The Jakins

10 for 10

I am turning into quite the blogger -- Janae and I celebrate 10 years this year, crazy!! I purposely got married in the year 2000 so I could always remember how many years we've been married. So here we go, (another list) this time of 10 places we've lived in 10 years of marriage.

10). Basement apartment, West Provo by the ghetto. First apartment all cramped and awkward and in the oldest house ever. Our neighbors were on Meth -- no wonder our CO detector went off all the time. Our landlords kept buying new furniture every month. We were way over paying on rent, so no surprise we got the heck out of there as fast as we could. You had to wait on the BYU subsidized housing list for almost a year. We felt lucky to have only waited from August 2000 to February 2001.

9). Wymount. Woo -hoo!! We lived in a Super Mormon ward!! We went to church from 3pm - 6pm because there were so many students there. Holy babies too!! We got waaaay baby hungry especially from watching Noah Hardy. No surprise when we got pregnant with Ady. Amazing people at Wymount especially dear friends for life, the Hardys (whom we have a tradition of calling every year on New Years), the Duecks, the Eyrings and Darik and Emily and of course the Beans who did laundry at Wymount because it was cheaper and the company was awesome! ;).

8). Apollo 13. Yep, we got booted from Wymount because Janae graduated and I left BYU to pursue my dreams of being a pilot. I was going to UVSC. How fitting I was a pilot and we were living in Apollo 13, weird. (You have to be a student to get Tithepayer subsidized rent on BYU campus). Janae was pregnant with Ady -- it was the middle of summer, we were on the top floor facing West -- the apartment had no insulation. I think we paid $200 per month on the A/C bill. $25 per month for food, the rest to A/C. I don't blame Janae at all!!

7). Candlelight. Yep we moved to Apollo 13, hated the no insulation, but moved into an apartment to be closer to Steve and Brenda and boys and cheaper rent and bigger apartment all in the same ward!! It was so fun to have the boys come up every day and stay at our house for hours. I think the first time Janae and I have literally bawled in front of each other is when we had to say goodbye to Steve, Brenda, Marc, Jared and Luke, our buddies.

6). Pocatello, ID. Off to the armpit of the world, the world's junkiest town, Pocatello ID. I was a TV News reporter after not pursuing the expensive flying dream. Poor Janae and Ady were stuck in this crappy apartment while I was making beans working in television. Oh my gosh, I don't think we left Pocatello fast enough when we left. We did find meaning in living there though. It was amazing to be close to the Bricknells who were serving as mission president (dear friends of my family from South Africa) and I was able to do a feature news story on the church. Perhaps I was able to help with missionary work and give the church good publicity which is hard to come by with the evil lamestream media. And yes, I learned how evil and sinister the liberal media is and how they're not to be trusted at all. Also, we can't forget how awesome our friends Greg and Jenny were to us.

5). Hooray!!! I got a job at Volt (a real job) and we moved in with Mom and Dad in Provo, UT while I was commuting to Sandy. Nothing like quadrupling your salary to motivate you to start looking for a house!

4). Living with Mom and Dad got a bit cramped, we moved to the cheapest apartment in the world (rent wise) to Pleasant Grove. Surprise, surprise, I had a coworker from BYU living across the hallway, Jayna. Small world!!

3). West Jordan, UT -- WOW! Our first home!! We were so excited to have our first home. We made TONS of good memories in this home and made lots of good friends. This was an amazing area where so many new folks were moving in, the ward and stake boundaries changed so many times it was hard to keep up with.

2). Decided to move closer to Janae's family -- we literally took this to heart when our new home, the owners weren't ready to move out yet -- so they paid us rent for a few months while we took moving closer to family to heart, we moved in with Richard and Jan in North Ogden, UT.

1). Here we are in Layton! Can't say that I've ever let the grass grow under my feet for very long, though. My family has moved probably 20 times over my lifetime across the globe, Janae on the other hand, lived in the same house growing up. Let's see what the next 10 years will bring!! Happy Anniversary Janae!!!

Because this is an election year, and because I'm politically minded, let me interest you in another list of 10 -- Laura Ingrahams list of 10 strategies that can help preserve America.