Happy Anniversary!

On August 23, 2000, I met Bethany. Here is a picture of the day we met:



Okay, no, that is just an attempt to hide my age. Yesterday at some ward function people were saying "Happy 10 year anniversary, Rachel" and I wanted them to leave out the "ten years" part because I was talking to men who are significantly younger than me...anyway...

Ten years ago today I had just rushed back to Provo to be a Y group leader. Earlier in the week I had my wisdom teeth removed and welcomed James home from his mission. Beckie Dick and I were going to be roommates, and during a lunch break from Y group leader training we dashed over to our landlord's office to get keys to our new apartment. Once we approached the desk and asked for keys to #6 we heard a voice in the back of the line say "I'm in apartment 6, too!" We turned and saw a red-headed girl in baggy green overalls.

And that was the first time I met Bethany.*

Never would I have imagined that a decade later we would still be roommates! But besides a brief break for law school (and Bethany's mission) we have been together.

During our ten years together we have lived in 4 apartments in Provo, 1 apartment in Brooklynn (well, she really lived there; I just mooched off her for a few weeks), a couple of weeks at her parents' house in Maryland and my grandma's basement in SLC while we were unemployed, and a mansion in Virginia. We've been to China, Hong Kong, Cancun, and about half of the states--including Hawaii!

In Hong Kong:


In Cancun with Chad:


We've had 17 mutual roommates and own 5 pairs of matching pajama pants. Bethany coined the term "matchie scratchies" in her sleep in 2001. We've been trapped in the Grand Junction, CO airport for a day, stranded in a stranger's basement in New York, drove non-stop from Louisville, KY to Salt Lake City, UT through the craziest storm ever, had eye exams in China with our only mandarin phrases being watermelon and "I love you", and laughed our way through it all. I was once driving with a man who said "let's go look at the moon" and I said "why don't we go home and get Bethany first?" That is how idiotic I am, and that is also how much I love Bethany.

Happy Anniversary, Bethany! Here's hoping that in ten more years we don't still live together (nothing personal).



xoxox
Rachel

*note that the story we usually give is that Bethany lived on the 4th floor of U Hall my freshman year and I didn't know who she was. But that over the summer she figured out where I was living and manged to be in the same apartment as me. And then we became friends. Somehow this story lived on and Bethany came to all of my freshman year reunions and at one of them she met this guy and they went on a date and she got whooping cough!