Week 22 - How did you meet your spouse?

It took me long time to find Kelly and I had to go through quite a bit of heartache to get there.  I really wanted to move on with my life right after I got home from my mission.  The trouble was, I wasn't quite ready for Kelly.

After my mission, I ended up staying home for a few months and starting my education at Weber State University.  I had quite a bit of exploring to do while at college.  Luckily the course came through that focused my study early enough that made it so I didn't have to backtrack too much with my education.  I sailed through Weber State and my undergraduate degree in a little over three years.  During that time I dated a number of young ladies, a few of which I thought I was going to marry.  For one reason or another, I was led away from them, even though they were great young ladies and could have been great spouses and mothers.  This got to be quite frustrating.

I attended a ward for students while I was at Weber State University. I was given quite a few opportunities to serve in different areas in the church during this time.  It gave me some great experience and understanding of how the organization of the church works.  I also met some great lifelong friends - mostly mentors who have served to shape my life or as examples of how to live the gospel.  I was also able to attend quite a few different institute classes that helped me to better understand the doctrines of the gospel.  This opportunity to learn, study and practice the gospel with only the obligations of school and work were very beneficial to me and the shoring up the foundation of the person that I am today.

After I graduated from school, I was quite sure what to do next.  I knew I needed to find a wife and start a family, but it wasn't like I hadn't been trying to do that.  I found an excellent job for developing my skills as a graphic designer in the print industry.  While it paid substantially less than most of my friends were making right out of college, it served as a place not only to develop those skills, but to watch another great mentor in my life in how he balanced work and family as well as ran the business.  I worked for the print company for right around five years.  I was given opportunities to take on various responsibilities throughout the shop and - though I had no title for it - I felt like I was the right hand man in the shop.  This gave me a great understanding of the entire print industry and helped me understand my role as a designer in that industry.  This has served me well as I moved on to other employment.  While working at the print shop I also took on starting my own graphic design business.  I noticed a gap in the wedding industry where people wanted custom wedding announcements and my boss gave me the opportunity to work doing these projects on the side while continuing to work in his shop.  Having a design business on the side has also served my family well later in life.

These years after graduation all served to be quite frustrating.  Not only did the frustration come from within from wanting to be married, it came from outside quite often as well.  It seems like there are a few levels in life were the pressure to be married is heightened; after a mission is one and after graduating from college is another.  While this was all going on, these years also served as a great spiritual training ground for me.  I was given multiple other opportunities to serve in various leadership callings in the church.

After only a few months of being at home after my mission, I ended up moving into a house up near Weber State with a few friends of some of my friends.  These young men ended up being some of the best friends I've had in my life.  They are all great men and served as role models to me.  They also helped me through numerous tough spots in my life.  We were all in the same place in life, dealing with the same frustrations.  While it was good to talk with a brother, sister, or parents on some of the frustrations I was dealing with, these young men became my confidants and help through many of my frustrating times during these years.

I continued to attend the student wards up at Weber State.  I was able to serve with three different bishoprics during this time.  After graduating there was a small change in how I felt about the student wards - I think they felt that way about me as well.  I felt more like a  caretaker or big brother to the students that were coming into the ward.  I continued dating, but it wasn't really the same.  I had a small group of friends, mostly my roommates that were all in the same boat as me and we all took on the role together.  Our home was the place that the students in our ward would come for refuge.  They'd come to hang out, but to feel like they were at home where someone could take care of them.  We'd have big barbeques, parties, or just times to hang out and be together talking with people.  Everyone was welcome at our home, even much to some of our dismay when we weren't home.  There were quite a few issues with seven guys coming and going, keeping the doors locked and quite a few of our friends ended up just coming over and taking up residence even when we were gone. 

During these years, I learned how to run a household and pay regular bills and ne responsible for payments that had to be on time.  I learned to live in a neighborhood where I wasn't under my parent's responsibility.  Some of those neighbors became great role models and still to this day, when I run into them in town or at the hospital, we catch up about how things are.

A few years after graduating and most of my good roommates getting married and moving out of our house of seven, I decided it was time to move on.  I had a friend that lived at a different house that felt the same and we both started looking for homes around the University of Utah.  He was considering pursuing a Master's degree and I had always wanted to do the same, so we looked there.  The main reason we both discussed was that we needed a new social scene.  We both were feeling the big brother mentality and were ready to move on.

My friend found a home a the top of the hills in Bountiful.  This ended up being quite nice, because I was nervous about commuting to Layton from Salt Lake City on the budget I was on working at the print shop - especially when I knew rent would be higher in Salt Lake.  The commute actually ended up being about the same as Salt Lake, because it took so long to get to the freeway from our home, but rent ended up being about the same as in Ogden because we lived in a home with five guys who shared the mortgage.  We attended one of the student wards at the University of Utah.

The first week we attended our church meetings we took note of all of the activities going on that week and met quite a few people.  My friend and I were both used to attending most every activity our wards put out there as we had both served in leadership responsibilities that required it.  The first week we attended the Family Home Evening, which was a whole ward activity at the Church History Museum on temple square.  When we got there I saw a few people I had met at church the day before and went to hang out with them.  That whole night I enjoyed meeting all kinds of new people, some of which I knew would be good friends.  Three of the people I met were the red-headed Register sisters - Kelly, Kayla and Katie.  They were fun, social girls that I knew would become good friends.

We didn't hang out together very long at the museum as I attended to my social butterfly duties, but after the museum as we all decided to go and get ice cream somewhere and were leaving, we walked out together.  I shouted to them across the way and we decided to drive together to the ice cream shop.  We all played well together and had a great time.  Katie even let me answer a phone call from a boy that she didn't really want to talk with anymore.  We had a fun discussion about what we liked to do and the foods we liked that night and we made plans to go to yoga the next morning together and then to dinner the night after that.

There were only a few days after that that I haven't been with the Registers - and only a few days that I haven't spoken with Kelly; not by my choice.  Kelly and I had a short courtship of four months and were married in the Salt Lake City temple.  We knew we were going to get married after only a few weeks.  We did have a few road blocks that we were able to work through in those four months, but everything worked out perfectly for us.  While it was a few frustrating years preparing for Kelly, I wouldn't change it for anything.  Kelly is a perfect match and spouse for me.  She is an excellent mother for our children.  She is a great friend and I love her.

Week 21 - What have you changed in comparison to the way your parents raised you?

I'm trying to figure out what my parents did to raise me.  If I could only figure out this key, I think I'd have it made.  It's funny how growing up you do everything the opposite of what your parents ask you to do, at least until you learn that what they are saying is actually right.  Then when you become a parent yourself, you can't remember what your parents did to teach you how to be a productive citizen of society.  It's almost like a new veil is put across your face when you become a parent and have your own little one to raise.  You have to figure it out for yourself all over again.

I'm sure plenty of people would say otherwise, but I think I turned out pretty good.  I've got a long way to go, but at least I realize that now and I understand that I make mistakes.  I also understand that I can fix those mistakes.  I often wonder what my parents did to get me to this point in my life.  As we push through one boy that is a crazy three-year-old, I wonder how we will ever get him to be a productive member of society-let alone a person that can be obedient to a few simple rules.  I guess it is simply said, we all learn line upon line and precept upon precept.

While I could go through a list of things I think Kelly and I are changing in the way we raise our boys from how we were raised.  I don't really remember how I was raised at the young ages we are encountering right now, so it may not be different at all.  At the same time, some of the ideas we have as far as raising our boys change as we go along.  For example, we thought we'd never use a binky.  That lasted about a month or so with our first boy.  Then, we became big fans of anything that would help the boy stop crying.  Binky worked - binky was reinstated into our way of raising children.  Another idea was that we'd never have our kids eat fast food.  On a vacation one time we stopped at a burger joint and Ivin fell in love with burgers, fries and especially root beer.  It is now a special family outing to go and get a bag of burgers, fries and some root beer.

I think we try to feed our boys a little better than some of the out of the box food I remember having growing up, but who knows what will actually happen as we have more kids.  With only two kids getting dinner together is such a crazy chore.  It is understandable why we ate out of the box growing up.  We'll see what happens as we have more children.

Week 20 - How did your parents discipline you?

I've wondered quite a bit about how mom and dad disciplined me now that I am raising kids of my own.  Not too many things stick out, but I do know that I wanted to be good.  I don't know that I feared my parents, but I do know that I did not want to disappoint them.  I recall often thinking, "if I do this, dad will be disappointed.  So, I won't do it."  It was kind of the "what would Jesus do" thought I guess.  I don't think that my parents were perfect.  In fact,  I knew that they weren't perfect.  I knew that they made mistakes and it seems like we talked about that.  I understood that it was ok to make mistakes, but that you had to repair the damage done when you did make a mistake.

Every morning during the school year, at 6:00 a.m., or just before, Mom or Dad would come and knock on our doors to wake us up.  Sometimes there was a whistle of sorts, or a gentle "time to read" reminder.  We sat together reading the scriptures for 15-20 minutes and then it was go time.  Mom would get breakfast going and all the kids would take turns getting showered and ready for school.  Amy and Jason would be at a mad dash to get out the door first for school, then the rest of us would follow.

During the summer, the early mornings did not stop.  In fact, after a few weeks, I think some of us thought it'd be better to be in school.  The 6:00 a.m. might have slid to 6:30 a.m., but I don't recall.  After scripture study in the summer we'd be out in the garden making rows, planting, weeding, watering and harvesting all of the vegetables in the garden.  After that, if we were harvesting we'd spend a few hours cutting beans, shelling peas or helping Mom otherwise prep for preserving the food we'd harvested.

Learning to read music was another thing.  Music was very important in our family.  Each child was to learn to read music and play the piano.  While all of the kids put up some kinds of battle against practicing the piano, I'm pretty sure I was the worst.  I didn't enjoy piano in the least bit.  Mom would battle with each of us kids each day to get in our 30 minutes of practicing.  I'm just now realizing this, but with five kids, that makes a lot of battling each day.  This was so important to Mom that we couldn't settle for any piano teacher.  We went to Mrs. Pierce up in East Ogden each week for our lessons.  This made quite the chore for Mom, but also quite the afternoon.  We knew that that day each week we would be picked up from school and driven up to Mrs. Pierce's house and we'd be there for our 30 minute lesson.  Mrs. Pierce was a saint.  We all loved her and she loved us.  She was a great teacher and took us through all of the mechanics of piano.  This didn't stop in junior high for most of the kids.  I put up a stink and finally my ninth grade year (we started taking lessons around age five it seems like) I was able to come to an agreement with Mom and Dad that I could quite taking piano lessons if I would pass off all of the hymns in the Hymn Book to Dad.

Mom was a stickler for a clean house.  She grew up living in a not-so-clean house and I think her desire for a clean house stemmed from that.  We had job lists posted in each room.  These lists described the tasks that were required to properly clean that room.  It included step-by-step instructions of how to complete each of those tasks.  Each child was assigned a room to take care of as part of his/her weekly chores.  In addition to the chores, each child was responsible to keep their room up to Mom's cleanliness standards.  Each week, we completed a list of tasks in preparation for Mom's room inspection.  She'd come through each week with a checklist of things that had to be completed in our rooms.  We were graded on each of those tasks and given a score on how clean our room was according to those standards.  The person with the highest score was given some kind of prize.  If you didn't complete the tasks to a certain percentage, you were asked to redo the tasks.  The only discipline included in these tasks was that you had no privileges whatsoever until the jobs were completed to Mom's approval.

I'm not sure there was ever any discipline around eating.  But, I know we were asked to eat everything on our plate.  One night in particular, Mom had made split-pea soup.  As I recall it, it was a slimy green mess with chunks of something in it and it smelled kind of funny.  I did not like split-pea soup - I do now for some reason (Mom would say my taste buds have matured).  I put up quite the stink on not eating it.  I sat there on my stool at the bar for hours until I finally gobbled the slimy mess down.  The kitchen had all been cleaned up and everyone had settled down for the night before I finally put it down.

Each child was given a night to complete the dinner dishes.  It was convenient that there were five kids.  I think on Saturday and Sunday everyone helped out for the most part.  Seems like someone was given Sunday off for some kind of reward - probably related to completing other chores the best that week.  As in all other areas of the room, in the kitchen there was also a list of tasks to complete and how to complete them to get the kitchen properly cleaned.

I don't recall every being disciplined as one would think of disciplining.  I know I received a few spankings and was sent to my room a few times.  I know that I was given limits and boundaries.  I don't recall any discipline that came when I disobeyed those boundaries.  For the most part, I think I was fairly obedient to my parents.  Though they might not have thought so when I was growing up, I had quite a bit of respect for my parents and I didn't want to disappoint them, though I can think of numerous time when I most likely did disappoint them.  Mom ran a house of order and Dad backed her up 100 percent.  I knew what was expected of me and I knew that I would be able to do mostly whatever I wanted if I completed those things. 

I also knew what our standards were.  It  was not acceptable to go outside of those standards.  Mom laid down the law with television and video games.  At one point we were allowed one show each week that we could watch.  That is one show.  Not the same show each day of the week, but one slot (30 minutes of programming) that we could watch.  We could share that with our brothers and sisters, but outside of that the television was off.  It was quite similar with video games, though I don't recall what the standard was set to on the games.  These things fell behind homework and the previously mentioned chores.  If you didn't have your jobs done before your chosen program came on, you'd miss out on the program for that week - no exceptions.

When Mom thought that something was in line with the gospel standards that we were taught, she'd step in and fix it.  Sometimes there was a prodding that helped us fix it, other times she just took care of cleaning her house while we were gone during the day.  I recall coming home from my mission and having most of my music collection being missing.  I looked around my boxes for weeks, accused Ryan and Alisha of taking my things numerous times - I even looked through their rooms when they were gone.  I eventually found some of them under Mom's bed and I'm sure the others were properly disposed of.  Mom put up quite the defense line for her kids against the little ways that Satan tried to squeeze into our lives.  She wasn't very popular for it, but she knew it was right, so she did it.

Week 19 - Tell of a time when you were frightened. What did you do?

I'm afraid of quite a few things.  I have a fear of basements, the dark, outhouses, and especially heights. I'm not sure where all of these come from.  I do know that the outhouses thing came from a story that was told around the campfire when I was a young scout. I get quite a bit of vertigo whether it is walking across Angel's Landing or some other super high hike with sheer cliffs, or walking along the second story at the hospital or mall near the overlook to the floors below.  I freak out a little every time the lights are out and I'm walking up the stairs - I don't know why.  I've never really been a fan of night games - too many creepy movies where bad things happen in the dark, and haunted houses at Halloween are on the do not visit list.  Any combination these things like dark and outhouses only compounds the problem.

This story of me being frightened has nothing to do with any of those other fears though.  However, I was in the basement when it happened.  I don't quite recall how old I was when this happened, but I was living at home in the blue room (Jason's room) downstairs.  I was sleeping on the water bed, so I think that puts me in my mid-teen years.  Jason was probably on his mission at this time and I don't recall Amy being around either.  Maybe Jason was in Hawaii and Amy was just on her mission - who knows.  Either way, I was a teenager living at home.

I recall waking up one night in extreme pain.  My body just ached all over.  I didn't really know what it was so I think I tried to go to the bathroom, get a drink and then just go back to bed.  After a while of battling the pain and not being able to sleep it out, I had the distinct feeling that I was going to die.  Now, rather than run upstairs and wake Mom and Dad, or call 911 to get an ambulance over to the house, I decided to lay there for a while.  As this feeling that I was going to die kept coming over me, I decided to write my last words to everyone in my family.  Rather than just write one note, I wrote individual notes to everyone in my family.  I believe I even wrote to a few of my friends.  I must have been awake for hours writing these notes.  Then, I laid back down for the final rest of my life here on earth.  Funny thing, I woke up the next morning feeling fine.  The notes were still on my nightstand and I wasn't anywhere but here on Earth.

I don't recall if I ever gave those notes to anyone in my family, but I do recall hiding them away so that nobody would find them that day while I was at work or school.

I don't know why I had that experience, unless I was on one of my crazy food binges.  I used to feel that I could eat anything because I ran with the cross-country team every morning and night.  I now cringe at the thought of some of foods - and volumes of foods - that I used to put in my body.  I don't know why I had that impression.  There are a few things that I do know.  When I'm in my groove, I express my feelings better in writing than verbally.  I don't speak very well - funny coming from a guy that did his undergraduate work in Communication.  I have a deep respect for each member of my family.  That respect is for different qualities that they each have, none are the same.  I don't know if this came from me having to pause in my teenage life where I felt like the whole world revolved around me and face the fear of death, or from something else.

I have also come to not fear death as much as I used to.  This doesn't mean that I know have a reckless regard for life.  In fact it means quite the opposite.  I have a great respect for the life that we have been given.  I understand that it is not my life and that it can be taken at any time.  While I'm not anywhere near perfect, nor would I ever suggest such a thing (except in light-hearted sarcasm), I think this experience and quite a few others in my life have led me to do my best in the situations I encounter.  Quite regularly I have the thought of "how would I act in this situation if it were the last time I would encounter it."  This thought leads me to act quite different and think about the decisions I make.  If only this thought were constantly in my mind before I reacted in most situations.  Unfortunately, I am still a mortal and quite imperfect.  I react too quickly and without thought in too many situations.  I feel bad especially when this happens with my own children.  I pray regularly for the patients to overcome this weakness of mind and to develop some patience.  Maybe that is why I keep getting in situations that could be deemed patience builders.