We saw our last Depeche Mode concert together on October 14, 2017.  Unfortunately, we were a tad late because she and my husband held an intervention on me and tossed food from our refrigerator that was past the "best by" date.  This should not have been surprising as they have the same birthday- it was their Virgo dream come true. 
Once we finally made it to the Hollywood Bowl, the concert was simply wonderful.  In her words, it was "friggin awesome".  I cared most that we had that time together.  Afterward we ate a late dinner at a Thai restaurant she loved from when she lived in LA.  What a day!  I loved taking that ride with my best friend.

(Video uploaded to the Gallery, but reminder that we are NOT paid for our singing voices.)

Hope and I were new moms to St.Pat's and our boys, Dominik and Donovan, had started there as buddies from preschool.  For the school auction, the Kinder parents needed to host a party. So of course, Hope volunteered to plan a party, and convinced me to help. We planned with 2 other moms, Shauna and Erin (moms of Jake and Connor). The planning was so much fun, especially since she LOVED to plan and was a party pro, and we had time to get to know new moms! She planned a soccer party at the beach for a bunch of 5 year olds and it was a hit!!! She did so much for her boys and loved to be a part of their activities! Her loving personality will always be missed!

Hope! Where do I start?! I will forever remember you with the biggest smile on your face and the biggest laugh.

I’ll never forget the nights we sat up talking all evening, over a couple of angry orchard ciders, you showing me all your scrapbooks or talking about your mom, or just talking about nothing for hours! I remember the drives up to Fullerton to Steves place, blasting Macklemore “Downtown” over and over again and me, you, Donovan and Griffin singing so loud to every word. I remember you egging on the boys to do bigger, crazier dives off the diving board when we got there- I can still hear you cheering on your boys now and you will be cheering them on forever. Your love for Donovan and Griffin was and still is truly unconditional. You used to text me multiple times a day with pictures of them usually with a caption something like “Look at G- can you even deal right now?!?” or “Look at D what a stud.” You were always on the sideline cheering them on and to say that you were obsessed with watching them play sports is an understatement! You loved them so much and that love can never be forgotten.

There were many times when we were each others dates to events. Aspirations and St Patrick’s Galas to name a few- we even took a bunch of balloons home one year and had them in the living room for a week! Many lovely evenings spent at Solana beach, watching the dolphins and sharing good food. I probably will never ever have a longer phone call than we did. We topped 2+ hours more than once.

I just want to say thank you for everything. You were so generous and loving and I will never forget how you all took me in, and took the whole Challenger Sports family in as part of your own family from the get go- we even convinced you to work in the office for a summer haha! You will be forever missed and I’m sure we will all see you again in heaven, probably still rocking your ripped jeans, vans, sweatshirt and your gold jewels, probably blasting some Tu-Pac and definitely still smiling so big. Cheers to you Hope.