How They Met
Monika and Jim met in Salt Lake City at the 30th Birthday party of their friends (who also just got married) Kris and Collin. Monika wouldn't even talk to Jim for the longest time, even though he sat right next to her.Eventually he was able to get her interest by mentioning that he coached soccer. Her reply was something along the lines, of "Yes, I led my collegiate soccer team to the National Championships when I was a freshman at Trinity University" (or something like that ;^).
After saying she'd call, Jim waited patiently for several months before hearing back from the elusive Monika.
Monika's Story
Monika was born in Mora, Sweden. Her mother and father had met at the University of Hawaii, fallen in love, eloped and about a year later Monika arrived. Shortly after her birth, they returned to the States, living in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and ending up in Colorado where Monika was raised along with her younger sister and brother. Her childhood was a happy one, playing and fighting with her younger sister and then babysitting her younger brother when he came along 10 years later.After a brief childhood infatuation with Steve Martin and William F. Buckley Jr., Monika moved on to more "typical" girlhood crushes, Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" and Ralph Macchio (sp?) in "The Karate Kid." Always an avid fan of film, Monika's earliest memories of film arise from her father taking her (at the tender age of 9) to see such classics as "Apocalypse Now" and "Alien". Now a days, she looks forward to her friends DeeDee and Beth making their annual pilgrimage out to Utah for the Sundance Film Festival.
While Monika had always planned to become the "First Supreme Court Justice to host Saturday Night Live", an exciting career in the health insurance industry beckoned instead. So after graduating from Trinity University in San Antonio Texas with a degree in Economics, she started working for Prudential Health Care in Houston. After a couple years, she transferred to the Denver office. And then a year and a half later she moved to Salt Lake City to work for Intermountain Health Care. And that is, of course, where she ended up meeting Jim. Whom she called (I repeat "she called") after a mere 2 weeks to set up their "first date". After that, "love was in the air", although, it did take several months of persistency for Monika to land that "first kiss". But she also is very excited to start this next chapter of her life with Jim and looks forward to sharing the experience with all of you!
Jim's Story
Jim was born and raised in Las Cruces, NM. A hot and dusty land where he grew up as a desert rat. Every summer he and his brother and mom would pack up and head for greener pastures in Louisiana where most of his extended family are from. Its there that he learned to wrestle a greased watermelon from out of a pool with the help of his baby brother Dav, cousins Bryan and David.During highschool he played Oboe and Saxaphone for the band and marched in the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena. College found him at New Mexico State University where he followed his father's footsteps and earned a degree in computer science (ok. Dad actually had his degree in math, but thats because they didn't have computers in his day.)
Recent years have found him in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he valiantly tried to break some of the family records for graduate school, but was unsuccessful and graduated despite himself.
During his time at the University of Utah, he started playing serious ultimate frisbee. He helped lead the Computer Science team "DiscGrace" to almost a decade of final appearances and championships. It was through ultimate that he met Collin who happened to have a 30th Birthday party, where his girlfriend (and now wife) happened to invite a good friend of hers, who happenened to have great legs and know alot about soccer, and this happened to start another story in Jim's life.
On October 19th, Jim will start another chapter. He hopes that all of you reading this can be there to see him off.
Their Story
Monika and Jim live in their new house which they love almost as much as they love each other.