The summer had some random things: Tyler snugging with Jared (rare moment, gotta capture it), glow in the dark golf, Elevate Trampoline Park, Water slides at the lake, Sunsplash, Emma and Grandma Rodgers were in Sodalicious and out of the blue Richelle, Randi and Sydney walk in and then Emma and her new roomies!
Emma made the UVU Dean's List for the 2nd semester in a row! We could not be more proud of how hard she works at school and she certainly deserves this honor!
I made a weird random goal for our family to go to all the Temples this summer. We weren't going on a summer vacation and had nothing better to do - so why not! As a reward, we would eat food after at some place local to each temple. The word food was in Tucson - mexican food recommended to us by the workers. Hope told us about a burger place at the Gila Valley one, Randi told us about a pizza place by the Phoenix one, Eli wanted Kneaders when we went to Gilbert, Jenn found us an American place in Snowflake and for Mesa we hit up the bakery and Pete's fish and chips! Emma and I were the only ones to go to all 6 of them. Jared did not go to the Phoenix, Gilbert or Mesa ones because we went while he was working. Eli missed out on Tucson because he was gone at Kyle's cabin and the twins missed out on Phoenix because they were in Newport, Ca but they went to the Newport BeachTemple the same day! They even said there was sand in the font - ha ha! Eli baptized his siblings in the Mesa Temple. That was very special to watch. Tyler was the first one he baptized and he held him by the back of the neck - we taught him better after that and he was good to go! For the Snowflake Temple we stayed the night at Nate's cabin so we didn't have to drive as far and made a little trip out of it! Emma said after the Gilbert Temple her next favorite was the Phoenix Temple so Jared and I took her one more time before she headed back to Utah! Love my family and Love going to the Temple with them!
Oh man this is a post I didn't think I would ever be writing. Jen passed away unexpectedly on Monday, July 12, 2022. Rj found out on Tuesday and came straight over to get a blessing from Jared so he would have some help in knowing how to tell Alyza her mom was gone. After the blessing I followed him home and kidnapped the 4 girls to take them to DQ while he told Dalton what had happened. While we were waiting for our ice cream to come and were sitting around and joking and laughing they texted and said they were ready for her to come home. I pulled Riley aside and told her something serious had happened and I needed to get Alyza home and that her and her sisters needed to stay with me and she would find out eventually what happened but in the mean time we needed to put on happy faces and pretend like everything was normal! She asked me on a scale of 1-10 how bad was it and I said a 12. She jumped right in and knew exactly what she needed to do! I looked at Alyza's happy smiling face and wanted to take a picture of her because I knew that as soon as I took her home, her life was about to change forever and my heart broke into a million pieces for her. She got our treats, drove home singing "let it go" at the top of our lungs and I walked her inside where she was greeted by Dalton with a smile on her face and I told Alyza how much I loved her and gave her a hug and I got in my car and took the girls back to my house. We were prepared for them to stay the night if need be. But 5 minutes after arriving at my house I got a text that Alyza wanted the girls at home with her. So we got back in the car and went home. When we got to her house, Dalton came outside and sat in my car with her girls while I went inside by myself and I got to hug her, cry with her, tell her how much I loved her and that I was always going to be there for her and I made her repeat after me about how much her mom loved her more than anything in the whole world! Then I even told her some cute little stories about herself when she was a baby. Then I drove back home and we shared the news with our kids.
On Thursday, Grandma Rodgers and I took Alyza to get her nails done, out to lunch and then I went home to prep for the open house while Grandma had a whole afternoon planned for her with ice cream, etc!
Later that week was the Wedding Open House at my house and we all got to stay busy with that. While I was setting up for the open house, she sat and laughed and played with the twins, Emma curled her hair for that night and basically it was just like old times! The next week was the funeral. It was finally confirmed on Wednesday that it would be on Friday. Alyza requested a luncheon because she had had so much fun at Grandma Joyce's she wanted to do that for her moms! So RJ handled the funeral arrangements with Sarah (her sister) and Jared gave a spiritual message and I did the funeral program and with the help of my sweet sweet friends did the funeral luncheon. They all jumped in and helped me set up, serve, made the food, desserts, and helped me clean up. I truly could not have done this without them! Alyza and Jen went to Chick-fil-A a lot together so we thought it would be fun to have Chick-fil-A sandwiches there for everyone to eat in honor of their date nights together.
The funeral was a gut wrencher. As soon as RJ got up to welcome everyone and get it started, sweet baby girl just sat there and belly sobbed! I wanted nothing more than to go over there and scoop her up, but I wanted Dalton to be able to do that for her so I forced myself to remain sitting. Jen packed the house. The overflow was standing room only. Then Sarah and Alyza stood up front for anyone who wanted to come by and share their condolences. Tyson also lost it at the end. Then we headed over to the gravesite and everyone got to place a flower on her coffin.
Jen loved her daughter more than anything! She also loved her job more than anything too! She was ALWAYS so willing to serve anyone who needed help! She helped me with plantar fasciatis on numerous occasions, she helped Eli with "pitchers elbow", Emma too many times to count on a variety of things, she even let Emma "shadow" her for a STEM assignment, she couldn't help Tyson with his broken arm but she brought him ice cream instead, she helped Richelle and Randi's kids and even helped Nate with his bells palsy. I hadn't seen or talked to her recently since I don't watch Alyza anymore, but she will be miss greatly by my family. We love her and she was always so kind to us! I will do my best to keep her memory alive for Alyza's sake and always make sure we remember her and honor her!
Rj and Dalton got sealed today! The sealing was short but sweet! Then afterwards they had an open house at our house. I wish I would have counted how many came over - small enough that no one needed to go outside thank heavens but big enough that it filled my house the whole night! They did desserts and fruit! It was super yummy and fun to see all the people who came out to support them! Rj wanted a donut wall so I made Jared help me - we ended up inside Home Depot for 1.5 hours trying to figure out the base. How we have survived my projects and stayed married - one will never know - I found myself a keeper that's for sure! We are so excited to have Dalton and her girls be apart of our family! She is going to be so great for RJ and Alyza! For time and all eternity!
