Birthday present for a whovian. March 14, 2014

Jake face plant at scout snow camp

Kenz and Jake singing in the back seat of the car

Levi Listening to The Lazy Song

the nightly struggle,, lol

https://video-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xap1/v/t42.1790-2/755733_10151650022990638_110574602_n.mp4?efg=eyJybHIiOjUzNiwicmxhIjoxMjI5LCJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6ImxlZ2FjeV9zZCJ9&rl=536&vabr=298&oh=230424e669e88c479d7b576b15e2610f&oe=56A7E102

Jakes 14th birthday 014

He already needed therapy,, we were just insuring our investment in his therapy fund! hahahaa

Hunting for Kenzie's today

He was 5 years old when he did this... he would always take my digital camera and make little movies,, seriously,, I wish I had kept them all,, but this one,, brings the biggest smile to my face.  Seriously, these two had an amazing bond... (2008/2009 is when the video was taken,, on this date.according to timehop! )

The pursuit of Happiness..

So I met this guy....

at a wedding...

where I was one of the maid of honors.....

*she had two, because we love her that much!*

I saw him sitting alone,,, and asked my bride/friend who he was...

she saw an opportunity for two of her best friends to be happy, and couldn't introduce us fast enough!!

we hit it off, spent the rest of the evening talking and getting to know one another,,

He took me for a spin on his bike,, and I was hooked...

We both wanted to get to know each other better, and were both a little more than apprehensive of jumping in with both feet,, we both have kids that have been through more than any kid should have to go through....and we have both been hurt.

we decided to take it slow and see where it goes...

I was able to open up to him and tell him my story,, and he sat and listened,, held my hand when I cried, and helped me see straight when all I saw was sorrow and endless pain...

He met my kids,,

I met his...the ones in town...

He met my parents,, *seriously,, at 43,,, never thought I would be introducing a man to my parents!! and he never thought he would be meeting parents at his age!!!,, WELL PLAYED LIFE!! WELL PLAYED!!*

He respects me, he respects my space,, he respects my grieving process and helps me through it more than he will ever know.

He holds my hand while tears are streaming down my face over missing my husband and son...

He keeps a smile on my face,, and brings laughter out of me that I haven't heard in a long long time.

He holds my hand.

He wraps me in his arms when I am breaking down and need a safe spot to just cry.

He doesn't push me.

He gives advice when asked, and just listens when needed.

He truly listens and hears what I am saying,, even when everything comes out jumbled

He lets me vent, no matter how unreasonably angry I can be,, and then he softly talks sense to me.

He confides in me... and I like that!

He includes me in the things he enjoys doing,, and seriously takes me on the best dates. 

He met my in-laws last night.  95% of them.  And I caught this moment..

and it made me smile...

Seriously,, who is that comfortable around your girlfriends inlaws??? Can I tell you how much I LOVE this picture??? ( he has no clue I took it! )

He hates that I take his picture, and he lets me do it still. 

He isn't afraid to act silly with me

I do not pretend to know what life has in store for me...or for him....  I do not pretend to know where this will go...

I do know,, for right now,, in this moment,, this works...

I'm so grateful he came to the wedding of a friend he hadn't seen in 10 + years!!!

And I stuck around after the wedding ceremony and didn't go see Brad paisley. 😉

One day ... *ramble ramble ramble,,sorry,, my thoughts are all over... again! haha*

you just realize that the tears are fewer, the hurt is a little less, the happiness is starting to not seem so fake.

You realize an hour has past and you have gotten busy with something else and not thought about what you lost that cold December day.

And you have guilt. 

Guilt over being happy, over not letting missing them consume your every waking moment like you did just a few weeks or even days ago.

And somewhere, out of nowhere, it just hits you,, they are happy for you! They are smiling because you are smiling.

One day you realize that the storm you have journeyed through has completely changed your view on things.   We were in Relief Society today, *a lady's 'sunday school' class if you will*, and discussing our trials and how some are greater than others.  I don't remember exactly how it came up, but I remember sitting there and my gut was just turning... Why do we do that?  Why do we downplay our trials?  I have lost count of how many times I have had someone say to me "oh what you are going through is much worse, I need to just suck it up!"

NO YOU DO NOT!!! 

We need to stop comparing our trials to those of others. What you are going through at this point and time is just as traumatic to you as what anyone else is going through. Stop belittling your trials.  Please!!! PLEASE!!!! They are important. They help us grow... whether it be through serving others, or by going through this particular trial.  Trials shape who we are, and who we become.

Another thing I hear is "you are given nothing more than the Lord knows you can handle"

 FALSE! just saying',,

I belive in a pre existence, I also firmly believe, and you are free to disagree with me, this is just my feelings on this,, that we agreed to the trials and blessings we would receive here on earth.  I believe I personally sat on the knee of my Heavenly Father, and He said to me,, "here is your bag of trials I have for you.. these are gonna be hard, if you go down there,, these are going to seem unattainable,, You can do it, I know you can, but it's going to be hard"  AND because there was no veil at that point, because we could see all things, and the final chapter of our story, I agreed to it.. with enthusiasm.  I knew it would be hard, I knew it would hurt,, I knew I would grow.  I knew I had to do these things in order to be able to return to live with my Heavenly Father forever.  

Insert veil

all things are forgotten, we plug along in life.. we struggle, we cry, we laugh, we love, we lose, we bring our parents joy, we hurt our parents, we cause them pain, we watch as our own children do the very same things to us... and we wonder why..... because of the veil.  How much easier would it be to go through this earthly life with No veil!!!  But we would not grow, we would not become more Christ like.  After all is that not why we are here?  To attain Celestial glory? To return to the loving arms of our Heavenly Father? The one person who loved us so very much, He gave us His son, our older Brother, to help us return to live with THEM one day?

So before you go saying your trials are easier than mine, or the Lord wouldn't give you more than you can handle,, pause!!!  

Take stock in everything you have gone through, how hard it is.. how much it hurts, how much joy it brings you.. and allow yourself to grow.  Allow yourself to feel the pain, cry the tears, don't belittle what you are going through, it is an important part of who you are destined to become.  

And one day, you will look back and smile, and realize the tears are fewer, the storm is lessening, the clouds are lifting, the sun is shining, and you survived! You came out on top, and your biggest cheerleaders are smiling with you!!!  

Would you know....

So this picture popped up on my newsfeed today....

With the question,, "would you recognize Him if He showed up looking like this?"

Good question... would you??   

I am wanting to share a very personal, very spiritual experience with you that happened on the night of the accident... It is THE ONLY thing that brought me comfort that night, and my only regret is I didn't realize it until about 1 month later.... 

I remember:

• driving around the accident... not once, but twice and thinking how horrid that something would happen this time of year and I hoped that everyone involved was ok.  
•  wanting to punch the officer that wouldn't let me down to my loved ones when I realized it was them
• thinking if I do punch him I will end up in jail
• hearing Todd whisper to me that everything was ok, and I would get through this 
• the grief councilors trying to comfort me and me telling them to NOT touch me
• only letting the Lieutenant help me into his truck and making sure I stayed standing
• listing off people who needed to be called,, here is where it gets interesting...

The very first person I asked them to call, *I had already called my daughter and my inlaws, beyond that I was useless*, was my Bishop.  This is how the conversation went:

Me: My bishop,, someone needs to call him,, I really am going to need a blessing,,, he doesn't know who I am, we just moved into the ward,, he knows Todd though and Levi, but I have worked every Sunday almost since we moved here, is it ok to call him... do you think he will come?

I was assured that he would come... I think someone said that,, 

Someone, I don't know who, called him....  He was at the other end of the accident,, apparently waiting for me to be notified....  neither of us knew where the other one was.

He was told I was at the fire house.

I looked up a few minutes later *should NOT blog at work! HOLY CRAP tearfest 2016!* and I saw a man walk into the fire house... he all but ran to me, opened his arms and just held me.  I don't think I have ever seen such a completely crushed demeanor on a human.  His arms wrapped completely around me whispering to me "I am so sorry, Rhonda, I am so sorry" "I wish I could take this from you"  "Please know how sorry I am"  and every single time I looked up at him and said "THIS ISN"T REAL, Please tell me this is nothing more than a horrid nightmare,, they are my life, I NEED THEM BACK NOW!"  Fresh tears spilled from his eyes and he just kept saying how desperately he wished he could take this from me.....

Jump ahead a month or so.. and people are telling me to let the Atonement work,, let it do it's job.  I was furious.  How on earth is the Atonement supposed to work for ME? I didn't do anything wrong!!!  I wasn't the one who got drunk and decided to drive home at 5 in the freaking after noon..... this was not something the Atonement could fix for me.

I had a huge misunderstanding of the Atonement, and what it does.  Our Savior did not bleed from every pore in the Garden of Gethsemane, fast for 40 days and nights, be persecuted, have His friends betray Him, and then be hung on a cross and die only for our sins...  This is what most people think of when the Atonement is mentioned... it is what I thought of.  

Our Savior has felt every tear each of us has shed, every single heart break, minor or major, every single wrong done unto each of us, He has felt it all.  

I don't remember exactly when I realized what had actually happened that night, but it hit me like a ton of bricks,, Those words that our sweet Bishop whispered into my ear on the darkest night of my life,,, they weren't from him,, but from HIM.  It was my Savior's arms around me that night,, His heart that broke along with mine, His voice that whispered those words of love and comfort,, His face that I saw when I saw a broken, crushed, man.  It was my Savior that wanted desperately to take this pain from me, He wanted to protect me from this heart ache, this black hole that I had been thrown into... He couldn't take it from me, because I had agreed to it.   He had already done His part.  He had already fulfilled His promise to me.  Now I needed to fulfill mine to Him. 

*sorry if this sounds like I am rambling AGAIN!*

So when this picture of my older brother popped up on facebook today, all I could think of was YES!! I already did.  I know who HE is, I know HE loves me... and I know through Him I can do all I had promised Him I would do.  And knowing He is walking beside me daily does nothing more than help me get through this life and strive to be worthy to be greeted by Him, and my boys again one day!!!  

This is my ah-ha moment. 

 This is what I carry in my heart daily.

  I KNOW WHO HE IS! and I pray that tomorrow, I will recognize Him much sooner than I did on that day.  

Reflecting pool

I have spent the last 20 days reflecting on the last 384.  So much has changed.

 It continues to amaze me what the human heart can survive.  I am sitting here completely surprised that I am sitting here,, if that makes sense.  The month I expected to be the absolute hardest and worst month of my life, for the rest of my life, was amazingly filled with love, family and building new memories!  I am not even really sure what I want to say, so I am just going to type it and hope I don't sound like a complete blubbering fool.

For the first time in over a year, I actually feel like my brain is solidified. I can hold a thought for more than 30 seconds, I can recall conversations from the day before,, mostly.  I smile, and I mean it. I love life again.  I whistle mostly every day again.  I want to live.  I want to see my babies get married, which is happening for both of them this year!!!, I want to see my grand babies, and love and spoil them like no other!!!! AND IT FEELS GOOD!!

I feel validated in my anger, and in my forgiveness.  I can honestly say that I am so very grateful for that miracle we call forgiveness,, never thought of it as a miracle until this last year.  I spent a lot of time going back and forth over and over. between anger verging on hatred and forgiveness towards the man who ripped apart my life and the lives of my children.  And I have learned that that is completely OK!  I don't have to like him,, I don't have to get the warm fuzzies when I see him at my grocery store,, yes it will always be MY grocery store.  I feel sorrow for him mostly, don't get me wrong, sometimes the anger still comes up... most days it's sorrow.  He is in complete denial as to his part in all this, and when it hits him over the head,, it will hit him hard.  It may not be this lifetime that this happens, but it will happen. Of this I have no doubt, and it will tear him to his very core.

Having said all that, I am moving forward.  I am focusing on the positive things in life, and all that anger is far from positive.  Life is GOOD!!!

I got to spend the 13 of December with Mackenzie, and just remember Todd and Levi and all that was them!!!
On December 14 our Elder returned home with honor from his 2 year mission in the Georgia Macon Mission. On the 18th, my parents arrived, the 20th was Jacob's homecoming here in Utah, and then Christmas!!!!!

A few tears were shed Christmas day.  It was eerily quiet, peaceful, and full of love.. their presence was tangible.  My mum bought all of us little lego kits and I had bought lego figures,, the tree,, that I finally decided I would put up, was covered in BYU, Lego and Dr Who ornaments, with one tiny Ute ornament, and 3 snowmen for Kenz, Jeff and Jake.  It was quiet, we played card games, we laughed, we shed a few tears, I can't speak for everyone but I knew exactly where those two men were every minute of that day!

December 26, caught my parents driving north to head home, and Jake and I driving south to Henderson for his homecoming in our ward there.  Is it possible to have more than one home,, they say home is where the heart is, and my heart is divided,, between Canada, Utah, Henderson and Heaven,, how does one choose?

Jake had his homecoming on December 27, and our sweet friends had an open house for us, and we got to visit with all our family down there. *I have said it before and I will say it again, my heart knows no difference between blood family and friend family,, family is family*

I dropped Jake off in St George on my way home on the 28th.  And that man child went and proposed to a sweet girl we have known for years!!!!  So we have ANOTHER wedding this year!!!  April 23, in St George.  To say I am happy for them is an understatement.  It will be exciting to watch these two young adults grow and mature together!  And seriously, I have loved her and her family for years, they are one of our closest friends in St George, so it just makes sense!

I struggled a little bit with Jake being down in St George when our plan was he would live here with me, yet something changed, not sure what it was,, that brought peace to my heart with the whole thing. It will work out.  And honestly, I am kinda liking not having to continuously worry about said man child, and come and go as I please.. If I want to cook, I cook, if I don't I don't.  To say I have adjusted to living alone, well,, it's a true statement.

New Years Eve, was spent sober and engagement free with friends! haha We, well my girlfriends husband BBQed in the 5 degree weather, while my date kept him company, haha, And Mandi and I sat inside, and played with her son, and had a mini new years with him, then sent him to bed so the adults could party!

That brings us to today,, the first page of the next 364 of my life.  I love where my life is going right now.  I love watching Mackenzie and Jacob become adults, and figure out how to maneuver through life.  It has been... fun isn't the right word, but fun to watch as Kenz and Jeff adjust to all the changes in their lives, and getting all the wedding prep done.  Their wedding is October 1!!! WOOT WOOT!!!!!!

So as I reflect on the last 384 days, I have noticed that

• the world is full of good people that are all too often overshadowed by the ones making choices that negatively affect others
• that not everything has to be ok all the time.
• you can be happy and sad simultaneously
• people often speak without thinking first and don't always mean how they say something
• some things there are no letting go of and that is completely ok, I mean I am not the Savior, I am trying to be more like Him, but I am not HIM!!! (and let's not forget He too had times of anger and frustration!!!!!!! and no one told Him to Let it go!)
• you can smile through the pain and fake it as long as you need, then one day you will realize that your smile isn't necessarily fake any more.
• tears are ok
• sadness is ok
• the things we learn in this life are simply amazing
• you can love more than one person at the same time, and that is ok too! (provided one of them is waiting for you on the other side!!!!)
• what you think you can't possibly survive, you will
• your heart will heal
• your heart will still ache
• you are stronger than you think
• braver than you believe 
• and smarter than you know... 
• and as hard as it is to believe in the middle of the dark cloud of grief.. you will be ok.  You will always shed a tear for lost loved ones, and that is perfectly ok. 

So here is to an amazing 2016!!! May it find you all happy, healthy, and knowing you are loved and cherished beyond your wildest dreams!!

Jake and I went to the cemetery with my parents so my dad and Jake could see the headstone,,, I bought the boys a drink and chocolate! haha Jake and I decided to sprinkle the M&M's and drizzle the drinks over them so no one would take them!!  

My baby girl and her Mancrush everyday!!   I love these two kids so freaking much

My RM and his dream girl.  <3 it's going to be fun to watch these two grow together!!!  Love them with my whole heart!

my life! my reason for putting my feet firmly on the floor every single morning! My happiness, my sorrow,,, my heart!  

This is gonna be fun!