Concerning Us...

All right, we're starting a blog. We tried the website thing, and it never really took off for us, so hopefully this will work a bit better...here's some background on us...

We got married June 28, 2000 in the Dallas Texas Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, following a lengthy five month engagement. We met the September before in our Comparative Politics class at Brigham Young University when Zachariah sat by Fiona and asked if she was in his ward (church congregation, based on where you live). Fiona said she didn't know, asked him to take off his blue baseball cap (a staple in his wardrobe) and thought he was some other redheaded guy in the ward. He wasn't. She thought he was cute, but kinda wished he wouldn't sit by her, because she'd just bought a big bag of chocolate covered peanuts to eat in class and didn't want to share (she went hungry that class period, and now finds it easier to just share with him).

Despite his vows of having nothing to do with girls that semester, he saw Fiona the first day of class and thought, "That's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. If I meet her, I'll marry her..." He set off on that quest by asking her if she wanted to study. Fiona didn't really want to, but felt sorry for him and said yes. And thus it began innocently enough...studying together...playing basketball...the Homecoming Dance...Zac wearing a pumpkin on his head for Halloween just so Fiona had to lead him around by the hand...then, BOOM! they were engaged, a week before Fiona's planned break-up date. She had no intention of getting married any time soon, planning to go on a mission that coming summer, but he sucked her in with his charm and red hair, proposing over a fire up at Bridal Veil Falls one starry night.

We each had another year to finish at BYU. We graduated in the summer of 2001 -- Zachariah in International Politics, Fiona in Broadcast Journalism, minor in International Studies -- and then it was off to Cairo, Egypt, where Zac was going to start his master's program at American University in Cairo. After a month of trying to convince school officials he HAD, actually, graduated, (BYU doesn't send the official graduation letter until a couple of months later, and the school in Egypt wouldn't let him register until he had that letter. They would, however, allow him to pay tuition (it was expensive!) and attend class with little guarantee that he would be officially registered after the letter arrived. Very generous.) we decided to try and salvage the school year by attending the University of Kent in Canterbury (Brussels campus), where he had also been accepted, but luckily, hadn't been polite enough to turn down yet.

School at UKC started a couple of weeks later, so we packed up our four suitcases, changed our tickets around, got out of our lease, and set off for Brussels, Belgium. We were sad to leave Egypt, we had been able to see and do lots of things, and even kind of got to know our neighbors. We had learned some Arabic, liked the ward alot, and were excited to live there! We were looking forward to Belgium, though, but almost didn't get to leave Egypt. Our flight to Amsterdam was scheduled for September 13, 2001, and with the airports in the US shut down, Americans weren't being allowed on flights in order to cut down on overcrowded airports. We finally got through, showing them that our tickets continuing to Texas weren't until December.

We got to Amsterdam, took a train to Brussels, and finally found an apartment near the campus. We had absolutely no cold weather clothes...no Belgium preparations at all. But it worked out, and we had lots of fun making it work. Luckily, since Fiona's also an Irish citizen, we didn't have to mess with the necessary visas to live in Europe. Fiona found a job as a nanny for an Indian family and we traveled a lot, finding cheap hotels and traveling with friends or CHEAP air travel (RyanAir -- we love it!) Oh, and Zac studied a little, too.

It turned out better anyway, being in Brussels, because the UKC Master's in International Relations is only a year-long program, and was a LOT cheaper because of European school subsidizations. We were able to go all over Germany, to Paris a couple of times, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, Holland, Switzerland and Ireland. It was all great, but Ireland was especially enjoyable since we were able to see Granny and our numerous aunts, uncles and cousins -- all of whom Zac had never met, of course, and we loved being there! After the school year, we flew back to Texas with our cat, Zoe, a Brussels native...she made our life pretty interesting.

We drove up to Washington, DC in June 2002 from Boerne, taking very little since Zac's internship with the Pentagon was only for three months (yeah, right). Zoe came along for about half an hour, then made it pretty darn clear she would rather stay in Texas...now we only have visiting rights...We lived in an area of DC we wouldn't really recommend, then moved to Virginia while Zac's internship kept extending. We bought a townhouse and have been in the DC area for about 3 years now, Zachariah works for the U.S. State Department, and I work as a photo assistant at National Wildlife Magazine. We have two cats, Finnigan and Mushi, and are moving to Tbilisi, Georgia (formerly of the Soviet Union) in April 2006.

ZACHARIAH LEE ROLLINS...
Zac is from the Seattle area, Everett and Snohomish, although he was born and grew up some in Southern Oregon. He has three sisters and one brother - Maria (pronounced Mariah), SariAnn, Heidi, and Abe. He served in the Japan Fukuoka Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) from November 1996 to December 1998. He's Scoutmaster in our ward, and loves snowboarding, rock-climbing, camping, cooking, and clothes shopping.

FIONA LORENE RICKER ROLLINS...
Fiona is from Texas, she lived in several areas of the state, but mostly in Harlingen, down in the tip of Texas by Mexico, and Boerne (Burn-ie), about 20 miles outside of San Antonio, in the gorgeous Texas hill country! She also has three sisters and one brother - Aislinn, Erin, Gary, and Tara. She works with the Young Women in our ward, as Laurel Advisor and basketball coach, and loves playing basketball, rock-climbing, reading, eating Zac's cooking (especially his curry, YUM!), and washing dishes.

FINNIGAN "BIRD-SWIPER" ROLLINS...
Finnigan is a very pretty (ummm...handsome...) dark grey, with faint stripes around his tail. He's three years old and loves to sleep, stretch, eat, sleep, eat, go on walks with Zac and Fiona, and clean his sister's head.

MUSHI "WHINE-A-LOT" ROLLINS...
Mushi is very whiny. She's a grey tabby, also three years old (of course, they're brother and sister) and is a nervous little thing. She's also very snuggly and is great at catching cute little animals like mice, rabbits, moles and birds.