High School Years

Lance got called on his mission to serve in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He was there during Hurricane Mitch, and saw a lot of people die. He was never the same person after his mission. We got a phone call from him while he was on his mission, and somehow we all misunderstood it. For some reason we were all freaking out saying, "Lance got kidnapped and taken to Georgia?" That's what happens when you cant' hear him on the phone so well, and everyone is huddled around trying to understand why the caller ID number showed up as a Georgia number.

Shortly after he returned, Melissa got married to Tony in the Timpanogos Temple. Mom was so nervous and stressed that she literally had to be taken to the hospital. She barely made it in time to see her daughter get married, but she was still pretty loopy afterwards.

I made Alta High School’s sophomore basketball team when I was a freshman in middle school. We had a good year, and won most of our games. (Which is really good because I hate losing. In fact, I hated losing so bad that my mom would call our home ahead of me and warn everybody not to say a word to me because I was in such a bad mood.) We’ll just say I’m VERY competitive. I played all four years of eligibility. My sophomore year I played on the sophomore team, while the rest of my friends were on the Junior Varsity team. I was pretty upset that they were considered better than me. But they never got any playing time, and I was playing tons on my team, so when it came time for tryouts the following year, I had improved my skills so much and was playing above them. My junior year I led my JV team to an undefeated record of 23-0. Our varsity team (of which I got some playing time, too), won state that year. We played Taylorsville at Salt Lake Community College and beat them 45-40 on March 2, 2002. It was one of the best feelings ever. Our team was on the news, and I made honorable mention all state. The following year I started for the varsity team. We didn’t do as well as the previous year, but still had a good record. We got out in semifinals of the state tournament. I was pretty upset. By this time I had some offers to some small colleges to play ball for them (like William Penn and Utah State), but I decided against it and tried to focus more on academics. I figured I already had an academic scholarship, and I didn’t need to waste time with the sport. Later I regretted it, and still kind of do. I really miss playing it.

I kept busy in high school. I was involved with the National Honors Society and in FCCLA. I also served as seminary class president for one semester. I was enrolled in a few concurrent enrollment and AP classes so I could enter college as a sophomore. I also did some modeling with my sister, Tenille. And of course I played basketball. My schedule was pretty hectic, and looking back at it now, I don’t know how I managed it all. After school was basketball practice, and then I went straight to work at Janbo Express (a Chinese food restaurant where I delivered it and got paid really well with my tips, but I also totaled two cars—neither of which were my fault—and I always was able to upgrade to a nicer car!). I usually got off around 9:30 and would go home to do homework. The only days I didn’t work were usually when I had a game. On the weekends my friends would wait for me to get off, and then we’d all hang out until about 1:00 am. We did a bunch of things like: going to the movies, hot-tubbing, toilet-papering houses, shopping, cruising Main, etc.

My best friends at the beginning of high school were Ashley Bunk, Russ Bass, Alex Rosenhan (also my boyfriend for a while), Andrew Stewart, Shawn Allman, and a bunch of other people. After Alex and I broke up, though, I began hanging out more with Sarah Romig, Tina Fonoimoana, and Brooke Wilson. We called ourselves “us” and always had a blast together. For our senior spring break we went to St. George, and for our senior graduation trip we went to Lake Powell. We girls still try to get-together every few months.

I loved high school. I aced all my classes (but received one A-), and was in the top 3% of my graduating class (with a GPA of 3.97). My favorite subjects were math and English. Those subjects just seemed to come so naturally to me. And I got great satisfaction out of seeing perfection on my report cards. Speaking of perfection, anyone who knows me knows I am a perfectionist and organized freak. I love seeing complete order. I remember when I was young my mom saying that my siblings were such “teenagers” because they had messy rooms. I ran to my room and tried to mess it up so she would think I was a [cool] “teenager,” too. But soon after shutting my door, I couldn’t stand thinking of what mess lay behind, so I quickly tidied it all back up. I used to have all my clothes in my closet in alphabetical order by color, and I constantly would re-arrange the furniture in my room as I got bored of the same layout. My parents used to worry I had OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). I started to sweat if I knew I was going to be late to an appointment, or not do something perfectly. Yes, I was really hard on myself. I blame my dad—he’s the perfectionist one in my family.