Matt and Mandy, Part 2

Here's the follow up to Matt and Mandy, Part I -

Matt and I went to Utah State University after high school. We didn't finish, we each got 3 semesters under our belts before we decided we were tired of school. Not the best decision we've ever made, to be sure, but...

It's one of those things that you might change, if you could - but if we did, would things have turned out differently? Because I wouldn't change what we have for anything.

In 1999 we were married, amid a LOT of drama. I'll spare you the details, mostly because I'd like to spare myself the details. All that matters is that even with all the difficulties we had a very nice wedding and everything turned out okay in the end.

Anyway, in 2000, we were living in a "luxury apartment building" in Draper, and we were paying a fortune for rent. Matt was an assistant manager at Ruby Tuesday, with the promise that he'd be made a full a manager as soon as he was 21. I was waitressing at the time, also at Ruby Tuesdays, but a different location. It was the best summer...we both worked at night, usually. We'd sleep late, lay by the pool for hours in the afternoon, then go to work again. There were lots of parties, lots of play time.

After a while, we decided it was time to stop throwing our money away on rent and buy a house, but everything we found was out of our price range in a big way - unlike today, it was a sellers dream market.

I started surfing the Internet, trying to find news of new developments that might be in our price range. Eventually I found mention of a new development in the online meeting minutes for our city. I contacted the builder mentioned and we met with them before they even had a trailer on site. Our house was the first one built - finished almost 6 months before the model homes next door and across the street from us. Never say I'm not industrious ;)

We moved in April of 2001, we were both 21, but just barely.

Ruby Tuesday eventually made Matt a manager, first of the kitchen and eventually over his own store - the West Jordan location. I got a real job, too. Left the restaurant for Riverton Motors, where I worked in the service department. I was only there for a few months before I was laid off, though. It was such a different world, then...finding a job was the easiest thing in the world. Before 2 weeks were up an old family friend had offered me a position at a start up company she was part of called Luciderm. It was a skin care system meant to compete with proactive, and I sort of did everything there - I answered phones, I ran clinical trials, I helped with merchandising and sales. Once I went to a trade show in San Francisco. The company provided a vehicle and paid for Matt and I to take the most amazing road trip...we went to Reno, NV; through Lake Tahoe, stayed in Napa Valley, CA; then in San Francisco and Oakland...it was so much fun.

I was working at Luciderm on September 11. I was the first one in the office that morning, which was normal. A friend of mine called me at work, she said she was watching the news and that a plan had crashed into the world trade center. I remember reading the news on the Internet, watching it change every few minutes with new information. After a while my boss came in. We pulled a TV that we had there for presentations out into the main area, but couldn't get any decent reception on it, so we all left for the day. I went to Ruby's, where Matt was. They had the news on the big screen TV in the bar. I sat there and watched with him for a couple of hours. It was so surreal.

Within a few weeks Luciderm lost all their investors - people hid their money under their mattresses for a few months after 911. Looking back now it seems like maybe they should have kept it there!

The day I was let go my boss, John, told me that they would love to keep me around, but they could afford to pay me. I told him I couldn't afford to work for free. He looked disappointed by that, but he did tell me if things changed they would call me back. About a week later he did call me, and back I went, but it didn't last. When he let me go again, in early October, neither of us said anything about me coming back.

Matt happened to have that day off, and when I went home I suggested we go to the hospital for a blood test...I suspected I might be pregnant (3 positive at-home-urine-sample tests tend to make you suspicious!)

We planned to get pregnant. Though we were young, we felt ready. Matt, especially! I won't lie, he talked me into it at the beginning - he said "let's be young parents! our kids will be out of the house while we're still young enough to enjoy it!" and I agreed. We tried for 8 months to get pregnant...and each month I was shocked when I wasn't. We live in Utah, where the average family size is quite a bit larger than the rest of the country because so many people have multiple children. I sort of thought pregnancy just happened unless you really worked to make sure it didn't!

Anyway, waiting for the call from the hospital was excruciating, but they finally did get in touch with us...

It was positive :)