Nancyann

It has been nearly 6 years since I graduated High School and my family was an intricate part of my life. I gained a great appreciation for my family and came to understand how unique it was while on my mission, but I was gone. Even after I got home from my mission, any time I spent back in Missouri, my family was no longer involved in the most exciting part of my life to the extent that they were while in High School. It’s now been nearly two years since I have been home for more than just two weeks at a time. But even before then, even when I was home for the summer, I was working full time and heavily involved in Institute activities. This has been the first semester that I have actually had family even close to me while out here at BYU. And it’s not just any family, but Nancyann. I love Nancyann. Of all of my siblings, I think that we are the most alike. We’ve been buddies as long as I can remember. This is one of my favorite pictures of us together…



Having Nancyann out here this semester sure has made all the difference in the world! We didn’t spend as much time together as I would have liked, but in all honesty, we saw each other a lot. We had two classes together every Tuesday and Thursday. And not just any classes, but our Marriage Prep class and our Beginning Tap class. They were two of my favorite classes and having Nanc in there with me just made them that much better! It was so great to be able to practice with her for Tap and to talk about the things we learned in Marriage Prep. Not just that, but it made it a lot easier to do my projects when I had her to talk with and bounce ideas off of.

Aside from school work, it was so much fun to have someone to go to performances with. We saw a lot of shows, from a percussive footwork performance to the Shanghai Circus. We watched Tartuffe and As You Like It and went on quite a few double dates. From ice cream sculpting




To a photo scavenger hunt





To a percussion ensemble performance including a steel drum band, we kept ourselves rather busy. It was a lot of fun to be able to have someone to set some of my friends up with that I wanted to double with and more than that, someone that I could get input about the girls I was spending my time with from. There’s nothing like having someone who knows you and your history as well as she knows me confirm that the girl you’re crushing on is a great girl and more than worth pursuing to help you make up your mind. It sure helped that her and Julie hit it off right away and were instant friends! Aside from that, it was so nice to have her here to talk to about whatever it was that was going on in my life that I just needed to talk to someone about. Because she now knows all of my friends telling stories about them takes half the time because I don’t have to explain who they are and their personalities and why things are funny. She already knows the context.

I can’t wait for the end of June to get here! I’m moving into a new apartment complex tomorrow and only know a few people there. It going to be fun, but it will be so much better when she comes back and is in the same complex as I am! And what makes it even better is when she comes back out, Marshall is going to come with her! I can’t wait! This summer is going to be a blast! Here are a couple more pictures of us…

(EFY 2008)

(Hanging out with Nancyann, Marshall and some friends from the Institute some time back in 2006)