Nannette was born in Southern California, and spent her first seventeen years playing on the beach (except when school interrupted). She then enrolled at BYU as a music major, with a minor in English. She married during her junior year and returned to California to settle into married life and to begin raising a family. Following the birth of her third child, she and her husband moved their small household back to the Rocky Mountains, where they subsequently added seven more children to their menage. Finally, after thirty years of diapers and tricycles, she resumed her education, this time at