Packing

I don't necessarily enjoy packing.  But I enjoy the memories that come along with it.

For example, I found the ward directory magnets my friends and I stole at the end of our freshmen year.  We used to play card games with them, it was good times.

I also found the book my QTs made for me before I left Oregon.  I miss them so so much.

I also found years and years of hilarious family love.

One year, Maria and Morgan made a count down chain for one of my visits home, and on each chain they had written something they loved about me.  It was literally a chain of love.

One year for Christmas, Morgan wrote me a childrens' book called "The Foreign Dictator."  It's about my one true love, Bjorn from Iceland.  All of the words in the book that start with 'b' are spelled 'bj': bjeautiful, bjy, bjoring, etc.  It makes me cry every time I read it.

One year for my birthday, my family made me a multiple choice test called "All About Ashley."  They had each answered the same list of questions and then they had me match the answer to the person who said it.  Here is just a sample of a question with their responses:

What song reminds you of Ashley?

Dad - "I am Woman, Hear me Roar"

Mom - "Yo ho, yo ho, A Pirate's Life for Me"

Kim & Ben - "The Kitchies"

Lizzy - "Magic" by Selena Gomez

Big Morgan - "The Old Gray Mare (She Ain't What She Used to Be)"

Alison - "Her Name was Echo, She was a Wood Nymph"

Kelly - Anything from High School Musical

Robert - "Kindness Begins with Me"

Belle - "Old McDonald"

Sarah - "Only One" by James Taylor

Maria - "That's Amore"

Morgan - "Home on the Range"

I think that's very telling what my family thinks of me.

I also found boxes full of BYU Travel Office poems and newsletters, diagrams of familial relations from prison interviews, a Magna Carta of Love, the dictionary I once tried to read in entirety(it's last marked word is "arcadian"), drawings from nieces and nephews, a newspaper article entitled "Rampage at Four Corners," a purple accordion, a bag of cassette tapes...it was like a never-ending treasure trove.

I guess packing is not so bad when you find so many things that remind you who you are and the people you love.  There's a kind of wonder to it all.