How to Acquire a Step-Twin

(This is where I would place a scanned copy of Ang's 8th grade class picture. IF all my scrapbooks weren't on a Slow Boat to China! er, Japan!)

Angelique and I met in Mrs. Ball's 8th grade History Class. The class was full of perverted pre-pubescent boys (Standard Butler Middle School fare) and only 4 or 5 girls. I remember scoping out friend prospects and sensing that Angie and I might be compatible. Similar height and build, of average coolness and popularity; not a nerd, but not stuck up. I thought we might get along. And I needed someone to pass notes to so I wouldn't have to pay attention. (Can you say ADD? See the "C" grade on my report card.)

It didn't take long for me to realize I'd been very wrong. I had WAY underestimated her coolness.


We got to be good, but not close friends that year. I still have a note from her from that class. I stuck it on one of my many "Ang pages" in my scrapbook. It's scrawled on a little torn scrap of paper that was crumpled and probably thrown to me 4 seats back. It says "Some people drive me CRAZY!!!"

Yep. We were kindred spirits right from the start.

In 9th grade my family moved and I had the option to change schools. I was thrilled to leave skeezy Butler behind so the next year I transferred to Wasatch Junior High and joined the cream of the Wasatch Front. Unfortunately, Ang and I lost touch as un-cell-phoned, pre-computered kids tended to do in those days.

(Insert scanned copy of my 9th grade picture showing me with a space between my two front teeth (I'd just had a palate expander put in) and a flat-chest. We're late-bloomers in my family. Like really really really and expensively late!)

BUT then (fortunately) I went back to Brighton for High School (fed by Butler) instead of staying with the Upper Crust at Skyline High.

And that's when it happened... 1st day, 1st class, I looked down the row of kids lined up along the gym wall in Phys Ed...and saw Angie. In that class we realized our mutual love of Badminton and we've been BFF's ever since.

Angelique has done so much for me over the years, it's hard to know where to begin. First of all, she instantly accepted me and made me part of her group of long-time friends. When I was 16 and my parents were on the verge of separating, Ang would come over and drag me out of the house and out of my funk. (Even though I would tell her I just wanted to stay home and sleep.) She defended me from a VERY livid father when I got in a fender bender on the way to a Brighton football game. When I moved to Carlsbad, she wrote hilarious letters faithfully and came to visit more than once. When I went back to Salt Lake to visit, I stayed at her house. When we graduated from High School, we moved into my sister's basement together and started UVSC together.
Then we moved to The Glenwood together.
Then we moved to Carlsbad, CA together.

That's probably where we made our big plans. We were going to stay in Carlsbad and go to school there. (The community college was super cheap and we were making pretty big bucks working office temp jobs.)
Then we would go on missions at the same time.
Then we were going to be roommates again until we were 30...
when we would get married on the same day...
wearing Austen-era inspired wedding dresses.
Then we'd live next door to each other forever.

I messed things up first when I decided to move back to Utah to go to BYU.
And then dropped out, (I did love me some short-shorts in those days.)
and went to UVSC,
but did not drop out,
and did not go on a mission.
Then got engaged,
and un-engaged,
then met Doug at "The Rock Garden,"
and got married 4 months later,
while Ang was still on her mission.
(My bishop told us not to wait for her! Oh, he of little faith!)

Needless to say, we didn't stay roommates until we were 30.

But we're both 30 now, and we're housemates. So that's something!

(This is where I wish I could insert a current picture of Ang and I together, both looking fabulous and happy in front of our beautiful mansions right next door to each other in Carlsbad.)

(Except I don't have one of those. (I'm sure it's somehow Bush's fault.)
So I'll just say this;)

"I love you Angelique! Thanks for letting me be your housemate (if not your roommate) one more time. Thanks for everything. And I mean everything. You rock!!!"

Now everyone else, quit blubbering into your tissue and go call your friends and tell them you love them. DO IT NOW! (See how bossy I am?)

;)