Tough times

It's hard right now. There are so many things that I want to say but I have to tamper my thoughts and words and remember that the eyes of so many people are looking to our family, the Palizzi's to be strong. Ann has this strength that she must pull from some reservoir deep within. Any one else would collapse, but she just holds it all together. I saw this quote from Kristy's memory blog and thought it very appropriate for this situation.

"It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers."

-Gordon B. Hinckley
(from the funeral of wife Marjorie)

Please continue to pray for Ann, and those two little boys. Also for Tony who is feeling the loss of his only sister a little more each day.

PS. I love my family and friends, just in case I forgot to tell you today.

Getting back to normal. . . sort of.

This is Tony writing. I got back to D.C. and started my externship at Ernst & Young on Monday. I spent three days in orientation with other new employees. I made some good connections as one guy had done transfer pricing at Deloitte, although he's now doing valuation of complex derivatives at EY, and another lady just came in from the IRS and will be working with people in transfer pricing and international tax. FYI, transfer pricing is where all the juicy IP tax stuff is. The guy is actually in the Atlanta office, so I'm not sure he'll be much help, although he might, however, the gal's office is right around the corner from my office, er, cubicle.

I found out the other day that I'll be traveling while at EY. One of the gals I work with is does tax return audits, among other things. Basically, attorneys go in after the accountants prepare tax returns to audit them from a legal perspective. She wants to take me along.

Not everything is back to normal. Stacey stayed behind in Utah indefinitely to help my mom with the kids. It's only been about a week, but I'm starting to relate to Nick Anderson.

Finally, I wanted to share something a bit funny that lightened up a rather dreary week. On Saturday we were at the cemetery after the funeral. I went up to the casket to give it a gentle kiss before leaving. Unfortunately I didn't think it through very well. I approached it from the end rather than the side. Once I put my weight on it. . . the casket started rolling away. I have no doubt Kristy got a good laugh out of that one, as did I.

Thanks for all the love and support lately.

Funeral

The funeral Saturday went as well as can be expected under such circumstances. I thought one of the hardest parts was when two friends were singing a song that talked about wiping away tears and that you'll be carried when you can't walk anymore. I don't remember what it was called but I think most people cried then. Everyone is holding up remarkably well, but we know that there will be tough times ahead for the family and the boys. Thank you for your comments and prayers. Tony's mom, Ann, has said that she can feel the love of people praying for her. Please, if you remember, pray for the boys. I think they are young enough that they'll be ok, but there will be things to work out in the future.
Thank you again on behalf of the Palizzi Family

Funeral Services

Funeral Services for Kristy will be held at 11 A.M. on Saturday, January 12, 2008, at the Lehi East Stake Center located at 851 N. 1200 E. in Lehi, UT.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to a fund set up to support Brandon and Carter Ragsdale. Donations can be made at any Wells Fargo branch.

Update on Tony's sister

There is not much to update at the moment but I did want to clarify that this is Kristy Ragsdale, maiden name of Kristy Palizzi that was killed. The family if rallying together and appreciates the thoughts of love and the memories you have of her. More information will be posted such as funeral details when it becomes available.

Family Crisis

Tony's sister Kristy was shot and killed today by her husband. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

Christmas with Family

Christmas was spent this year with my sister's family, my Mom and Tony in California. We spent time together shopping, playing games, eating, the normal holiday gathering stuff.
Tony and I are not in the Christmas pictures since we were either the ones holding the camera or we didn't want our picture taken, in my case due to unphotographability as a result of illness and an unwillingness to get dressed.
Like last year our family was struck by the holiday illness bug, though I have to say the cold we got this year is better than the flu-plague spread around the family last year. This one is still hanging around even into January, but at least no one has reported any fainting spells or nights spent in the bathroom feeling near death. Unlike last year where everyone was sick but him, Cameron did get sick, so this bug is an equal opportunity infector.

Moving Pain

The past month has been hectic, with coast to coast travel for Christmas and the quick move to Virginia.

Tony and I were able to make it out of town just hours I guess before a winter storm dumped like a foot of snow in Concord.
We stopped in Hartford, CT for that night since we hadn't left until later in the afternoon, and then the next day we spent the night in Hershey, PA. On the morning of the 31st, we went to Hershey's Chocolate World. Not quite what we expected since we thought we'd be getting a tour of the actual Hershey's factory, not a simulated one, but still nice. When is chocolate not a good idea? We also planned to go through Amish country, but a few wrong freeways and a small confusing map later, we gave up and headed for Virginia. We'll go back up another time, since it is only a couple of hours away.

I suppose that I am predisposed to dislike the DC area, since again it is on the opposite coast from our families, I don't like politics, or at least the way politics are discussed and argued over, and I don't love big cities.
The DC area does have positives, like nearly endless shopping areas, with every store and then some available, and plenty of historical and national places to visit, but so far it has more points against it than points for it.
Take for instance the trouble we've had moving into our apartment. We arrived at 7:45am on New Year's Day for our scheduled move in. I go to the front desk and ask for our keys, and I'm told we can't move in. "What?" I exclaim, figuring I'd heard wrong. The guard then proceeded to tell me that since the service elevator was broken, we were not able to move in for at least 2 weeks, AT LEAST! Our landlord was in China so we could not get a hold of him, and I was just too upset to know what to do.
Now it doesn't happen very often, but when I get really angry, I cry. Well as long as I don't try to talk, I'm able to remain composed. But since I needed to figure out what to do I had to talk, which resulted in my eyes watering up, and my being temporarily unable to speak without sounding emotionally unstable. This annoying reaction to anger only served to make me madder, which meant that I couldn't stop crying. I had to sit in the car for like 15 minutes before I could calm down.
One thing that was extremely helpful is that the ward here turned up to help us move in. Once they saw that it wasn't going to happen, instead of completely abandoning us to our own devices, we were offered several places to spend the night and we were taken over to a family's home, where they let us do laundry and kind of just hang out until we could figure out what to do.
Luckily a friend of the landlord was able to threaten/convince the property manager that it would be in their best interest if they didn't want a lawsuit to let us use one of the 3 other tenant elevators to move in. Once that was finally decided, people from the ward showed up again to help us move in. The missionaries even showed up to the building for a referral and ended up helping us move in too! I don't think it took much more than an hour to get everything in with all the help we had! They could of just saved us a lot of time and unnecessary stress and just let us move in at our appointed time.
One bonus is that the building is much quieter than I expected. There are 15 floors and we are on the 9th, (count 9 floors up directly from the bottom middle area and that's our balcony) but we almost never hear anyone, and we've only seen people in the parking garage or the elevators. Even the halls are quiet, except for oddly enough when the wind is blowing, then in the halls sound like a whiny ghost. Eerie.
It also stays really warm. We've yet to turn on the heat even when it's like 25 outside. In fact we've been keeping one of the windows cracked or else it gets too warm. Negative is that we have to park in a parking garage, which I hate. Tony has pointed out to me that I have a some what irrational fear of parking garages, but hey, can you really blame me? I grew up in southern California that is prone to earthquakes. In fact I felt the 4 pointer we had while I was there for Christmas. Honestly it's not the parking garage I'm afraid of, but the whole building above me coming down on top of my head and crushing me. Not the dying part, since if that happened I'm sure it would be quick, but the possibility that I would be alive after having 15 plus floors fall on my head. Yeeshh, it gives me goose bumps just thinking about it!

Any way I guess that's all we are up to so far. More to come from us on adventures and the life in Virginia.