The Scholastic Pursuit of Amy

With 3 months post-mission to get my feet back on the ground, I was ready again to descend on Provo and resume my studies at BYU.  I was full of anticipation, my mind racing with all sorts of possibilities.  While more mature and experienced than ever, I was still a blank slate.  On high alert for finding and building female relationships, I kept an open mind, but deep inside, priority one was to find one Amy Price.  I moved into the Glenwood, as decided over two years prior.  I knew from Amy’s own words that she should be in “The Riv” (Riviera), which, conveniently, was the inevitable passage to campus.  Every walk to and from class had my head on a swivel: all points bulletined for a full head of golden blonde hair attached to Amy’s athletic form. 

I went with top friend Shawn Nissen to the Opening Fireside in the Marriott Center, ended up seated next to a reasonably attractive and engaging girl.  In true return-missionary fashion, Shawn and I shifted to Chinese, conferred, and agreed on these suitable characteristics.  I got her name for future reference, but didn’t let this distract me from the real purpose here: to find Amy.  Scanning the entire crowd of some 18,000 students confirmed she was not in attendance.  This matter was not forgotten, but placed on the backburner as the exigencies of the academic year heated up.

Perhaps two weeks into the semester, I ran into childhood friend Beverly Malstrom while crossing the Riv.  Dropping a casual inquiry on Amy’s whereabouts, Bev broke the news that Amy had stayed at Ricks College to become a nurse!  What?!  Was this a fell swoop just to avoid me?  Maybe so, but she couldn’t get off that easily; I had to know.  Minutes later, I had Amy on the phone, not confrontationally, but just an incidental call:  “Hey, how ya doin’?  You know I just happen to be coming to Rexburg this weekend” if you say yes, “you want to go do something…?”  And just to hedge my bets, or give the appearance (to whom?) of being in demand, I asked someone else out for the night before.  Naturally, date #1 was a dud, so all eggs were consolidated to Saturday with Amy.  Amy had a way of dazzling me effortlessly, an effect compounded by her being oblivious to this fact.  So I tried to arrange a trip north to include a date with Amy about once a month, enough to keep her awareness but not drive her away.

These efforts transpired against all hope.  The end-vision to this relationship was so distant that I had to keep a purely platonic, just friends ambience.  I sensed disastrous finality in outpacing any signals coming from Amy, and all indications from her were accepting, but short of romantic.  The tightrope I walked was to make it appear entirely logical to get together and not let my innocent but lofty intentions appear out of line with Amy’s.  This was not an easy role to assume.  Every date would leave me despairing for the lack of progress made, the feeling that she wouldn’t notice if she never heard from me again, and the sensible side of me saying it was time to let her go and move on. 

Three events pulled me back into pursuit.  First, leaving campus after a Fall Saturday morning study session, there was Amy, like an angel walking through the Wilkinson Center parking lot.  I hurriedly re-parked and tracked her to the bowling alley, where I just happened to bump into her and get at least a few minutes’ face time.  Later, again resolved to change course, I was skiing with my cousin Lorin at Targhee, and whom do I encounter directly in front of me in lift line?  Amy practically never skis!  I called her that night to ask her just to dinner, and what a great time!  When I returned home that evening, Ann asked me enthusiastically about it, and as we talked, who should call, but…Amy!  Her message: don’t feel like you have to call me every time you come to Rexburg.  Ann said, “Oh, I’m sorry Wade.”  I returned to BYU to immerse myself in pre-med.  I met a classy girl in trigonometry, who actually liked me (the first one ever at BYU!), sort of a Mormon Molly Ringwald type.  Third, late January, Al Case came with me to Idaho for a weekend, and naturally I couldn’t resist a Sunday night stop in Sugar City, with Al and Paul as buffers.  Amy and family were very welcoming, gave us fresh brownies, and as we left, Al exclaimed to me that Amy would be glad to have my children.  Thanks for that perspective, Al, now back to Provo. 

The semester wore on, culminating in Eric Mulkay’s return from his mission.  As part of his welcome packet, I approached Amy with the idea of a double-date, and could she set Eric up with someone?  Somehow, this outing was the tipping point.  In our picnic at Mesa Falls, for some reason, I felt that I could confidently share with Amy the solitary can of precious apple soda that Eric had brought me from Taiwan.  Then, at my parents’ house, as we watched Star Trek V with a large group of friends, Amy used her nurse skills to give me a hand massage.  Holy cow.  Though I wouldn’t advise others to hang on as tenaciously to an unlikely prospect, I had finally hit paydirt…on two fronts.  I had my first ever opportunity to break off one relationship in favor of another.  It would have been an easier decision if one of them were somehow dysfunctional.

Thus, May through August 1990 became the summer of love.  Amy did a nursing internship at LDS Hospital, staying with her Grandparents Nelson in Bountiful.  Every week was a blur of getting through classes and mouse research, then racing northward for some kind of date in what was then a very accessible Salt Lake City.  Amy accepted my marriage proposal the day before her departure for a semester abroad with the Ricks College Nursing program at the BYU Jerusalem Center.  We held on for each other through that school year, getting married the following June just after Amy’s graduation.  

And that, my friend, is what a university education is all about.

The phases of our learning...

School Memories

I only have the fuzziest of memories before I was 12. Wade will likely have fun tales to tell of our overlapping elementary school days in Mrs. Ashliman's and Mrs. Hammond's classes at L-I-N-C-O-L-N, Lincoln is our school (that was the refrain from our school song, that I vaguely recall). My school memories involving Wade include a few glimpses of him in high school, a few more in college, and our partnership days being married at BYU and ICO.

High School
Madison High was the big red school from Rexburg that constantly beat Sugar-Salem in almost everything. I saw Wade once when I was at their school for a track meet. I think I was wearing shiny royal blue tights. That was surely memorable. Then I remember Wade being an associate justice of the Idaho Supreme Court at Youth Legislature our senior year. I thought he would just joke about everything, but it seems like he did a good job. He was in the famed Madison Boys Drill Team (what was that called?) so I would have seen him in that, but did not realize I was watching my future spouse.

College
Summer ward. Ricks College. Kirkham Auditorium. Random (were they random?) encounters on campus. We talked about Wade's math class, me giving tours, devotionals, mutual friends, and Wade's beginning running program for Fitness for Life class that he was working on with Ann. One thing we did not discuss was me not returning to BYU in the fall. It was a last minute decision in August, and it was a little embarrassing for me that I was going back to a junior college, and I really did not think that I would see or date Wade after school started, so I just didn't mention it (how rude!).

But time and again he came home to Rexburg to visit and asked me out on enjoyable dates. One time I had been on a completely lousy date the night before my date with Wade, and was in a quiet, moody mood. I was teaching Relief Society the following day in church and was frustrated from the previous night's interactions. Wade was mellow and fun, lighthearted and kind. By the end of the evening I was calm and in much happier spirits. That was the first of many fun dates that year. Wade won my heart during those college years by being consistent and thoughtful. One night he just dropped by with Al, a friend from BYU and his little brother Paul. We ate yummy triple chocolate cake and I started thinking of Wade more often. Paul was a likable character and Wade brought him along on many of our dates. Seeing him intermittently while he was at BYU was good and got better and better.

By this time I was in the nursing program at Ricks and Wade was in Pre-optometry/Psychology at BYU. Once when visiting BYU with my dad and sister, Carol, we were bowling and I ran into Wade. He has more details on this chance meeting. If he doesn't share that, then I'll add it later.

Over time we grew closer as friends. Finally, I was spending the summer between years of nursing school at LDS hospital in Salt Lake City, as a nurses aide. Wade was doing summer school at BYU. This was the summer I fell in love with Wade. He courted me with roses from the yard at the house he lived and we hiked, attended plays and movies, explored Provo, Salt Lake and surrounding Utah towns. It's a good thing I acknowledged my feelings and had prayed about loving Wade, since at the end of the summer (1990) he asked me to marry him. The subsequent semester with me in Greece, Turkey, and Israel was long. And I missed Wade. We wrote to each other, got to talk on the phone a couple of times, and got good at being apart (turns out that was good practice!).

After returning home from Israel, I stayed with my sister, Carol at her apartment at BYU for a few days before returning home. I was able to attend some classes with Wade, the most memorable of which was his Anatomy class with Dr. Van DeGraaff, the man who wrote the anatomy textbook. Wade was an engaged and hard working student at BYU. It was fun to see him in his element there.

The first year of marriage at BYU was THE BEST! Wade and I loved our newlywed years of marriage, and Provo was an ideal place for a young couple such as us to study, work and live the BYU-Cougar dream.

Graduate School
We moved to Chicago for Optometry School. Being the part-time working nurse spouse to a full-time doctor student was crazy hard sometimes, since we had little Jimmy and I was a full-time mom, too. I helped Wade study for harder classes like bio-chemistry. Amazing that I could quiz him on stuff I don't even know. Anyway, we had 2 more babies and with lots of blessings and hard work from Wade, he graduated with flying colors in 1996.

Your Mom Goes to College
The next school experience we had was when Wade went to Turkey in 2006, ten years later. I went back to school to get a bachelor's degree in nursing in Rexburg and BYU-Idaho (the former Ricks College). Thanks to internet technology I was able send papers to Wade for editing and suggestions. It was a HUGE help. Half of my classes were online, too, so I lived on the computer that year between Skyping Wade and doing classes. Going to school kept me busy and made the time go by quickly. Now we both do continuing education for our medical fields and Wade periodically does professional military education and similar training for the Air Force.

A family that learns together, knows more stuff!

When Wade Met Amy - Chapter 2 - First Date

All anticipation evaporated into reality as I meet Amy at her house in Sugar City. I drove my dad’s pickup with my bicycle in back. The “date” was to begin with an extended bicycle tour of Sugar City, guided by Amy, as Sugar has always been so close, yet so foreign. Partway through, we ran into Amy’s parents, exiting some function at the new high school. They visited with Amy briefly while I stood by, and we cycled back to the homestead to take off in m’dad’s truck. Amy recovered from her coughing fit just in time as we approached the house. As I unloaded my bike, I told Amy the house was empty, and she boldly went inside to wait for me. Turned out it wasn’t empty, but Dad was just inside the entry, reading a book. No doubt it was a little surprise for both of them, but no harm done. Dad said, “Well, you must be a friend of Wade’s!"

From there, this date had a surface of plain vanilla. We saw “Peter Pan” at the Westwood Theater. I told Amy it was OK to put her foot on the seats in front of us (after all, we practically owned the place), and a passing usher told her to put it down. We returned to the house afterward for ice cream sundaes, and then I took her home. I took her the longest reasonable route to Sugar City, up Mill Hollow, down Pole Line Road, circling Rexburg to spend a little more time with her. My brain was practically fizzing with the realization that I was, right then, on this much anticipated date with Amy, though I kept my composure and held a demeanor of mild-mannered enthusiasm. At the “doorstep,” I offered my hand to shake in farewell, which she took, then said something about me still acting like a missionary, and pulled me into a brief hug. Wow. I wasn’t expecting this. She went in the house and I back to the car. I was hooked.

Epilogue: It would be 10 months and at least as many dates before I got another brief hug from Amy, and a solid year before our first kiss. Throughout that summer I tried to see her as much as possible without seeming over-eager or ingratiating, but I’m sure I didn’t hide it well. At times I was sure she dreaded me, but where she hadn’t specifically said it, I felt driven to the pursuit. Now, part of the game was to not bet everything on this one girl, so I dutifully dated others. No one else even came close, even if it looked good on paper. Somehow, Amy and I had disembarked onto the same platform, having traveled parallel tracks that took us through much of the same territory, but never let our paths cross until now. It was all clear to me, and if it wasn’t to her yet, that was OK. I would see her in the fall at BYU.

When we met, and then...

The first time I remember meeting Wade was in elementary school in Mrs. Ashleman's class first grade class at Lincoln Elementary. She repeatedly emphasized to her class that we never, ever smoke (anything!). If we would promise to never smoke, she gave us a stick of gum. So, back to the story...in 1973, my family moved to Rexburg, Idaho for my dad to work at Ricks College. We lived close to campus, just a few blocks away from the DeMordaunts. We came from Bountiful, Utah where I had finished Kindergarten with flying colors after learning about how pupils dilate (it was in a very cool class experiment), which turned out to be important in understanding the work of my future spouse.

Wade also sat in front of me in Miss Hammond's 2nd grade class. This is quite vague in my memory, but he remembers details like this from his youth very clearly. In February that school year, my family moved out to Sugar City (Salem, to be precise). The class was writing farewell notes to me, and I was feeling nervous-- Wade even remembers something I said that day about having butterflies in my stomach.

Fast forward to high school and the era of being seen at other schools periodically, usually when I was there for track meets. I remember seeing Wade intermittently, but most specifically at State Youth Legislature in Boise where Wade was a Court Justice. He sat on the bench as a judge! We have a group that was photo taken on the steps at the state capitol building that I hope I can find.

Suddenly 3 years passed and it was 1989. I had graduated from Ricks College, attended 1 year at BYU and was home for the summer, working as a tour guide at the Admissions Office. I had very big, blonde hair! Wade had attended BYU for 1 year, returned from a mission to Madrid, Spain and was home taking classes at Ricks College for the summer. He was starting to lose his hair, and looked very young and lean with sparkly eyes, and was very handsome. We both started going to a student summer ward that met in the Kirkham Auditorium/building. I bore my testimony one Fast Sunday, then Wade gave a talk another time. He was asked to speak at the last minute, since another speaker fell through. I think he talked about his mission. Anyway, it was funny that it was so easy to recognize him, and other kids that I went to elementary school with in Rexburg, after so many years. We were all just the (almost) grown up versions of ourselves. Right now you may be wondering..."Are they ever going to meet/talk?" Well, yes.

Our ward was having an outdoor fireside at Smith Park one Sunday evening. The speaker was a former seminary teacher from Madison High School, Bro. Parker. Wade was asked by a friend to go help give a girl a blessing that afternoon, so he was all dressed up, and the friend (was it Martin Searcy?) asked if he was attending the fireside. He wasn't until then, and I can't remember if he came with a friend or not. My sister, Carol, was going with a date, so I drove over with Camille Keller, a friend of Carol's from Sugar City.

After the talk, Wade intercepted me as I was on my way to get some refreshments. He said something like, "Hey, aren't you Amy?" I responded with something like, "Yeah, and you're Wade." Then we probably commented that we had seen the other speak/bear testimony in church, etc. Then up in the gazebo where the food was, Wade intercepted me once again and asked if I would like to go out sometime. I cheerily responded, " Sounds great!" or something similarly encouraging.

Some time later Wade called to ask me on a date. He had in mind that I enjoyed physical activities, so planned a bike ride. We chose a route out and about Salem, then back to Sugar City. We then went to his house where I met his Dad before we went to a movie (Peter Pan, Disney version), which was a blast. We went back to his home for dessert (ice cream, perhaps?) and I met more of his family. Later when he took me home and he walked me to the door, he held out his hand as he thanked me for the date. Realizing he was still "hot off the grill" from his mission, I gave him a hug instead of the handshake. Apparently he walked away thrilled with the date. I thought it was completely enjoyable despite my coughing fit in the truck on the way back to his house after the outdoor bike ride. It was certainly allergy related. I just kept coughing until my eyes were all watery and I appeared to be crying. It made conversation awkward, but I got better and the date continued without a hitch. It ranks as one of the best dates in history.

Altogether meeting Wade in college and that first date was the beginning of a dream come true. I am so glad I was home that summer and went to the student ward that I did. It was a blessing for me to start that friendship with Wade, though it took almost a year to blossom into something more. But that is a story for another day.

When Wade Met Amy - Chapter 1 - Genesis

Having returned from my mission to Spain just two weeks earlier, I was eager to meet and date girls. My self-esteem was high but delicately balanced. It was a Ricks College summer student ward fast and testimony meeting in the Kirkham Auditorum. The testimony meetings that summer were notable for a young man reciting page after page of what he was sure to be memorized scripture well into overtime, and a sister who brought a jar of dried leaves to crush under her fist as some kind of object lesson, then calling on the congregation to applaud the Bishop. A voice of clarity, Amy Price shared her testimony, in which she mentioned being grateful to be back in Rexburg with her sister for the summer. Having attended first and second grade with Amy, I had recognized her several times since without thinking much of it: a track meet at Madison, Youth Legislature in Boise, like seeing a familiar face on a passing train. So, as I watched her return to her seat, I wondered to myself, “should I try to meet her?” Answer: “No, she’s Amy Price, the girl everyone knows from grade school, turned track star. It can’t be done, shouldn’t be tried.” To which I answered in turn, “Of course I should, consider the possibilities!”

So I looked for her after church…nothing. I searched again the following week, and she was long gone. Then, a chain of events began, fully inside my control, but whose trajectory I couldn’t have known. Saturday night, Bishop Hadlock called, asking me to speak Sunday morning. “Short notice,” I said, which he acknowledged, apologizing in behalf of someone’s short notice cancellation. I think my talk that Sunday was Amy’s first indication that I existed, and she disappeared in usual fashion afterward. That afternoon, I studied for Science class, when Martin Searcy called: “Will you assist me giving a blessing right now?” Mental reaction: “Gotta study…but it’s Sunday, Church service takes priority.” So, as Martin dropped me off afterward, he asked if I was attending the fireside that evening. Hadn’t heard of it, but again decided I had better put Church first that day, plus: social situation with girls. So, sitting on the hill at Smith Park, listening to some seminary teacher, I look across and see…Amy! What a profile, and glorious blonde hair. During refreshments afterward, I’m grasping for an excuse to get her attention. I tell this to Bryan Magleby, who says I should just go up and say hello.

So I did, just walked up and tapped her shoulder. She spun around, “Hey Wade!” Good. She made it easy to visit and catch up. Would she like to “go do something sometime?” Answer: “Sounds great!” spoken like Tony the Tiger. I had asked many girls out before, with all kinds of responses, mostly reluctant, and this felt way different. Butterflies tickled my stomach all week as this turned over in my head. So, when and where would we be married? Is she already serious with someone? Will she like me…why not? I consult both older brothers to plan “the date” while trying to somehow keep my feet in reality.

Statement of Purpose

The idea behind this blog is for us to share the story of our lives together. Everyone has a fairytale. This is ours.

The posts will not be in chronological order, but we will talk about the times of our lives, how we came together to be a family and how we live and love now.