Origin

This is going to be a rapid-fire background story of how Hayden and I met. It would take too much time and brain power to include every detail and every photo we've ever taken together, but it's my favorite story, and I hope you enjoy reading about the "invisible string" that tied us together.

The look on people's faces when I tell them Hayden and I have known each other for 20 years just never gets old. It's true! Two decades ago, we met at Coral Cliffs Elementary School, me a desert girl from Phoenix and he a small-town Idaho boy. It was fourth grade, and Hayden's friend John hit some poor girl with a metal bat. That girl was me, and that friend (who has Down syndrome) ended up in our wedding party 13 years later.

My earliest memory of meeting Hayden was in 6th grade after the talent show. He sang and played "100 Years" on the piano and successfully stole the hearts of every single girl in the school...except mine, of course. I mean, he was "okay," nothing THAT special (of course, I had to be different from all the other girls:).

In middle school and high school, we were good friends with similar interests and similar friend groups. We were both in Madrigals together, and we also both played sports. We sometimes hung out in big groups and went on a couple of casual dates, and he even asked me to prom our junior year. We even sang the prom theme song, "I Won't Give Up," which ended up being our wedding song <3. I certainly had a crush on him, but as the obedient Aaronic priesthood holder that he was, no way was he going to date anyone before his mission!

The first time he asked me to marry him was after our high school graduation in 2014. The graduates' parents put on a HUGE superhero-themed party at the school that lasted all night, complete with a marriage booth. We don't need to disclose how many other people each of us kissed...it's sufficient to say, in Hayden's words, that when we kissed, there were FIREWORKS!

When he left for Brasilia, Brazil, just two months after graduation, I wrote him a note telling him how much I appreciated our friendship and bore my testimony. Little did I know, he would read that in the MTC and start telling people he had a girlfriend at home. I dated around at BYU for a year and then left for the Barbados Bridgetown Mission in the summer of 2015. Sometime during my 18 months, Hayden and I decided to write one written letter to each other every month. I remember him citing that President Benson and his wife had done that during their missions, and I thought that was a CRAZY comparison considering we had never even dated! Nevertheless, we did it. And look where it got us!

Hayden returned home six months before I did, so he spent a semester at BYU dating and realizing that NOBODY was quite as amazing as I was :). When I got home on February 9, 2017, he was so excited, he asked me to be his Valentine (and, by extension, his girlfriend) just a couple of days later. He even sent me some recordings of himself playing the piano and singing, which was pretty forward and a bit shocking after 18 months of total relationship celibacy. I told him I'd be his Valentine, but the girlfriend thing would have to wait until we were living in the same city.

For a couple of months, I stayed at home in St. George, attending the singles ward, going to activities, and going on casual dates with high school friends. Those were some really good times! I knew I needed to be single for a little while after coming home, and Hayden came to realize that that was a good idea, too.

In April, I made the trip up to Salt Lake to see The Lion King at the Eccles with Hayden. Over some Cheesecake Factory cheesecake, I told him I was ready to date him for real, and he held my hand for the first time next to the outdoor fireplace at City Creek. After the show, he kissed me on the Swoggers's front porch, and the rest is history!

Hayden moved to St. George, and we spent the summer of 2017 falling in love <3. On December 9, he proposed to me at the St. George town square under the Christmas lights as a group of singers unknowingly serenaded us with "Stand By Me." Five months later, on May 5, 2018, we were sealed in the St. George temple.

Our wedding was the best! We had the most beautiful weather, and our venue at the old Santa Clara Relief Society building was perfect. The lights, the decor, the churro truck, the ice cream machine, and especially the dance party were everything I dreamed of!

We spent our first summer together in New Jersey, selling pest control (which was as awful as it sounds) and seeing some amazing East Coast sites (Niagara Falls, Palmyra, NYC, Philadelphia, Washington D.C.). Those adventures set the tone for our first few years of marriage. The following summer, we visited my mission in Grenada, and I got to show Hayden some of the crazy places where I spent so much time and introduce him to people I loved so much. The following New Year's Eve, we were on a plane to Barcelona! 

From January to June 2020, we taught English in a couple of primary schools in Alcalá de Henares, just outside Madrid, as part of an internship through BYU's Kennedy Center. Getting "stuck" in Europe during a worldwide pandemic was quite the experience. We were incredibly fortunate to be able to backpack all over the continent and see some truly remarkable sights. You can even read more about our travels on my other blog!

When we got back to the real world in August 2020, I started my internship with Church employment, and Hayden continued working as a CNA. In April 2021, we both graduated from BYU and found out we were pregnant with our first baby girl!

We spent two months living in Centerville with my grandparents before moving into our perfect little apartment in Midvale. We went on our "babymoon" to San Diego in October shortly after moving in. Sara Jane was born on the snowiest day I've ever seen, December 15, 2021. She's been ruling our world ever since! My other blog post details her birth story, first year of life, and other things about our wonderful girl.

Our adventures slowed down a bit after SJ was born, but we managed to travel to Disneyland, San Francisco, Phoenix, New York City, take a Caribbean cruise with our friends for our five-year anniversary, and even bring our baby to our family cruise to Mexico!

By February of the next year, we were pregnant with baby number two. I was thrilled to find out we were having another girl! We had the hardest time deciding what to name our second precious daughter. On our babymoon to the Oregon coast, we were writing potential baby names in the sand on the beach. When we wrote "Julia May," the clouds cleared for the first time during our whole trip, and the sun shone down on what would become our sweet baby girl's name. Julia May joined us on October 9, 2024, and more about her is in this blog post.

She's almost one year old now, and the past year has been our busiest and most difficult yet. Between Hayden graduating from nursing school, transitioning to his role as a nurse, and dealing with health issues, we've been going through it. I also found out in March that my job was moving to five days a week in the office, so I've spent the last five months looking for a new job, all while trying to sleep train and meet the needs of our kids, who are both in very needy phases of life. 

The good news? Things have really been looking up lately! Hayden is enjoying his part-time job as a triage nurse at the Fourth Street Clinic in SLC and earning his master's degree online at Western Governors University (paid for by the generous Colonel Sanders;). His stomach hasn't bothered him as much all summer. And, as of last week, I have a new job in a different Church department! This will allow me to work from home on Mondays and Fridays, and it will take a huge load off of us. We basically just tag each other in and out at home, but we do our best to soak up all the precious time we have together as a family.

Is that a pretty good summary of the past 20 years? I hope so! Keep reading for more Anderson Adventures. Ta ta!