Remembering Brian

 

After the funeral we went out to celebrate Jordan's birthday and talk about all the great fun memories we had of Brian. Here is Randy with Jordan Buttars. Jordan told us stories of he and Brian going out to crazy concerts with mosh pits and going into the middle of them and coming out just dripping in sweat!

 

Here is our little crew. We really needed this night to just get out. We laughed so hard and the time just flew! I missed my "extended" family. Luckily we had made it up to Utah just the year before and were able to visit with Brian. But Courtney and Jared weren't there last year, so it was great to see them even though it was in the worst circumstances. Clockwise, here is Jordan Buttars, Courtney Geisler (Brian's sister), James Benson, Randy and Jared Geisler(Brian's brother-in-law). Court and Jared were married when we went to Lake Powell forever ago, but now Jordan and Chelsea are married and it was great getting to know their spouses better. Kelli and Miles are awesome and we fell in love with them as quickly as we did the Buttars when we met them. Kelli stayed home with their daughter, Nixan and Chelsea and Miles had some friends come in from California for the funeral but made it too late so they needed to spend time with them this night. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of them this trip.

 

James Benson was one of the missionary companions that went to Lake Powell with us 10 years ago. I was so glad he came to dinner this night because he had some great stories. Brian and James actually went to high school together, so it was crazy when they ended up in the same mission too! They entered the MTC at the same time too, so James had some stories of Brian peeking over the bathroom stall at James just to "talk" and make sure James was doing okay. He also told of how Brian would hide in the small linen closet waiting to scare people! Brian was James' bestman at his wedding and had to stand in line and shake everyone's hand. After a while, Brain got his famous smile on his face and leaned over to James to say, "watch this". He then began to tell the people he was shaking hands with that he was "Henry, who met James at AA", or "Ralph, who just met James on the street" this continued through the rest of the reception line! Like I said, we were laughing so hard cause we could totally see Brian doing this!

 

And here is Courtney and I. I just love her! Court is Brian's older sister and was a real rock doing this whole terrible situation for her family. She got a hold of James and made sure that we knew what had happened, along with all the other million people she needed to get in touch with. She and Chelsea both wrote amazing letters to Brian that were read at the funeral, I know he always knew how much they loved him.