*Audra Close*

What Happened Since High School

To start off, I'm happy I'm not in High School anymore. Ever since I moved to southern Idaho, I've always felt out-of-place… lost almost. It takes a certain kind of person to thrive in that area, a kind of person I've never been. A few months after High School ended, I moved to Rexburg to go to school at BYU-Idaho. I wanted to major in Art, but after a while I decided that Art was more enjoyable as a hobby and not a career. I got burned out pretty quick.

About the second semester in, I met Caleb. I refer to him as my knight in shining armor. He prefers to call himself the night in dented old armor. That way, if he ever falls off his high horse it will be more comic instead of tragic. Needless to say, after we met (which is a whole 'nother story in itself) he asked me to marry him. He took me to the Idaho Falls Greenbelt, where the bridge crosses over the water. It was February, and very cold. It was the funniest thing. He was so nervous, and when he got down on his knee and opened the case with the ring, it slid out of its case and almost fell down to the water/ice. We laugh about it now.

We were married August 27, 2005 in the Boise Idaho temple and then moved to northern Idaho. It is the best place for us. There aren’t very many people, just pined mountains and open sky. Caleb works construction and in our spare time we train and put miles/experience on horses. It’s a funny thing. In High School I wouldn't have been caught dead in a pair of cowboy boots. But then again, I didn't have a horse either. My horses name is Lassie and she has a yearling right now that is as tall as she is.

This Christmas my father in law made me a pair of chinks. He's a leather repairman. His specialty is fixing saddles and boots. Up here there's really no need for anything modern. My mother-in-law is a midwife, and I had both my kids at home traditionally. There are no microwaves, everything is cooked by scratch, all the meat is mostly wild game, there's no iPods, cell phones only work occasionally, no videogames, and internet is slower than molasses, because dial up is the only thing that works. The only thing the TV is good for is old cassette tapes that nobody watches anyway.

Jewel was born in November of 2006 and Gideon was born August 2008. I love being a mom. That's another thing I wouldn't have guessed while in High School. I've learned more being a mom than I feel like I've learned the entire time growing up. I've learned how to sew outfits for the kids and make quilts, how to cook from something other than the box or the can, how to speak baby gibberish and everything else that accompanies raising a happy and healthy family.

All in all life is really good. Caleb made a rocking horse for Jewel, and when Gideon gets old enough, he's going to make a rocking bull. Meanwhile, I've discovered a love for painting murals on walls. At my in-laws I painted their bathroom door to look like an outhouse door. (yes, they have an actual outhouse too for when summer comes and there isn't a lot of water) and in our house I've painted a sky on the ceiling and Tuscan Tiles around the built in bookshelf. It's fun fixing up our place. We have a black lab named Sadie who had 7 pups this year. Thank goodness we were able to get rid of them all. The last couple went right before Christmas. We're happy with just one dog. (I can only imagine the grocery bill if we had to feed all 8!) Life is good.