Let's Start at the Very Beginning

Mike and I met in West Bountiful, UT around the fall of 1994. We were both 7th graders at Centerville Jr. High and rode the same bus to school. Mike's house was a few blocks away, in the same ward as my best friend, Emily Jensen. I met him through her. I should probably send her some flowers :) Even though we met that early on, we didn't date each other, despite secret crushes, until he had come home from his mission in Spain. The day after his homecoming, I invited him to Institute - and what good, LDS RM would refuse that? Almost 8 months to the day, we were married in the Bountiful Temple.

We spent the first year of our marriage living in Utah. Mike had been considering medical school, but after taking the Rockport Test, changed his mind and decided to pursue Petroleum Engineering. The Lord decided we needed to be in Butte, MT for Mike's education, so we moved over New Years 2006.
We've been blessed with paid internships every summer to help defray our costs of living while being full time students: Ensign Drilling in Vernal, UT 2006; Aera Energy in Bakersfield, CA 2007; Conoco Phillips in Farmington, NM 2008; Conoco Phillips in Anchorage, AK 2009. I stayed behind in 2006 and 2007 so I could work and finish my Accounting degree, which I scored in December 2008. Mike graduated with a BA in Petroleum Engineering in December 2009 and started working the very next month for BP in Houston, TX. In October 2011, BP transferred us to Durango, CO.

Lily joined our family in November 2008 and is the apple of my eye. James joined our family in June 2010 and is the joy of my heart.