Announcements

No, not that kind of announcement.  I'll prepare you better before that happens. Speaking of marriage, I was with family all weekend so I got that question a lot.  Not as much as I used to get.  Maybe they are giving up on me.  Or graduation overshadowed my singlehood this time.  Haha, that reminds me of a story.  My little brother and I had a conversation this weekend.  It went like something like this:

     little brother: So are all those guys at BYU idiots?
     me: Apparently.  Guys don't go for girls who aren't staying around.
     little brother: That's dumb.
     me: Well, what would you do if you liked a girl but she was moving away in a week?
     little brother: Change her mind.

Good answer, little brother.  I gave him a high five and assured him of future success in life and marriage with that attitude.

Yes, I'm moving away from Utah.  That's one of the real announcements.  My brother Luke offered me a job with his company in Denver and I accepted.  Now that I'm done with school and nobody has really tried to "change my mind", there's no reason to stay around here.  I'm moving to Colorado next weekend and start the job in one week from today.  I don't know anything about Denver except that everyone likes it.  That's encouraging.

The other announcement is connected to the reason I was with family all weekend.  Twelve days ago I took my last final ever.  Then I went home triumphant until my mom called to tell me my Aunt Gayle had passed away on a humanitarian trip to Tonga.  It was shocking and terrible, but we're ok.  She's ok.  Uncle Gary's ok.  Isn't it so nice how we can be ok because of what we know?  I love that.  I've felt really peaceful and good about the whole situation despite the tragedy.  It's sort of weird, to be ok about it, but I know she lived a great life and is still doing good where she is now.  The hard part is learning to live without her.  But even in that department there have been miracles to reward our faith.

One blessing is I got to see all my immediate family but Josh this weekend as we traveled to Rigby, Idaho, for Aunt Gayle's memorial service.  My mom got us hotel rooms and all the siblings had to share two rooms.  No additional deaths or major altercations = another miracle.  (We love each other, but sometimes we love better from a distance.)  Under the circumstances, it was a nice weekend of fellowship and comfort.

Uncle Gary and Aunt Gayle are both from Coeur d'Alene originally, so the local paper did a nice story on Gayle.  You can read it here if you want more details.