sunshine

when i moved to farmington the summer after my junior year in highschool i realized what people meant when they said family is your best friend. i didn't know anyone in farmington, but alas- neither did my sisters. we spent that summer together- discovering our new house, meeting our new siblings (they were boys.... that was a little hard, but always an adventure), going swimming at the community pool with the stolen pool key (thanks alisha), visiting subway more often than needed, exploring our surrounding neighborhood while complaining of its "hick-ness" and smallness, mowing the weeds in the backyard that our new stepdad called grass, complaining of being in a new ward and missing our familiar young women leaders, bishop, and friends, and much more.

it might have taken longer than it should have, but eventually we discovered multiple people in our hick town that we were perhaps fond of. although my sister's wouldn't admit it as quickly as i did, they eventually came around and without realizing what was happening, we find ourselves 5 years down the road trying to remember why it was hard to move from salt lake in the first place.

i'm sure to leave someone out, so i'm trying not to mention the names of the aforementioned people found.... we'll just call them c. connors and libb ribb. ;) well... cori and libby eventually helped us to feel comfortable to branch out even further, and low and behold there were many other people in our hick town that we were fond of. one person in particular, cindy gardner. (sorry to draw attention to you cindy, this post is for you) impossible though, for me to mention cindy without her other half, reed. i should probably refer to reed as brother gardner, as he is a member of the bishopric up in hick-town, but reed feels like an uncle to me (who happens to be in the bishopric). cindy and reed have some pretty awesome kids. awhile back i found some journal entries pertaining to one specific child of theirs. i told my journal that i found an awesome girl in my neighborhood with whom i was to be friends with and find out what was drawing me to her. there are a few reasons i've come to understand for my being drawn to her, and i will continue to discover more, i'm sure. let me get to the point of this story- dear, sweet, lovely cindy has been diagnosed with cancer. although she is fighting with all her might and proving to be possibly the strongest woman i know (next to my mom, mom's always first), cindy is very sick from the side effects. every time i read cindy's blog the tears flow down my cheeks and i realize how grateful i am for wonderful people in my life. no one said this life would be easy, but cliche enough- it is worth it. cindy, thanks for your great example and for reminding me today of why life is great. we need more cindy's in this world. hang in there cindy.

feel free to pray for cindy.

you can never have enough prayers.

this is reed and cindy.

this picture makes me cry every time i look at it.

it has so much strength in it.