where to begin. . .

Um, it's been a while since I've posted. . . what's new? So much has happened in the past month and a half (good and bad) that it's hard to know where to begin as I get back into posting. I seriously have dozens of things to post about and at least three times as many photos to sort through and post and for the past two weeks I've been trying to figure out the best place to start. For the sake of ending on a happier note, I'll not go in chronological order and I'll start with the most difficult event of the past month. After nearly a two year battle with brain cancer, my Dad passed away on June 14th. It wasn't an unexpected event but was still pretty hard to process. I had some sweet experiences with my family as we all gathered to honor him. He was a good man. I am so blessed to have had the chance to be his daughter. He taught me both through example and word and I know that through the very end of his battle his family was always his first priority. He was generous and funny and loving and compassionate and funny and faith filled and hard working and funny and easy to be around and funny and I have so many wonderful memories of him as a father and friend. Like all who had the opportunity to know him, I am better because of him.

I have been so amazed and impressed by all the love and support my family has received from friends, extended family and even strangers throughout this whole ordeal. I am so grateful for the many wonderful examples I've seen and am truly inspired to be a better person because of them. Most of all though, I'm grateful for the testimony that I have of our Heavenly Father's plan for us and that I know I can be with my family eternally if I do the things I should.

Jarom and the kids and I ventured on our first real road trip (30 hours cross country) to be with my family for the funeral and for a week or so after. Reasonably so, Jarom and I were pretty anxious about the drive and how the kids (especially Anna) would fare. We left mid-day on a Saturday and arrived late in the evening Sunday stopping for an hour and a half collective nap around 3:00am Sunday morning. Truly we were blessed with tender mercies right and left as we made our nearly non-stop drive. The kids were absolutely amazing! Anna found ways to entertain herself and Jack and Olivia only sort of half bickered once during the whole trip. Seriously. The only thing that could have made our trip a little better is if we hadn't had to make a 3 hour detour around Iowa because of all the flooding there. I didn't realize our route was supposed to take us right through the horrible floods in Iowa and because I didn't check our route ahead of time we had some significant back tracking to do to get around it all. I felt bad for us, but a little worse for the people in Iowa. What a huge pain to have to deal with all that water in places it shouldn't be!

Once we made it to Utah we stayed at my parents home. Jarom was the husband of the year watching not only our kids but my sister's kids while I spent the first few days with my Mom and sisters making the final funeral arrangements. It really was a bitter sweet occassion for all of us. It was so fun to see all the cousins together and to have time to spend with all my siblings as we gathered together. Our entire trip made us so grateful for our families and the great relationships we have with them, but it also made us a little sad to have to live so far away from everyone.

The morning of Dad's funeral, we gathered everyone together to try and take a couple family photos while we had all of us in town--we only had a single day when all of us and our spouses were in town. Here are a few of the best pictures we were able to get.

Mom with all her grown up kids--Adam just graduated from high school so we'll count him as a grown up too. :)

The whole family. . . all 20 of us!