Things we love about Aunt Jill

For those of you who don't know Willy's sister Jill, no, she is not dead, this is not a eulogy, she just needed a boost, and to be reminded of how much we all love her...

Melanie’s favorite thing about Aunt Jill is that she is nice and she is always fun. She loves doing crafts with her. She remembers the time that Jill and Mom gave her and Ally pedicures before bed.

Liam’s favorite thing about Aunt Jill is a memory about when we all snuck to Aunt Jill’s house on her birthday and left a bunch of Dr Pepper on her doorstep. We ran up to the porch, left the goods, rang the doorbell and ran away. Jill saw us all running to the van and Audrey said pretend like you don’t see them, and we all jumped in the van and drove away. Seconds later we got a call on our cell phone, it was Jill and she said “So are you coming over or what?” We just kept pretending that it wasn’t us even though it was obvious…it was fun.

Spencer’s favorite thing about Aunt Jill is Jack. That’s all he had to say.

Maeby’s favorite thing about aunt Jill is that she loves to hug her and sit on her lap and that she says “babbat!”…What? Well, that’s at least what Maeby told us.

Audreys favorite thing about Jill is how she is always generous, caring and a good listener.

Willys favorite thing about Jill is all of the above. She has always been able to make people feel comfortable and welcome regardless of circumstances. I remember her often doing something out of nowhere to make us all pause, ponder and then start laughing. We will share some examples below along with some of our favorite memories. Plus when she was little she would always spin around like a ballerina. Also I loved when she sang Spazz singer in the night into the tire iron in the back of the van.

Once Jill and Drew were visiting us in Tucson, we were all sitting around chatting in the living room, Jill turned her head towards Drew with a mouth full of water and spit it out all over him. We were all shocked, Drew was stoic, and we were just anxiously waiting a reaction so we knew if it was okay to laugh. Regardless, we laughed our butts off. We still haven’t figured out why the hell she did that. But it was funny.

When we lived in Pocatello, one afternoon in the middle of the week Jill called us from Sandy and said “were coming over”. She acted like she lived just down the street or something. They drove for 3 hours one way, in their little red truck, all the way up to Pocatello just to hang out with us for an evening. We just hung around the house and watched Baby Melanie entertain Uncle Foo. He would put the little donut stacking ring things on her toes, she would stare at them and then get all excited and kick them off. She was having such a good time. Drew also told us a story about their trip up. They had stopped at a stop light and Drew rolled his window down, hanging his head out the window. The passenger in the car next door took that as a sign that Drew wanted to say something, but he said “oh, did someone fart in your car too?” We laughed so hard, and then he told us it wasn’t true and we all laughed until we cried. We are laughing right now just thinking of it. That short evening is still one of our best memories.

One time Jill and I decided to make dresses for all the little girls for a wedding. We went to the fabric store and made complete idiots out of ourselves. I won’t go into details, but Jill will know what I am talking about. Then we tried to make the dresses and had to have Willy help us figure it out. After he helped us they turned out quite nice.

I loved when Jill would come over to my house when Will was out of town to keep me company. We would watch movies and eat junk food, sometimes we would work on our scrapbooks. I remember the first time we did scrapbooks together and she saw me just sticking the pictures on just to get it done…she put an end to that. From then on she made me take the time to make them look great.

When we first moved to Utah we would get together about 3 times a week. We had so many kids together that we usually just spent the time taking care of kids. When Spencer and Jack were little, Chubby Spencer would push Skinny Jack over and sit on him, squishing him like a pancake. Jill and I would hear Jack crying and we would automatically know the reason. We spend months trying to get Spencer to stop.

When Will and I were first married, we took trip to meet his family in Ohio. Jill and I hit it off and became best friends. Since then anytime we went on a vacation, we always wanted to go visit Jill and Drew. The day Will got a job in Utah we were ecstatic that we got to live by them. But then we thought, “Where are we going to go on vacation now?

One time Jill didn’t tell Drew that we were coming to visit. We got there late at night when Drew was already sleeping and we went into his room and scared the crap out of him. Sorry if I embarrass you about this one but it was so funny I have to mention it. Jill needed a reason for Drew to put a mattress out in the living room for us, so she had to make up a romantic evening for the two of them.

We could sit here for hours and think of all the fun things that we did with Jill and her family, but here are some of them for now. Jill we love you and we will keep praying for you to get better.