us well.
Jared worked hard one more semester at Propel Trampolines while I completed my student teaching at the Up to 3 Program and at Riverside Preschool. I also had the opportunity to do in home ABA therapy on an eight year old that has autism, be a teacher aid for a professor on campus, and serve as a member in AmeriCorps. We were very busy but it was a great semester that went by really quickly.
Towards the end of October, I had the opportunity to interview with a few different school districts across the state of Utah when they came up to Utah State University to get to know the graduating class of special educators. I was told that Nebo School District and Jordan School Districts were hiring so I was definitely going to sign up to interview with them. The only problem was I wasn't sure where Nebo School District was. I was talking to Jared about this the night before and he got super excited because Nebo School District is in Southern Utah County where he is from. I ended up hearing back from Nebo School District right a way to see if I was interested in coming down to Spanish Fork for another interview. I set it up with them one Friday and Jared and I headed down. I was so nervous but it went really well. They ended up offering me a job right on the spot! I was shocked but excited. I ended up getting in contact with Jordan School District and they talked about the possibility of hiring me as well. After a week of thinking and praying about it, Jared and I decided Nebo School District would probably be the best option for us at the time. We had a great opportunity for a work for rent option and there were a lot of potential options for Jared's work as well. So I ended up accepting the job and they asked if I could be there December 15th to begin
working. Wow, it all happened so fast! I technically graduated the first weekend in December but walked in May 2015. I had a lot of love and support at my graduation!
Finals finished up the first week of December and the first weekend of December, Jared and I took off for the weekend to visit my brother in Arizona! It was so wonderful to get to go down and visit him. We had a really nice weekend. The following weekend is when we moved. Our wonderful friend Garrick came up and between the three of us (Jared, Garrick, and me) we got us all packed up, cleaned up, and moved out by that evening. We all did take a good break for lunch. I met up with Jana at Black Pearl for her birthday and we ate some sushi and partied it up. After we were all done, we headed down to stay with Jared's parents for the night.
The next day we had Jared's whole family helping us move into our new humble abode...aka the mortuary....OK that deserves an explanation...hahaha. Jared's older sister married Adam Walker who is a mortician. The Walker's own 2 mortuaries, one in Spanish Fork and one in Payson. At the Spanish Fork mortuary, the Walker's hire two couples to live and work there in exchange for rent. The apartment we moved into was nice and spacious (especially compared to our Logan apartment). There was two bedrooms, two family rooms, a kitchen, a storage room, a bathroom, and one large sunroom. It was nice to have so much space. To live there we were responsible to be on call (home from 5:00pm to 8:30am every Monday, Wednesday, and every other weekend. We also had to work (greet people at the door and be there in case the family needed anything) viewings anytime they occurred at the mortuary when we were on call. We were required to clean the mortuary whenever we were on call and Jared also needed to be available to help with picking up the deceased if they died in their home while we were on call. If Jared assisted in pick ups, he received $50 and we made $200 a month for being on call. This meant that we didn't pay any rent and made at least $250 every month. It was a wonderful experience!!
At this time, Jared was deciding between getting his MBA and finding a job. He took a couple classes and started looking around. In April he was hired on at Geneva Rock with a paid internship. While he was taking classes and applying for jobs Jared had the opportunity to help out during the day at the mortuary as well which really helped us financially. We received so many blessings by living there.
However, I need to be clear that we sacrificed a lot to live there. It wasn't as easy as I tend to make it sound. We had to be on call during holidays so two years in a row my family came down and celebrated Christmas at the mortuary. We also missed a lot of family and friend get togethers or one of us could attend but not the other. It gave Jared and I a lot of time together which was really fun but we mainly used that time to watch Netflix...(prison break, everybody loves raymond, gilmore girls).
Right before Jared started work at Geneva Rock, we had the opportunity to go to California for a week with the Elliott's (this is what my in-laws gave us for Christmas this year). It was a wonderful time! We spent 4 days at Disneyland and 1 day at the beach. I loved spending so much time with all of them especially at the happiest place on earth!
In June, I started teaching the Autism preschool for Summer school, we went horse riding, Mel and I went hiking, we spent a few days in southern Utah at a family reunion with my dads side of the family, then we were off to pretty much the other side of the state to begin the Top of Zion relay race with all of Jared's family. The race went from Torrey Utah to the east side of Zion's national park. The whole race was absolutely gorgeous! Unfortunately, I was sick like the entire race so I wasn't able to do very well... I have to tell you the crazy story of driving to the finish line...Well we were in van one so we finished our last runs and headed to the finish line, to get to the finish line you had to drive through this mountain area with no cell service. First, we got stuck behind a farmer herding his cows, then we had to cross over a couple of areas where the road was washed out from flash floods that had occurred the week prior to the race , and then it started to rain which caused very muddy roads. We were in a big truck that had four wheel drive so we weren't nervous but as we drove up this one hill we came across six other vehicles that were stuck. It was a sketchy area to be stuck because there was mountain on one side and a cliff on the other and with how slippery the mud was there was a really good chance someone could slip off the cliff. Luckily in our vehicle we had Jared, Garrett, and Seth to help manage the situation. They got out and helped drive and push all of the vehicles safely up the hill. I don't think I could ever explain in words how crazy the situation was except that they ended up turning the rest of our team around-not letting them finish the race and the race was cancelled for 2016. It was a lot of fun and a really crazy experience.
Our Nephew Karson dedicated a book he wrote at school to Jared. So sweet!!
There's our life for you up to June.
Towards the end of October, I had the opportunity to interview with a few different school districts across the state of Utah when they came up to Utah State University to get to know the graduating class of special educators. I was told that Nebo School District and Jordan School Districts were hiring so I was definitely going to sign up to interview with them. The only problem was I wasn't sure where Nebo School District was. I was talking to Jared about this the night before and he got super excited because Nebo School District is in Southern Utah County where he is from. I ended up hearing back from Nebo School District right a way to see if I was interested in coming down to Spanish Fork for another interview. I set it up with them one Friday and Jared and I headed down. I was so nervous but it went really well. They ended up offering me a job right on the spot! I was shocked but excited. I ended up getting in contact with Jordan School District and they talked about the possibility of hiring me as well. After a week of thinking and praying about it, Jared and I decided Nebo School District would probably be the best option for us at the time. We had a great opportunity for a work for rent option and there were a lot of potential options for Jared's work as well. So I ended up accepting the job and they asked if I could be there December 15th to begin
working. Wow, it all happened so fast! I technically graduated the first weekend in December but walked in May 2015. I had a lot of love and support at my graduation!
Finals finished up the first week of December and the first weekend of December, Jared and I took off for the weekend to visit my brother in Arizona! It was so wonderful to get to go down and visit him. We had a really nice weekend. The following weekend is when we moved. Our wonderful friend Garrick came up and between the three of us (Jared, Garrick, and me) we got us all packed up, cleaned up, and moved out by that evening. We all did take a good break for lunch. I met up with Jana at Black Pearl for her birthday and we ate some sushi and partied it up. After we were all done, we headed down to stay with Jared's parents for the night.
The next day we had Jared's whole family helping us move into our new humble abode...aka the mortuary....OK that deserves an explanation...hahaha. Jared's older sister married Adam Walker who is a mortician. The Walker's own 2 mortuaries, one in Spanish Fork and one in Payson. At the Spanish Fork mortuary, the Walker's hire two couples to live and work there in exchange for rent. The apartment we moved into was nice and spacious (especially compared to our Logan apartment). There was two bedrooms, two family rooms, a kitchen, a storage room, a bathroom, and one large sunroom. It was nice to have so much space. To live there we were responsible to be on call (home from 5:00pm to 8:30am every Monday, Wednesday, and every other weekend. We also had to work (greet people at the door and be there in case the family needed anything) viewings anytime they occurred at the mortuary when we were on call. We were required to clean the mortuary whenever we were on call and Jared also needed to be available to help with picking up the deceased if they died in their home while we were on call. If Jared assisted in pick ups, he received $50 and we made $200 a month for being on call. This meant that we didn't pay any rent and made at least $250 every month. It was a wonderful experience!!
At this time, Jared was deciding between getting his MBA and finding a job. He took a couple classes and started looking around. In April he was hired on at Geneva Rock with a paid internship. While he was taking classes and applying for jobs Jared had the opportunity to help out during the day at the mortuary as well which really helped us financially. We received so many blessings by living there.
However, I need to be clear that we sacrificed a lot to live there. It wasn't as easy as I tend to make it sound. We had to be on call during holidays so two years in a row my family came down and celebrated Christmas at the mortuary. We also missed a lot of family and friend get togethers or one of us could attend but not the other. It gave Jared and I a lot of time together which was really fun but we mainly used that time to watch Netflix...(prison break, everybody loves raymond, gilmore girls).
Right before Jared started work at Geneva Rock, we had the opportunity to go to California for a week with the Elliott's (this is what my in-laws gave us for Christmas this year). It was a wonderful time! We spent 4 days at Disneyland and 1 day at the beach. I loved spending so much time with all of them especially at the happiest place on earth!
Our Nephew Karson dedicated a book he wrote at school to Jared. So sweet!!
There's our life for you up to June.
Oh.... and happy Independence Day America!
