I was born in New Jersey and have a lot of family who live in New York, but I have been in Arizona since I was 6. I guess I was kind of a tomboy when I was growing up.
Me & my brother & my 3rd grade school picture - can you tell I had P.E. right before the picture was taken?Me and my brother were the best of friends and I would just as soon play with his toys than any of my dolls. I took tennis, judo (for a little while), and piano. I was also in brownie and girl scouts when I was younger. I actually thought girl scouts was pretty boring. I was totally hoping we would do cool stuff like my brother did in cub scouts, but that never really happened. However, I did love wearing my little brownie uniform to school with the awesome brown felt beanie hat. I thought I was so cool!
Here I am lifting the bar (with no weights on it) in Judo - look at my concentration! Too funny!
In Jr. High I was in the band and I dressed up as our school mascot to pass out candy in a parade. The mascot was supposed to be a roadrunner, but since it was made by the Home Ec. department it looked more like a sad rendition of Big Bird. It had this huge paper mache head that was too big and had to be stuffed with a towel. Even with the towel in there I could hardly tell where I was going because the eye holes moved around so much. Good times.
Me as the awesome Rhodes' roadrunner!
Anyway, I joined the church when I was 13. My mom was actually curious about it and asked me to call my friend who was LDS and see if I could go to church with her. The missionaries later came and taught us and I am so thankful that I found the gospel when I did.
I met Jeff when I was in High School. We met at a church dance (his cousins were in my ward and introduced us). He played football and was on yearbook and track. I was in the Latin Club, Honor Society, and the oh so cool Academic Decathalon. So we might not have even met if we went to the same school! I know it probably sounds like I was a huge nerd in High School, but really I wasn't (well, maybe just a little & OK, maybe I still am!) But, I did also love to play racquetball and church sports - my favorite was Young Women's basketball (why don't we have that anymore?). I also loved to go to concerts - U2, REM, Depeche Mode, and The Cure were some of my favorites.
My junior picture - check out my '80's hair. It took
a lot of hairspray to get it to stay that way!
Jeff went on his mission and I went to Nursing School. And, I started out working at a Nursing Home which was quite the experience. Since I was new I had a pretty bad schedule - sometimes days and then nights - I hated it. So, I kept praying that I would be able to have Sundays off so I could go to church each week. Then one day shortly thereafter, I was offered a new position at work to start up and manage an Assisted Living facility. I was able to work Mon. - Fri. which was definitely an answer to my prayers. The only downside was that when I wasn't at work I was on-call for any problems that came up. This was way back when we had pagers instead of cell phones (not so fun!). It was also pretty bad when one of our buildings caught on fire and we had to relocate our patients from Chandler to Sun City for a while. (That was quite the commute for me!)
our engagement picture
We got engaged about a month after Jeff got home from his mission and were married a little over 4 months later. After a few years and a few miscarriages Mason was finally born, and then 18 months and one day later Easton arrived, followed by Brenlee 6 years later. I love being a mom and being married to my best friend. We have been married 15 years and have lived here for the past 5 years - we love it!
Some things I love: Peanut m&ms, guitar hero, ice cream, reading a good book, happy endings, folding laundry, finding a good bargain, playing games, the funny things kids say, The Amazing Race, scrapbooking, orange tic tacs, cupholders, skiing, the DVR, & rollercoasters.
Some things I hate: Traffic, the squeaky noise styrofoam makes, potty training, school projects, pretty much the entire cartoon network, waiting in line, big crowds, junk mail, barking dogs in the middle of the night, runny noses, playground sand that comes home in kids' shoes, eggs, public speaking, and mosquito bites.
Let's hear from Amy Erickson for next week's spotlight!
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