Burton, Amy (Clay)

The passage of time is a weird thing. Some days it seems like yesterday that we were graduating. Then I look at my calendar and realize that my daughter’s high school graduation is next week. I’m going to have to admit that I’m getting old.

What have I been doing the last 20 years? Well, I jumped right into school at BYU starting summer term after graduation. Unfortunately, I had a little trouble choosing a major and didn’t take the best advantage of my time there. February of 1990 I met Phill Clay at my job in the computer science department. He told me that he had a rule that he never dated 18 year olds or freshmen. I didn’t mention to him that I had been 19 for only a week and that I was only a sophomore based on AP credits. To make a long story short we were married on August 25, 1990.

It seems my life plan is to jump into things full board. Just shy of ten months later we welcomed our daughter Elizabeth into our home. And then a little less than two years later along came our first son Thomas.

For awhile there we were very happy being a family of four. Then one day I woke up and realized that Thomas was almost five and we really HAD planned on having more children. The big surprise was that when we actually tried to have children it took a while. So by the time Matthew was born there was a nice six year gap between him and his older brother. So of course we had to have another in order for him to have a sibling to hang out with. Jacob was born two and a half years later.

This is how I found myself 20 years after graduation with two teenagers (17 & 16) and two in grade school (10 & 7).

I never did settle on one major long enough to graduate but we did manage to get Phill through both a CS degree and an MBA. But that doesn’t mean I have left school behind. No in fact quite the opposite. School has become a major aspect of my life. It started innocently by helping in my older kids classrooms. Then I became a reading tutor helping at the school a couple times a week. Currently I am preparing to give my life away as PTA president of Lindon Elementary next year. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!!! It was nice seeing Lynette McKinnon at PTA convention last week. It seems she made the same mistake.

When Elizabeth heads off to BYU next fall I hope she takes the life steps a little slower than I did but, I really wouldn’t change any of it. Life has had and will continue to have many bumps in the road but I must admit that I love where I am and what I am doing.

I hope to see a lot of you there at the picnic. I’m still not sure if we can make the dinner.