2007 Year in Review

January
2007 started (and ended) with a celebration at the Hillerys’ in Bluffdale. Back in Provo, I met my new roommate Mandy, who has been tons and tons of enjoyable someday-we’ll-go-to-hell-together fun. Jarom and I spent a terrifically prehistoric day at the dinosaur museum with Kimberlee and Quentin. The next weekend, after I casually mentioned to Krista one day that there was a “minimal to low chance” that the Romgi would propose that day, he did! We got engaged on our way to see Stranger Than Fiction with Kimberlee and Quentin. Oh, what fun.

February
I didn’t waste any time getting a wedding dress picked out. I’ve seen several other girls with the same dress since then (no surprise), but the Romgi assures me that it looks best on me. Together we started watching 24, visited my cousin Bethany and her family, and got Mandy hooked on 24. A successful month altogether.

March
Since the Romgi and I dropped our religion class at the beginning of the semester (it was dumb), we felt obligated to go to Institute at least once. We were engaged, though, and it was March before we really tried going. That was a disaster. And we never went again. On the bright side, we managed to find an apartment (we still live there, even!), and I wrote a tolerably insightful paper on PEPFAR. Then there was the wedding invitation fiasco. THAT was a disaster.

April
Hooray for my other roommate Jaime, who got engaged in April and started planning her own wedding! And speaking of weddings, Kimberlee threw me a bridal shower with the best decorations ever. The Romgi and I got tricked into listening to a timeshare sort of thing at Trendwest up in who-knows-where, which was not so much a disaster as a royal waste of time. Luckily, it wasn’t long before we got to go back to sunny California, and I loved my first experience at the Sacramento temple.

May
I suppose May counts as an important month. Oh, yes, because I got married. It was actually quite lovely. The Romgi and I even got to go on a honeymoon afterwards; we spent a week in Pajaro Dunes and then stopped for a night in Columbia on our way home. Back in Utah we opened presents, presents, and more presents, both from the reception and the open house we had in our new apartment. A few days later we got to be part of the IKEA grand opening, where we bought all the furniture we could possibly afford.

June
The summer really got going when the Romgi and I got hired at the same company (Platinum Protection), working in the call center taking calls from sales representatives and installation technicians. Not the best job in the world, nor the best company, but it paid well, we got to work together, and the hours (6am-2:30pm) made sure we went to bed early. For some reason (probably because I begged and pleaded) we bought a pet rat. Puppy sure was adorable.

July
Most of July was spent reading, whether at work or not. Harry Potter 7 came out the day after my birthday, so naturally I stayed up to get a midnight copy!

August
Most of August was spent recovering from disasters. First the Romgi and I locked our keys in the car; then we took Mu to the vet, who ripped his jaw out; then I had to get an ultrasound to see if I had a bloodclot in my leg; then I accidentally flooded our bathroom (and the bathroom downstairs…thanks, gravity).

September
September’s theme was lizards. Thinking maybe Mu needed a friend, I got a tiny baby water dragon to keep him company. Mu didn’t seem to care much one way or the other, and the Romgi never really liked the little guy, so we traded him for a baby bearded dragon named Remington Steele (he got his own cage). Krista got free tickets to the Utah Baby Fair, to which I happily tagged along. We didn’t win any prizes, but we sure got lots of business cards. We also went up to the Relief Society general broadcast (tickets courtesy of Krista, again), braving the cold and the rain. I’m pretty positive I got sick from that. My favorite part about September, though, was that the Romgi and I started talking seriously about a baby.

October
School took over most of my life for October, but there was a happy break when the Romgi and I went to my cousin Jennifer’s wedding in Salt Lake. It was the first wedding I’d been to since my own, and it was beautiful. We took the afternoon to go visit my old roommate, who had just had her second baby. And for Halloween? I had class that night. O joy.

November
I think November tested my endurance. The Romgi and I spent a superbly long 20 hours doing ALL of our laundry at his parents’ house, then came home to find that Puppy had died. The best we can tell is that he was sort of sickly, being a pet-store rat, and we just didn’t know what symptoms to look for. To make the season complete, our car battery died on the way to Thanksgiving dinner (#1 of 2), which meant we were late to dinner #1 and missed dinner #2. And because nothing helps a bad day like standing in the cold for eight hours, the Romgi and I went to Black Friday at Best Buy. (He bought me a Zelda DS Lite!)

December
The first half of December was brutal. School did not want to let go of my life. It turned out alright, though. Our biology final was cancelled (who does that?) and the others weren’t half bad. Of course, at the time, I thought I would die (or fail and then die) before the semester ever ended. But I did in fact survive and we spent a nice evening having a pre-Christmas dinner in Bluffdale before taking the train (yes, the train) back to California. The Romgi and I had a good time hanging out with my family, although perhaps our favorite part (no offense, family) was the gorgeous weather. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be able to walk around with short sleeves on. The year took a turn for the worse when we got back to Utah and discovered that, despite our best intentions and the help of the Romgi's brother, our thermostat was defective and had heated the apartment to about 125°F, completely dehumidifying everything and (tragedy!!) killing both Mu and Remington. We feel terrible about this, but there’s not much we can do at this point, so we tried to send 2007 out with a bang. Here’s hoping the best for 2008!