Happy June!!

Hello everyone! It was a tradition between me and my mom to always be the first to say "rabbit rabbit" to one another on the first of every month. It's supposed to give you a month worth of good luck if you are the one to say it first :) Jon and I joke about it and we try to say it to one another in the morning- or if we forget one of us usually gets a text later in the day. If you don't believe this is a real tradition- look it up on Wikipedia!

It has been a while and I apologize for that. A lot of events have taken place and we will be posting about all of them little by little. First things first- we safely arrived in Houston with no problems (hurray!) and Jon finally has his official start date (July 12th).

If you are wanting a marathon race recap you can find it over at my running blog click here for the race recap post. I just didn't want to write 2 posts about it. :-)

The day after the marathon I got a phone call telling us that my sweet Grandma Howe (who was living in Worland, WY) had passed away. At that point, things were getting crazy. My brother, Shane and his son, Seth were coming in that week along with my dad. Jon's parents had already arrived and we were in the middle of packing up our little apartment.

Me and Grandma Howe summer 2006

Shane and Seth were able to bump up their flight so they could get in on Tuesday so we could make the trek up to WY for the funeral. I met them at the airport in the early afternoon and we drove up to WY and made it in time for dinner at my Uncle Roger's home. We made it safely and the only bad thing that happened was that I got pulled over. I know. Shameful! I have never been pulled over- ever! I was lucky and got off with a warning because according the sheriff- my record is squeaky clean (hehe). Shane couldn't stop laughing. I'll probably never live that down. Anyways, we arrived and were greeted by many relatives on my mother's side and it was so good to see them all. It was obviously not the best circumstance to be seeing them, but we did enjoy ourselves.


We spent the night in a hotel at the "edge of town". Boy, did we all get a kick out of that while we were out there. Shane, Seth and I had a blast spending time together. It has been a long time since I was able to spend some quality time with them. The service was on Wednesday and we gathered again at Uncle Roger's for breakfast and then headed to the church. It was a wonderful service. My Grandmother was so kind and sweet. It there were 5 things to sum her up it would be: love for the gospel of Jesus Christ, gardening, baking, playing the piano and loving her family. She is one of the greatest examples in my life. She was a strong woman and I seriously wish I inherited her green thumb! I can't grow a thing! Seriously, check out this zucchini!

Seth in front of Uncle Tom's Porsche :-)

All of my uncles spoke and they spoke about my grandparents together and they reflected on the reunion they must be having. They went in order by age (youngest to oldest). Because of the loss of my mother, my Uncle Tom stood up in her place. It was really sweet of him. I am usually good at taking control of my emotions, but I just lost it and was balling. He gave a really nice remembrance of her. My mother will always be my hero. On a side note- we read a talk from this last April conference last night for family home evening and it talked a lot about mothers and daughters. Parts of it discussed the affect mothers have on their daughters and how they need to be an example to them and a source of strength. She will always be that for me.


Grandma Howe was buried next to Grandpa Howe. It was just so fitting. She always spoke of "her Milo" and you could sense how much she was missing them. How great that reunion must have been. I am so thankful for this Gospel and for the knowledge that we have of eternal families. Yes, it's sad to lose a loved one and it's okay to mourn and take time to reflect on it. However, it always brings comfort to know that this is all a part of Heavenly Father's plan and that families are the only organization that will exist beyond the veil and that we will be able to see our loved ones again.

There was a luncheon after the service and we had some great food and got to talk with our Aunts, Uncles and cousins a little more. We said our goodbyes and headed on our way to get back on the road. We were told by our cousin, Aaron to stop off in a small town for some ice cream. So, with that in mind- we headed out. On our way way we hit a really weird storm. It was like it got very foggy and we couldn't see a thing! Visibility was totally gone. Then all of a sudden we made it out of it and we looked behind us and saw the "cloud" of whatever was still behind us. It was so bizarre! We made it to the ice cream place and I think it lived up to the hype :-)


Once we got into Utah we headed to Beth's home where we would meet up with all of Jon's family and my dad (he arrived on that day, Wednesday). It was a great trip and a wonderful remembrance of my Grandparents.

Jon with Grandma Howe summer 2006