Six Months Ago

Six months ago my life completely changed. I am not sure if I am moving forward, or stuck in the same place, or moving in reverse. Life moves forward no matter what, I guess we just move along with it.

Kenny Chesney

Went to the Kenny Chesney concert last Thursday night at Rio Tinto Stadium (not the best place for a concert) - WOW

Miranda Lambert - So-So

Lady Antebellum - Really Good

Kenny Chesney - Priceless!

Well now the funeral is over, we have gone on another cruise to Alaska, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Ryan's birthday, Graduation day, Father's Day, 4th of July and now everyday is here. Each day gets a little easier, just living one day at a time.

We are heading home! Today we will fly from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta, then from Atlanta to Salt Lake. We are ready to be going home, we return the rental car and head to the airport. When we check in, I mention to Lyman to see if they have berevment fares. They no longer offer anything, but we did get upgraded in Ft. Lauderdale to first class from here to Atlanta. That was so nice and relaxing. We had a couple of hours layover in Atlanta. We checked in there to see if we could get an upgrade, but the flight was completely sold out. So we kept our coach seats, that were not together though (what do you expect for booking at the last minute). The gentlemen sitting in the sit next to me did offer to move as long as it was an aisle seat, which luckily it was just on the other side of the aisle. That was so nice of him, if not I probably would have cried all the way home (what a baby), I was just at the point that I could not deal with the flight sitting next to a complete stranger not knowing what we had just been through. A surprise to me Lyman had started writing the obituary, I had no clue. I was thinking about who should be the pall bearers, who should speak, who should participate, and what songs meant the most to Ryan. I started to type up a program, because this was Thursday and the funeral was Tuesday. We knew Lyman's sister and brother-in-law, niece and her husband and their daughter were coming to Salt Lake. Lyman's aunt's funeral was going to be Saturday, so we knew that we would see a lot of family there at her funeral. Mindy was so kind to pick us up at the airport. It was so good to see a familiar face, someone that knew what we were going through. We headed to our house. We are stopped at a red light - Mindy and I are just talking and recapping all of the events that have happened. Next thing we know Lyman is yelling "honk that truck is backing into you." Luckily there was no damage, it was just like he had drifted back into her car. Hopefully this was not a sign of bad things to come. We pulled into the circle and our neighbors came to unlock the door. Again so good to see someone who knew. They were really close to Ryan, it was sad and good to see them. Thanks to everyone at Princess, to all of our family and friends who helped us to get through this. A celebration of Ryan's life will be on Tuesday.

It is now Wednesday. Lyman called to see where the coroner was at, they were still not ready to release Ryan's body to the mortuary. He didn't want to yell at them, possibly it would slow down the process. He did call the mortuary again to see if they could help. Well it looked like we would not be going home today. We decided to go out and visit the Everglades. They are within driving distance. We drove across Alligator Alley and then came back to the Everglades. Before entering the Everglades we ate a an Indian Restaurant across from the entrance to the Park. We had Navajo (or Seminole) Tacos. They were good. Then we went to the park and decided to take the shuttle tram out around the loop. Just as it is our time to board the shuttle we get a call from the mortuary that they have Ryan's body and that he has been scheduled to fly home tomorrow. Lyman calls the travel agent and gives them all of the informatiion about his flight and tells them we need to be on the flgiht with Ryan. Thanks to them we were on exactly the same flight and all of us could fly home together. We finished the tram tour and headed back to Ft. Lauderdale. We took the scenic route back and came throught Miami (Little Havana Section). It was interesting to see, but we keep the doors locked. We are going to head home in the morning. What a relief. Now call and let everyone know when we will be there and see if someone will pick us up at the airport. We had Linda and Dan take the van home, to eliminate extra parking charges. Mindy will come and pick us up. Thank you! Things seem to be going well and we decided to schedule the funeral for Tuesday as Lyman's aunt's funeral was going to be Saturday. There were some coming from out of town so we needed to set a date.

Here we are Port Everglades, we are supposed to take our one bag and leave everything else on the ship for about a month (our stuff will be cruising the Caribbean). Report to the medical center by 8:00 a.m.. Linda and Dan will be disembarking at their regular time. We will not see them again until we return to Salt Lake. Their flight leaves the p.m.. The Broward county Sheriff's were very nice and understanding, they just had to follow the protocol for these kind of things. By this time is about 11:00 a.m. After they came then the coroner was to pick up Ryan's body. The Cruise lady from Princess came and escorted us off of the ship. We got to avoid any crowds or the hustle and bustle. We were told a room had been reserved for us by Princess near the airport so that as soon as we could leave there was a shuttle that would take us to the airport. We had hoped that everything would move quickly and we would be going home tomorrow. Lyman had not brought the charger for the cell phone, as he thought we would not be needing it, because we were originally only going to be in Ft. Lauderdale for a few hours. We made a few calls from the hotel and used the cell phone as little as possible to keep the charge. Lyman called Linda and Dan to see if they had seen a Verizon phone store anywhere in the area, they were out looking for the Hard Rock Cafe. We had looked in the phone book, but wasn't sure of the address. Linda was trying to call back on the hotel phone, but Lyman didn't tell me she would be calling back. I was talking to Mindy, recapping all of the details that we had gone through. Linda kept trying to call and couldn't get through. She had found a store and had bought a charger. Soon there is a knock at the door, I thought it was someone from the hotel bringing up the luggage. Surprise it was Linda and Dan (who I didn't think we would see until returning to Salt Lake). They had been driving by and Linda noticed the hotel from the freeway, and said to Dan is that an H on that building? They found our hotel and brought the charger. We try to plug it in and it doesn't start charging. What to do? They have a short time before they have to leave. The Verizon store is not to far from the hotel. We quickly run back over and take the phone to be sure that the charger works. Luck has it we had a bad charger. Got a new one, they let me run into Quizno's and grab Lyman and I lunch. We returned to the hotel and they needed to be off. (Wow sometimes miracles do happen). It looked like we would not be leaving until last Wednesday and now more into Thursday. The coroner's office said to pray that there were no homicides that night, so that Ryan would be their priority. At this point Lyman decided we should rent a car and not stay in and stare at the 4 walls. The travel agency was able to help us with this task. We took the airport shuttle to the airport to pick up the rental car. Then we decided that we should at least look around Ft. Lauderdale (we had never been here before), so we drove past the port to see the Coral Princess just getting ready to leave. We took some pictures as it was leaving. Decided to eat at Bubba Gumps for dinner. Things were progessing slowly, we called the funeral home in Ft. Lauderdale to see if they could help us speed things up. We just wanted to bring Ryan...HOME!