The Wood Between the Worlds

I can't believe that we have already hit the 9 year mile stone! We had a nice date. We ate fresh NW salmon at the Multnomah Lodge in the Colombia River Gorge, we went trail running around Latourell Falls in the rain (fitting, isn't it? That it should be raining on our anniversary since our planned wedding reception was rained out). In commemoration, I thought it would be nice to record a little of our personal history.

How we met:
I first met Brent in 1993 when I was in 9th grade. My friend Channing and I went to a Blonde Eugene (a really neat band consisting of the older brothers of another friend) concert at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum in the mouth of Parley's Canyon, Salt Lake City, Utah. Many of our friends were at this concert, including Derek, who lived in my neighborhood and attended the same church that I did. At one point during the evening, Derek bounded up to me and said "you'll never guess who I just met!" And pointing to this kid with a curly brown fro, and an Albertson's T-shirt with a sticker in the corner that said "fresh cantaloupe," Derek exclaimed with an air of shock "Mr. Jefferies' son!" Mr. Jefferies was probably our school's strictest teacher. He was known to mark kids tardy for sharpening their pencil after the bell rang. Derek and I both had the pleasure of taking French class from Mr. Jefferies. Lucky for me, I was a good student and I liked Mr. Jefferies. That still did not stop the shock and the curiosity that came from this new knowledge that our teacher actually was married and had kids. Mr. Jefferies' son ended up being very cool...and the concert evening continued with Brent, Derek, Channing and I having somersault races and dangling from the balcony over the slope of the canyon. It was a memorable evening.

Flash forward to 1995, my junior year of high school. I had not seen Brent again, although Derek went on to form a band with Brent and they became best friends. While Derek and I attended Brighton High, Brent enjoyed his years at our rival school Alta High. As I studied at Brighton, by chance I ended up sitting by a girl named Joanne in trigonometry. Joanne and I quickly became best friends and starting hanging out all the time. We discovered that we both knew Derek and we arranged to get together with several of our friends to hang out. It took several more months of meeting and hanging out with new friends from Alta (Ryan, Zach, Makail) before I finally met Brent. It was in the fall of my senior year that we planned to meet up with these friends at San Fransisco Sour Dough Pizza in Draper. After we were seated and had ordered, this new person showed up. He greeted his Alta friends and then came straight to me, held out his hand and said "hello! I don't believe we've met. I'm Brent Jefferies." At that point I remembered who he was and that we had, indeed met before.

We started to see each other more frequently as our circle of friends met often. Brent and I would talk a lot. I found that he had graduated the year before me and was now attending the University of Utah. We discovered that we had many things in common: we both liked to listen to and practice music; we were both interested in science, knowledge and other interesting pursuits; we both enjoyed the outdoors. We became chums. At friendly gatherings, people starting asking if Brent and I were an item, to which we would blush and say no. Brent was leaving on a mission soon and we really were just friends. But we starting doing stuff together like snowshoeing, trips to the art museum (where we would pick each others brains), and playing guitars. It was fun, but we were just friends.

At one point, my girlfriends were organizing a group to attend the January girl's choice "Theme Dance" at Brighton. I was not planning on attending. They were discussing the plans in the car as we drove with several of our friends. They urged me for the 100th time to find someone to ask so that I could come too. I once again told them that I didn't have anyone in mind that I wanted to ask. That was when Brent turned around and said "you can take me!" And so I thought about it, and I did end up taking him. It was once again, only as friends though. The theme was "Under the Sea" so most of us girls spent hours making fish cutouts for the guys and the corresponding can o' fish for us girls. Brent and I spent the night polka-ing away on the dance floor. Brent says that this was our first date, but I disagree. I think that he asked me to the Springville Art Museum before we went to this dance.



Anyway, after the dance we were still friends. Brent asked me out a couple of weeks later on Valentine's Day (still as friends? supposedly). We went to the good old Hanson Planetarium and to eat at Picadelly Fish N' Chips in Sugar House. At the end of the night I took a huge chance and gave him a gift (I wasn't sure if he got me anything...but I went ahead anyway). I gave him the Cat Steven's CD "Footsteps in the Dark," (which by the way, is one of the best albums of all time) and I gave him a little note that told him to go listen to track number 11. I was so embarrassed...track number 11 was the song "How Can I tell you [that I love you]." What was I doing?!?! We were just friends! Silly me.

So I didn't hear from him for a few days. I assumed that meant that he rejected my advance. Then out of the blue, he showed up at my house on my sister's birthday. My mom invited him to dinner with us (at a restaurant). At one point he excused himself from the table and moments later he popped through the potted plants with an accordion and was playing "happy birthday" for my sister. I was still at a loss to what he was thinking, until after we got home. He cornered me alone and told me that we needed to talk. I braced for it...I knew it was coming: the "we're just friends" talk. I was at least grateful that I hadn't made things too awkward between us that he felt he could tell me, and we could continue being friends. But then he surprised me. He looked at me and said "I Love You." I was shocked, but also elated. My best friend loved me too.

We drove up the canyon to Brighton in his truck with all of our musical instruments in the back, with the sincere intention of having a winters night moonlit jam fest at the ski resort. But we ended up going for a moon-lit hike in the snow instead. It was under the shadows of some pine trees, with soft flakes starting to fall that Brent finally kissed me for the first time.

Brent only had 7 months until he turned 19 and would subsequently serve a 2 year LDS mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so we still insisted on only being friends. We tried to hang out with our friends and not date, but we still did get plenty of alone time and more kissing in. When Brent left on his mission to Brazil (January of 1997) I was set on the plan that I would not wait for him. I was not "that girl" that waited for a missionary. I tried to date other guys while he was gone, but those experiences were all disasters. I consigned myself to work out my summers at Brighton Girls Camp (which I had always wanted to do anyway), away from boys, and lost myself in the service. Brent and I wrote, only occasionally at first, but quite regularly in the end. We knew we were still in love, even though we didn't talk openly about it.

In January of 1999, when I was spending my final year as a very detached BYU co-ed, Brent returned from Brazil and we were together again. We got engaged in March and were married on August 20, 1999 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple.