Personal History, Part 2

So I left off with us going back to Danville, California. We moved back there in the summer of 2003. Like all of our previous moves, we did it in the middle of the summer so that we wouldn't have our school year disrupted. Now that we were back in a place we hadn't spent a lot of time in previously, I was getting to really know my friends from before and make a lot of new friendships. I finished middle school there and began my freshman year of high school, so I felt like I was just starting to fit in. But, of course, the call to move came once again through my dad's job. I remember how I felt when he first told me; it was right around the beginning of the school year, and unlike past times that we'd moved, this time it would be right at the end of the calendar year instead of in the summer. This meant leaving school, leaving behind friends, leaving behind a home that I fell in love with – leaving all that in a way I wasn't used to. And I'd already felt like I'd gotten used to change. This just frustrated me.

It took me a while to understand that we're always where we are for a reason. Years, to understand that. Way after the fact that we had moved from Danville, and even after I went to my first year of college. And I know that we didn't move around nearly as much as some military families do. We never lived in poverty – we weren't what most people would define as rich, but we lived comfortably enough for our needs. I don't know what could have happened if we stayed in California that whole time; I know my brother stayed, and he was old enough to make that decision on his own. As a family, though, we moved. And for reasons that I wasn't aware of at the time, it was necessary that we did so. Either because there were people where we were moving to that we needed to help, or people who would help us, or some combination of the two, something that we had to do there – in any case, the reasons existed, and while we may not have known them beforehand we did as my parents felt were best.

December rolled around, and thankfully we stayed there as long as we could before we really had to move. We spent Christmas with some of my cousins in the area, and soon after that we were flying to the midwest. The only time I had got out that way before was when we took a family vacation across the country in an RV, but I was 6 or 7 at the time and I don't remember too much of that trip now. So we landed in St. Louis, and one of the first things we noticed was how flat it was. Having only lived on the west coast, I was always used to mountains or at least hills around me. Even when we took trips to Utah, there were the big mountains there that we drove through and around – here, though, almost seemed like a wasteland at first.
Thankfully that impression of it didn't last long. Yes, geographically there's not much of interest besides maybe the Mississippi River, but I ended up making some great friends pretty quickly there. Within a couple days of us getting there, we were invited to a New Year's party by some people from the ward, and we quickly began to fit in to the city of Edwardsville, Illinois. My dad was working on a big expansion project for the company he was working with; my mom found a bunch of friends around the neighborhood to play tennis with; my younger-older sister Katie (does that description make sense?) got ready to finish high school and move on to BYU; and Sarah, my younger sister, made a bunch of friends in her own grade and joined band.
It still took me a while to figure out my niche at school there. I first thought I might give wrestling a go; I had done it one year in middle school (when we were in Washington, before we moved) and enjoyed it then. But then, midway through the season, one of my English teachers (who also happened to be the main drama club teacher) announced that they were having auditions for Les Misérables. This nearly blew my mind! I'd already seen Les Mis before, listened to the soundtrack multiple times, and loved every minute of it. So, while the wrestling season came to a close, I tried out and ended up getting a part in the musical. To this day I still remember the parts I played: Constable #2 (one of the men who drags Jean Valjean back to the Bishop) and Courfeyrac (a student who dies along with all the others at the barricade). There, I finally felt like I belonged. From that point on, I participated in pretty much every production that the high school did until I graduated: Children of Eden, Beauty and the Beast, On the Razzle (a comedy, taken from the same play that Hello Dolly is based on) and The Wiz. I loved every minute of it, and clearly remember the friendships I made there.
I participated a bit with band and choir as well, and only have good memories of my time in Illinois. Here's just a picture montage of... well, everything from there:

Some of my friends posing during a literary fair. The whole idea was that we had to do something related to British culture, so they played Beatles music the whole time.

During a "Mormon Prom" – some guys did a mini glowstick show, and I was lucky enough to capture this

Senior Prom, pretty much all of the students from French 4, with our teacher on the far left.

This is one of the things I'm most proud of: I built this chair as the Beast's throne for Beauty and the Beast my junior year.

All of the Thespians from drama club, close to graduation.

This was while I was working in a movie theater... If I remember correctly, he was just up there to change a light, but probably spent more time up there than he should.

House party! There were probably four times this many people actually in the house at the time; we were all celebrating the performances of Beauty and the Beast.

I apologize for the poor quality for some of these photos. I wasn't super experienced with a digital camera at the time, and while I'm not a pro at it now I definitely know how to take better pictures.



Part 3 will be up later this week, and I'll probably cover from the time I graduated high school up until about now.