Pete

Before I move on, I can't forget about Pete! Pete was our pet. He was half longhorn. Jonathan use to do a few things like take semen back and forth from Logan to Lehi for this guy that owned some longhorn's that lived in Lehi. So, as payment Jonathan asked him he could have Pete because the guy raised longhorn's and Pete was a little mishap and only half longhorn. Pete was super friendly, wel loved that little dude! Jonathan was determined to train Pete so that he could ride him! Jonathan didn't get to spend as much time as he would have liked to training Pete, but he sure thought Pete was pretty cool.
After Jonathan died, Pete hat a little mishap up at Jonathan's parents house. Somehow, he got his horn stuck in the fence and when he pulled it out, the outer part of his horn ripped off. I brought him up to Connie's house (the girl I lived with after Jonathan died) to try to take care of him and help the his horn heal. I took him to the vet and the vet gave me some things to do to try to help, but basically told me it will be hard to heal. I took care of his horn for a few weeks. He was really big at this point and didn't like me dumping the solution on his horn that the vet had given me. I think it probably didn't feel real good either. He was too big for me to handle and I never knew where he might jab those horns, so after a few weeks of no real healing and him basically running away when he saw me come out to clean up his horn, I decided it was best for Pete to move on to bigger and better things. Hopefully Jonathan has trained Pete by now, so that when I get up there I can actually see him riding him! :) So, Pete moved on to the next life and some may think I am a bid morbid for doing this, but I had Pete skinned and had his hide tanned. I think at the time, it was all part of my healing process, I needed anything that was associated with Jonathan with me because it reminded me of him. It really isn't that morbid, animals hides are tanned all the time and used as rugs, mine was just my pet! He sure is pretty though!
I wish I could find a picture of Pete to share! I am in the process of trying to sell my house, and am hoping when I go through everything I can find a picture of Pete.

First Anniversary

We celebrated our first anniversary that summer that Jonathan was doing his internship on June 24, 2005. We celebrated our anniversary before I had that powerful experience walking to class in July. We both took some time off work and headed to Palisades lake in Idaho. Jonathan's uncle had a cabin there and lent it to us for a few days. We took some tubes and floated around on the lake, ate yummy food, and literally just relaxed because we had both been so busy working and going to school for me, that it was just so nice to get away and be with each other for more than just a weekend. I really missed him this summer that he was gone. It was the best first anniversary, we both loved spending time alone away from everyday life and just get to know each other better. If somebody would have told me this would have been my first and my last anniversary with Jonathan, I would have thought they were crazy! After that anniversary, I was looking forward to so many more anniversaries with him. I couldn't get enough of him!
 I could kick myself so hard for not taking more pictures when Jonathan and I were married. We don't have any photos from our only anniversary, and it makes me super sad. Most of the photos I share on here, my parents probably took. I thank my dad for being on top of taking pictures and that I do have the photos that he had taken! You bet after going through the loss of Jonathan and all my regret, I am the crazy photo person now! I try not to miss a thing because you never know what may happen in life and a picture may be the only memory you have.

You Want to do What?

Jonathan and I had a wonderful life together. It was too short, but we learned so much about each other and our hopes and dreams in that short period of time. Our lives at the time we were attending Utah State consisted of mostly working and going to school. Not much other than that. We never really did anything exciting because we were poor married college students. The most excitement that went on in our lives was going to visit families occasionally on the weekends. I loved that time we would spend driving in the car though to visit family, it gave us the chance to talk...just the two of us. We did go to a few basketball games and build a snowman or two in the front of our apartment, but other than that it was work and school for us!

We lived in our small apartment in Smithfield for about 10 months and loved every minute of it. We then moved into Jonathan's uncles rental home in Hyrum to be closer to the horses. Jonathan was driving to Hyrum everyday from Smithfield to feed the horses, it wasn't far but in between working and school, sometimes it made it more work than we wanted, so when his uncle offered for us to move into his rental home, we were really excited to jump on the offer so we wouldn't be driving all over Cache valley everyday. Plus, Jonathan had been working at Miller Beef in Hyrum, so our lives had kind of moved to Hyrum, so we decided it would probably be best! We were sad to leave a few people in our ward in Smithfield, Jonathan had recently become really close to our home teacher Royce and we were sad to leave him, but he still kept in touch after we moved and came to Jonathan's funeral after learning of his passing.

About the same time we moved into this rental home (in April), Jonathan came to me one day telling me that he was going to apply for this internship up near the Teton's in Idaho to work on a ranch for the summer (school was going to be out in May). WHAT????? You really want to do that???? You really  want to leave me here by myself???? I was super upset! He knew I wouldn't be able to go with him because I didn't want to lose my job at CAL Ranch because who knows if I could have gotten in back, plus they probably didn't even have room for me if I did go with. No matter what I said to him, I couldn't change his mind about wanting to go. He kept telling me it will be a good opportunity, (because ag-business is what he was getting is degree in and he wanted to be a rancher) and that we could see each other on the weekends. REALLY??? The weekends, I can't just see you on the weekends. Later I would learn, I was blessed that he took this opportunity. I needed that summer to learn to be independent and learn to live without him because eventually he would be gone for good and I needed to know how to live without him.

We moved into the rental house and Jonathan got me a cute little puppy that we named Harley so that I would have someone there with me for the summer. I kept the gun by my bed all summer long too! Yes, I was a little paranoid. We were only in the rental house for a few weeks before he left to go do his internship, there I was left all alone with Harley. I never once went to church when we moved into our new ward in Hyrum because either I was working, visiting Jonathan in Idaho, or visiting family on the weekends, so I didn't know any of my neighbors or anyone in the area where we lived. During the weeks, I tried to work as much as possible and hang out with some friends I worked with because it was lonely at home, even if Harley was there. I looked forward to the weekends that whole summer! If Jonathan could come home, he would, if not, I would head up there. It was so pretty up there! I could totally picture our life in small town living somewhere like that! I loved to watch him work up there with the cattle and see him doing what he loved! I went on my first cattle drive up there, and let's just say I decided I didn't know if I would be doing that again! Jonathan was super frustrated with me because I wasn't doing it right, he never did yell at me but I could tell I was making him super uspet because I wasn't in the right place, I was letting cows out of where they were suppose to be, etc. What did he expect from this city girl and her first cattle drive. I guess he expected me to be a little better since I have been riding horses with him for how many months now??? :)

I decided to enroll in summer classes to finish my degree quicker that summer since Jonathan would be doing the internship all summer. One day as I was walking to class that summer, it was in July of 2005, I had this overwhelming feeling come over me that said your husband is going to pass away. The feeling was so real that tears started coming down my face and I couldn't control them. As I have looked back on this, I know it was the Spirit hitting me on the head saying "wake up, this is real and is going to happen, I have been trying to warn you but you are not listening." I thought to myself again, why do you keep thinking this, it is so awful, I would never want to lose him. I tried to get control of myself and stop the tears before walking into class, I didn't want anyone wondering what was wrong with me. But from that moment on, the feeling was so real to me that I thought something was going to happen to him while he was doing that internship up there in Idaho. I literally lived most days on edge waiting for a call that something was not right. Luckily that call never came and he came home safely from that internship at the end of the summer.

Power of the Spirit

Not long after Jonathan and I were married, I started having these thoughts of Jonathan dying young. They weren't just thoughts like what would I do etc., when I had these thoughts they felt so real like it was actually going to happen, so in my mind I would just think to myself well ok he is going to die around 40. I can handle that, I will have my kids to keep me busy and we will have lived a fairly long life together and I would ignore the thought. I never told anyone I had been having these thoughts because I literally thought I was just crazy, I mean come on, who really thinks of their husband dying when I had just gotten married. The closer it got to Jonathan getting in the accident, I had the thoughts more frequent and more intense like "this is going to happen, be ready"! As I look back on those thoughts, I realize it was the Spirit warning and preparing me but I obviously was not listening and so he had to hit me a little harder on the head as it got closer to that awful day...

Open House/First Apartment

We had our open house in Oakley the next night after we were married, so after we woke up that next morning (we slept in), we went and ate lunch and then went up to get ready for the open house. Our open house was super fun, thanks to Jonathan's mom. She served cobbler with IBC root beer in the bottles. Of course we had to have dancing at our open house because that's where we met. It was a lot of fun. I love to watch our open house video, it cracks me up watching everyone try to dance! That night we stayed in a hotel room in Coalville and headed up to the Uintah's for our honeymoon the next morning. We went on a horse pack trip up into the high Unitah's for our honeymoon. We both rode a horse up, and had another horse pack all our gear! You might be thinking we were crazy for wanting to do this for our honeymoon, but it was so us, and it was a lot of fun. It was just me, Jonathan, the horses, and a pretty lake to look at for a few days. It was so quiet and we had some great conversations that we wouldn't have had any other way! Perfect way to start off our marriage with some deep conversations with nobody around! We stayed up there for a few days, but wanted to get back in time to take my little brother to the MTC. So, we headed down the mountain and got to the truck, got everything loaded and ready to start our drive down the canyon, and the truck won't start! Perfect! Well, we were in the mountains and had no cell service, so we discussed what to do. Finally it was decided that I would ride down the canyon with the man stranger and Jonathan would stay with the truck and horses. So, I rode down the canyon with this dude (I never would do that today, I still can't believe I did it!  Shows how young and dumb WE were. Neither of us thought twice about it). Luckily he was  nice guy. Once we got to where I got service, I called Jonathan's mom and she came and got me, took me back to their house and his dad and brother went up to help Jonathan. It was an exciting evening to say the least! Come to find out the truck was out of gas, and we were the lucky ones to find out for Jonathan's parents that the gas gauge didn't work anymore! This would be the first of many times Jonathan ran our of gas in our short marriage! :) We stayed at Jonathan's parents that night since it was pretty late by the time they got home from getting Jonathan and then the next day we went down to my parents house because I wanted to see my brother off at the MTC.
The next day, we headed up to our first apartment together to both start school at Utah State and to find jobs before school started. We made our first home in Smithfield, Utah in this tiny old apartment building across the street from the Smithfield city cemetery. The fridge and stove were way tiny and green! It was a one bedroom apartment with a tiny bathroom, tiny kitchen (with no dishwasher), and a tiny living room. It had no washer and dryer hook-ups, so we had to do our laundry at the local laundry mat. We paid $365 a month, which included utilities for that apartment.
We both started looking for jobs. Jonathan got one before I did. He did some summer work for a construction company. I ended up getting a job a few weeks before school started at CAL Ranch as a bookkeeper. I came to love the people I worked with there and made several friendships. They became my family in Logan, and were the ones I turned to later on when I found out Jonathan had been in an accident.
Just a few photos from our open house. I absolutely love the one of Jonathan dancing with his grandma. So sweet!