Things I have in common with Scott

 This last year, I was given the gift of Storyworth which sends me a prompt every week to help me write my personal history. At the end of the year, I will get a book of my essays. Here is one of my recent essays about what I have in common with my husband:

I am grateful to be married to someone who shares many things in common with me, some of which have changed over the years. The thing that brought us together originally was our common interest in music. We were both music majors and spent a lot of time in the HFAC at BYU. Scott was very successful in music, playing in both the BYU Philharmonic and Synthesis. He came close to finishing his bachelor of arts degree in music but ultimately decided he was better off just finishing his physics degree so he could graduate after 5 years at BYU instead of taking longer. We enjoy going to concerts together now and then, although it’s much more common for Scott to come to my orchestra concerts when I’m playing. I’m grateful that he enjoys coming, bringing children with him, and supports me in that interest. He has also been supportive in my efforts to teach my children musical instruments and we have gone to a lot of recitals and concerts for them. He would like to do more with his musical skills but right now he’s very busy with work and spends his free time in other ways.

Something else we have in common is our approach to finances. We both grew up without much money and we both wanted that in a future spouse. This really helped for the first 6 years of our marriage when we were finishing our educations and didn't have much money to spend. It continues to help us be frugal and save more money. When we were in Germany, we knew some African refugees from our ward who had very little. They were in limbo, waiting to have their asylum applications approved, living in state-subsidized housing, not able to work, and getting some food assistance from the church. We remember them when we think about buying an expensive car or something similar.

An interest we have developed in the last 20 years or so is hiking together. We did quite a bit of camping when we were first married but hiking started after we moved back to Utah and lived here for some time. Scott went on an ambitious hike shortly after Talmage was born in 2002, taking our five oldest boys to Stewart Falls on the Fourth of July. I stayed home with Susanna and baby Talmage. Everything went fine until Jan got hurt at the Falls and was pretty unhappy. Everett was 4 and was tired of hiking. Scott had taken some juice boxes but no water on a hot day. He also didn’t have a first aid kit to help Jan. He kept asking people if they had anything but they only had anti-diarrheal pills. So he made the 2 mile trek back to the car, alternately carrying Jan and Everett, until finally he carried both of them. That was quite educational for Scott and since then he has been conscientious about carrying first aid kits on our hikes with plenty of water to drink so he is not unprepared. He is always willing to go on hikes whenever I suggest them. About 2014, I decided I really wanted to hike Mt. Timpanogos which is about 14 miles round trip. Scott and I did a lot of training hikes and then on a beautiful Saturday in late September, we hiked the mountain successfully. Scott was my Sherpa, carrying a lot for me so the hike wasn’t as difficult. We haven’t done any other really long hikes since then but we continue to hike together on shorter routes, even in the winter, using spikes. When we travel we find places to hike and it makes for a good low-cost activity and way to see the new place we’re in. Scott would love it if I enjoyed canyoneering which I consider a more extreme form of hiking. I tried it once but didn’t enjoy it--too much pain was involved, so he goes with our older children—David, Everett, Susanna, and Talmage.

From an anniversary hike near Logan in 2015

A very significant thing Scott and I share in common is our children and grandchildren. I appreciate that Scott was supportive of my desires to have a large family. One of our major focuses now is spending time with our grandchildren and children. Raising our children sometimes stressed our marriage since it took away a lot of our couple and personal time and we didn’t always agree on the right approach with discipline. But he supported my efforts and was very involved as a father. Currently we are both working to help Mindy and Camille in their efforts to become independent. I look at our large family and love how we have created it together.

Another activity we do together is home improvement projects around our house. I have had ideas for certain things I would like changed or improved at our house and Scott has been willing to help me, although he doesn’t always have as much time as he would like. When I decided to get chickens, he took a lot of time to build me a chicken coop. He didn’t seem that interested in chickens when I first started talking about it but when we got them, he was willing to help. When the chickens were killed by a raccoon he disposed of the bodies for me. When we moved into our house and decided to redo the landscaping, he was the brawn while I was the brains. For my recent garden expansion, he has been willing to do a lot of digging for that. We have done a lot of home improvement projects and he is the one who has executed on it.

Throughout our marriage, we have enjoyed traveling and we have gone a lot of places, including all 50 states. We did the Nauvoo Pageant three times and the Hill Cumorah Pageant once. We drove across the country to visit David and Stephanie in Virginia and then later in Louisiana. We lived in Germany for a year and did a lot of travel there. Before we went, Scott asked me if he should apply for the Humboldt fellowship which would take us to Germany. I didn’t think he would get it so I said, go ahead. I should have had more faith in his abilities because he did get it and we ended up going. The move there and the move back were quite challenging but it was an unforgettable year. In 2019, we went on a trip to Alaska for our 30th anniversary, completing our goal of visiting all 50 states. In 2022, we completed my goal of visiting 50 temples by going to Arizona and visiting 4 temples in 3 days.

The biggest thing we share in common is our values. We both highly value our church membership and are strongly invested in keeping our covenants with God and being disciples of Jesus Christ. That has informed a lot of our decisions. I am very grateful that we are both committed to attending church, personal and family scripture study, having Family Home Evening, praying, and going to the temple. It would be very difficult to be married and not have that mutual commitment. It united us when Camille was born and we needed that significant spiritual help. Sometimes Scott’s church callings have taken him away a lot and I haven’t felt as supportive as I want to be but Scott has worked hard to balance that. I am looking forward to serving a mission together and am grateful that Scott is committed to that also. From the beginning of our marriage, we have read a little bit every night from something church-related before we pray and go to sleep. Lately we have read the Liahona together but we are also reading a book by President Nelson. It has given us something to discuss, another way to connect, and also a time to talk together about things that happened that day.

Scott read somewhere that marriages are most successful when husbands are willing to be influenced by their wives. Scott has been very open to my influence and I think I have been open to his. I’m grateful for the happy life we have built together.