Walk MS

On Saturday morning, Brandt and I drove down to Salt Lake City to participate in Walk MS Utah, a fundraiser sponsored by the National MS Society to help raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis research.  One of our best friends lost his father to this disease six years ago and put together a team in his honor.

Craig Jones was one of the kindest, most genuine people I've ever known. He was my bishop as a kid and I remember how important he made everyone around him feel. Even as a kid, I felt like I was important to him. It didn't matter who you were, what your status in the church or community was, he was friends with everybody. I have great memories from my childhood of hanging out with the Jones' and other family friends and going on camping trips with them in the summer. I think, in a lot of ways, Craig was influential in my dad's activity in the church during that time. One of the comments made by a good friend speaking at his funeral has really stuck with me - he said that Craig never had time for TV, books, movies, etc. because he preferred to spend his time with people. He fought MS for ten years before the disease finally took him. And even during that time, he continued to be such an example to me and everyone around him. He was always so positive and did his best to continue living life to its fullest even though his body was deteriorating. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity of knowing such a great man. It was great to participate in this event in honor of him.

Go Craig's Crew!

We had about 55 people on our team. It was so much fun to get together with so many of our good friends that we haven't seen in quite awhile.

Some of our besties from left to right: Abram (our ring leader for the day), Whit Ro., Cade, Tom, Brandt, Whit B., Me, Ali, and Aaron

 

 

 

Abram designed our shirts, which I thought were perfect since Craig was in construction.  We met at the Gateway Mall and then proceeded on a three-mile walk around downtown Salt Lake. I think the funnest part for us was just walking with our friends and catching up with what everyone has been up to. We got lucky with the weather; we had heard there was a high probability it would snow, but it held off until we were done walking which was great.

Afterwards we grabbed some lunch with our besties and then walked around the mall a bit before heading home. It was such a great day. I'm so glad we were able to make it and spend time with such good people.  Brandt and I both feel pretty lucky to have been blessed with such great friends.

On a side-note, after we came out of the restaurant, we saw they were doing a fashion show at the Lucky Brand store. And guess who was there?!

Tim Gunn!

We stopped and listened to his thoughts on the results of this last season of Project Runway (apparently he wanted Mondo to win?).  Doesn't he look dashing? I bet he thought we were pretty fashionable in our sexy orange T-shirts (although Brandt says he saw him cringe when he looked our way).