A Walk Down Memory Lane

Ever since my post with the picture of my current roommates, I've been thinking about how lucky I have been to have had such wonderful roommates throughout the years. I also realized that I have moved at least once a year every year for the past 13 years. That's a lot of moves and a lot of roommates. So I thought that I would pay tribute to all these terrific women with a quick look to the past with pictures of all my roommates. Now, I THINK that I have remembered to include everyone. I will feel REALLY badly if I've left anyone out. Don't worry - I won't use last names. :)

My very first college roommate, Nancy.

Sally, Nancy, Sheila, and I were lucky enough to share a suite in the dorms and then an apartment. Two whole years of fun!

After Nancy and Sally got married, Sheila and I teamed up with Crystal and Natasha. We had many a night around an ice cream container.

Now, in 1999 I went on a study abroad to Zimbabwe. Technically I did not room with everyone in this picture (meaning the guys), but throughout the summer I think I managed to share a room, chalet, or tent with pretty much all of these gals. It was really an amazing summer!

Back in the States, I spent another year as a roommate with Natasha, and we added Rachel and Erin (sometimes known as Terry) to the apartment. And, yes, this was a posed picture. Get ready, there are more posed roommate pictures coming. We never did, however, frame them and hang them in the house or print them and send them in Christmas cards.

See! Here's another posed one. :) We took this just before I left for my mission. Here we've got Cindy, Tristen, Jen, Emily, Natasha, and me. These sweet girls signed the 8x10 of this picture and put it in a frame for me. Truly a treasure as I left for 18 months.

So, this is kind of a two-for-one picture. I figure that my mission companions count as roommates, and this picture has not only my MTC companion - Erin (far right) - but also my trainer - Michelle (next to me). This is at the train station in Hilversum just before we left to go to our separate areas.

I'm sorry this is so blurry! Ok - I'm tech deficient, and I took digital pictures of my regular pictures and then uploaded the digital ones. I didn't have a digital camera on my mission, OK? These are the sisters that lived with in my first apartment in Zoetermeer. Rebecca (who later was a comp), me, Michelle, and I don't know her first name. Shoot! Sorry Sister S.

Antwerpen, Belgium! The first group of gal: me, Kim, Jody, and Jen. Yes, we had a night when we put on mud masks. It helps keep your skin soft and supple. Missionaries still need to try. We may not have looked good, but we tried. Can I help it if this was the only picture I had with all four of us? :)

I promise - I could have done almost all of my mission roommate pictures with a food theme. But this one with Kim, me, Jen, and Jen is in front of our favorite Belgian waffle shop, Carpe Diem. They were SO good!

Still in Belgium. Yes, I had a lot of roommates there. Here I am with Amy and Jen. We had a vicious Sport Evening which ended in a mud fight. It was momentous.

OK - this is a little out of order, but I still not great at the blog-picture-upload thing. But later in my mission I was with Amy again. This time we were in Haarlem. This was a preparation day in January and it was VERY cold! We were at the North Sea in Scheveningen, just outside of The Hague.

The infamous CHiPs roommates. If you don't already know what that means, I'm sorry. It involves last names, and I have a thing about using last names on public internet things. So, just know that it was a cool nickname that we made up for ourselves. Below are Alicia, me, and Amber outside the temple in Zoetermeer. We really look like missionaries here, huh?

My Greenie! I trained Brittany in Rotterdam. We had a whirlwind of a time. This is out at Kinderdijk.

Oh, Jenn. We were roommates on two different continents. Here we are in Rotterdam wearing our gifts. Yes, tank tops that say, "I 'heart' my attitude problem." Love it!

And here's a nice one of me and Jenn. This is at Keukenhof. Nice display of flowers, huh?

Ok - we're now out of the mission years. Whew! These are the girls I was lucky enough to end up rooming with when I moved to Sacramento. Melissa, Laurel, Jenn, Alena, AmyAnn, Corrie, and Ariane. Yeah, we posed for this one too. You can't see it very well, but we were right next to a waterfall. Precious, huh? I do love these girls. We didn't actually all live in the same house at the same time, but I have lived with all of them at some point.

Then I moved to Utah. First I was just roommates with Melissa, but then I moved to Kari's house and got to live with (from left to right) Jenny, Melissa, and Kari. This was at our fancy Christmas party. Hooray for pretty dresses!

And, last but not least (and this was my only picture of her), we added Amanda to Kari's house just before I moved back to California. We were having a do-our-hair-and-watch-a-movie night.

Well, if you've made it to the end of this EXTREMELY long post, you're a trooper. Because really, this was a LONG post. But even if you didn't enjoy it, I sure enjoyed going through all my pictures and reliving a lot of memories. And, all of you roommates should say thank you. There were some VERY embarrassing pictures that I could have used instead. :) Love you all!