Welcome, welcome! Thanks for taking the time to read about our crazy, fun life. Look around to learn about us, our adoption story, or to find out how to contact us. Feel free to make comments (LOVE comments). We do have the comment moderator on, so if you want it private, just say so. Also, we have pass along cards. If you'd like some, just let us know! Thanks again and happy reading!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Family Letter April 26, 2009


Happy Birthday Mom Z! You almost look as old as me. I am very excited this week after a very short time Devin has caved to my transportation wants. My new bike is a chain drive system with front and rear disk breaks. I convinced Devin of my need on Sunday night and not wanting to give Devin to much time to reconsider I ordered it on Monday and picked it up Wednesday. Lucky for me I only work a few blocks from the shop so Devin dropped me off at work and I picked it up on my way home. There is nothing like having the wind blow through your hair as you go down the street. I was a little sad the weather has not been great over the past few days because I would really enjoy going on a long ride. Well I can actually think of something better. The ride could be better if there was a motor attached to my bike. The peddles just do not provide the same kind of power. Even though it is not a motorcycle it only has 2 wheels so I am going down the right track. I only work 5 miles from home so my travel time went from 15 minutes in the car to 25 minutes on a bike. I hope this will help in my goal to get a motorcycle next year. Here is the story of how I got a new bike. I was fixing up my old bike to start riding it but there where a few problems. The back hub slips when you put pressure on it. That meant that I needed to get a new rear hub. My bike is 12 years old and I could not find a new rear hub to fit my back gears so that had to be replaced as well. The rear derailer needs to match the rear gears so that part needed replaced as well. The new derailer would not work with my current shifters so the shifters needed to be replaced as well. Since a front derailer only cost $15 that should be replaced as well. You get the idea the bike is totally old and most of the parts needed replacing. Devin and I agreed that a new bike was a better option and I now have a bike that shifts gears properly and is not frustrating to ride. I am happy and look forward to riding more as the weather heats up. Saturday I rode 15 miles to have lunch with Devin. When I got there it started to rain so I put the bike in the car and drove home. By the way has any one seen Devin lately?

Devin claims to be wrapping up school. I do not think that is an accurate description of what she is doing. Devin frequently ignores me for hours by putting on headphones and shutting out the world around her. She claims to be listening to lectures and writing notes but to me what she has written is gibberish. It says things like “prn” and other types of stuff. Devin does not use English or any other language that is discernible. I think that Devin thinks that if she fills the page with enough letters they will magically get her the grades she needs. It seems to be working well for her right now we just hope she gets through the next 2 weeks unscathed. Pray for her as she finishes the semester. I will pray for any one else who needs help with school just email me back.

Some of you who have not skipped the previous paragraph know that Devin has shut the world around her out in order to get “STUDYING” done. This does not always sit well with bored people in the house. Ok, it is me that gets bored waiting for Devin to finish what ever it is she does and earlier this week I was having trouble getting attention when an opportunity fell into my lap. Well it did not fall into my lap it fell from the freezer door to the kitchen floor. It was a bag of chocolate chips. They where milk chocolate not that disgusting semi-sweet type. The bag split many chips around the kitchen. I bent down put the bag back in the freezer. I then sat down and started eating the rest of the chips off of the floor. Devin keeps a very clean house so I had a strong sense that they where safe. I kept sitting there eating the chips until I got what I wanted, Devin's attention. When she first turned around she had a look of confusion. When she realized what was going on she started to laugh. I offered her some chocolate chips but for some strange reason Devin declined. She even took a few pictures. I think it looks like I am eating rat poop but I promise it is chocolate chips. We hope you all have a great week We know that we will.

Family Letter April 19, 2009

My wonderful husband is in the process of fixing up his bike, so I thought I would at least start the family letter. This week has been a good one. Not one filled with new babies or anything like that, but is was still good. Monday was a work day for us, so we didn't do anything to exciting. Tuesday our main “excitement” was Jared's doctor appointment. No worries, he's fine. His cholesterol is totally high though. The doctor is having him start taking a teaspoon of fish oil everyday and wants him to start exercising more (hence, the fixing the bike). Jared's cholesterol has been high ever since I've gotten him to go to the doctor after we were first married. Hopefully we can get it under control. He's trying harder to watch his diet (even though it wasn't bad to begin with) and loss some weight. Wednesday was fun. It was a work day for both of us, but I got to work with newborns. Love working with them. They're just so sweet and ... love feeling of their newborn spirits and their closeness to our Heavenly Father. Anyway~ besides that fun, that night we went and saw Jared's old bishop. Bishop Jacob's was one of Jared's single's ward bishops that Jared absolutely loves. He is an amazing man. He has an incredible family. Bishop and Sis. Jacob's just got back from a mission to Ukraine. They sent two of their daughters off at the same time they left too. One went to Argentina and the other went to Taiwan. They're all back, doing well. So we thought we'd go say “hi”. It was fun catching up with them. It was an extremely long, but good day. Thursday was boring with work, studying, and ... that's about it. Friday we had date and night and decided to go see “Monsters versus Aliens”. Yeah, we were a bit disappointed in it. All the commercials on T.V. Show the good parts of the movie. It just started out slow, didn't have that many good lines, and just wasn't THAT entertaining. Not bad, but not good either. We'd recommend getting it like on red box, renting it, or dollar theater. It's not worth the full price. We're glad Jared's work paid for it. Yesterday, Saturday, we got a bunch of little chores done. In the afternoon Jared and Jason went to look at motorcycles. Shocker, I know. :0) They had a great time looking at them, sitting on them, and probably drooling all over them. They said they had a good time though. Michelle and I stayed here, working on things we needed to, saying how we need to get our husbands to do stuff (like thank you cards for Jason and Michelle's recent wedding). When they walked in the door, Jared had a compromise for me. He said that if he losses 30 lbs. And gets his cholestrol in the normal range in one year (so by next April), he should get a motorcycle. I'm still debating, but it may be worth it so that my husband won't die of a heart attack on me. Any inputs? That's about it for us though. Boring, I know. However, so you all know. We are about to start putting our collage and stuff like together for adoption. We will be starting an adoption blog. We'll let you know more details once we've decided them. I'm just excited to finally start working on that type of stuff instead of answering weird questions like (have you been divorce, if so explain your feelings behind it”, “describe your community. Where are the libraries, parks, school”, and our favorite “what do you know about adoption”. Yeah, can you understand why we're glad to be done with that part? Hope you all had a great week. Love you all!

Family Letter April 13, 2009

A week ago I decided to pry and try and find out one of Devin's deepest secrets. The secret of how drier gremlins steal socks and how Devin keeps these gremlins in check with her socks. The gremlins have always stolen my socks until I married Devin so I know that they exist. I needed a way for convince Devin that the gremlins had stolen a sock. That would give me the opportunity to follow Devin through her magic portal to the gremlin's world. About a week ago I saw an opportunity to crack open this secret. One of Devin's socks had a hole in it, so Devin threw a pair of socks away. You may not think this is interesting but it gave me an idea. I could pull the sock without a hole in it out of the garbage can and place it in the laundry for the next week. I knew that when Devin saw the unmatched sock she would think that the Gremlins stole the other sock. This Tuesday Devin and I were folding laundry I waited for her to notice the mismatched sock. Devin tried diligently to find the missing sock but I was looking for an opportunity to go through the magic portal. Devin unfolded all her socks looking for the missing one. She also went through all the laundry looking for the missing sock. At this point I thought about what would happen when we transported to see the gremlins. I thought how mad Devin would be for breaking the treaty. I knew that Devin would bash in some gremlin heads and I figured that the innocent gremlins should not be harmed just to appease my curiosity. I ended up caving and telling Devin what I had done. I wish Devin would tell me about the gremlins but I can not be as mean to those small creatures.

As a side note we had an exciting thing happen this week my brother Tyler had a baby. Well it was his wife Jessica who had the baby but you knew what I mean. Rachel Lynn Payne was born on Tuesday this week. She was 7lb 14oz. I do not know how tall she is. I always wonder why they measure how tall babies are. It is not like you are going to put them on a roller coaster. She is a beautiful baby who allows the doctors to work on her without crying. Congratulations Tyler and Jessica! We are excited for you.

This weekend was quite a bit of fun. Sunday my sister Jeni and brother in law Bart blessed their baby girl Chelsea. Since it was easter there was lots of family at Jeni's place. Bart's Mom, Dad, brother, grandparents, cousin. You get the idea of who was there for the blessing. On Jeni's side of the family there was me, Devin, Jason, Michelle plus our uncle Ed and a bunch of his family. It really was fun to have everyone around and catch up on what is going on in everyone's life. For example I had not seen my cousin Penny for about 5 years. Jeni and Bart really put on a great easter party and we had a good time with the family around. The letter is already late getting out so I wish you the best for the week and hope that you have more fun than a duck at a cracker factory.

Family Letter March 8, 2009

If you remember Devin ended our last letter with this line. “I'm going to be mean and say we do having something kind of exciting happening, but not going to mention what. All will be revealed next letter. “ Later that night we had Wendy and Shane over for dinner, They get our weekly boring family letter. Wendy barely got in the house before she insisted that we tell her what is the exciting news for the week. She seemed excited about the news and congratulated us. Thanks Wendy. Then Monday night I was talking to Devin and she insisted that I call Mom Payne after the big event and tell her what is going on. So I called my Mom Payne Tuesday and told her what is up and Mom got real excited for us. Devin called Mom Zobrist and she thought that this was some of the coolest news she has heard from us in a while. I am pretty sure it is more exciting than me loosing a pen or something. I also know Devin talked to Anna and her response was very similar to Mom Zobrist's response. I was just thinking about our exciting news for the week and except for the people who were here when Wendy asked what the news was, we have only told women what it is. Guys, please let us know what you think Are Devin and I discriminating on the basis of gender? If so we may be in violation of several Federal and State laws. If you have time please look up which ones we have broken and turn them into the proper authorities so we can pay for our crime. We are very excited to be moving forward with our lives and just to prove it Tuesday afternoon we went into LDS Family Services and had our first interview with our case worker, Karen. We also got set up with our on line account with them and we are going to start building our adoption profile. We are very excited and look forward to having a growing family.

In case you do not remember Devin denies the existence of Drier Gremlins. I am confident that, even though Devin denies this fact, she is in fact hiding her knowledge of these elusive creatures. I have had trouble with them for years. They seem to like the taste of my socks. My brother Jason says that they like to eat his underwear. I am sure that many of you know the problems that these creatures cause. There are a couple of things that I do know about Drier Gremlins.

  1. They do not like to be seen

  2. They are very good at hiding

  3. Driers cause dimensional shifts that allow them to steal their food source(Laundry)

  4. Devin figured out how to artificially cause the dimensional shift and is blackmailing them not to eat our laundry.

2 weeks ago I was helping Devin with the laundry and can you believe it one of the gremlins used their advanced technology and stole one of my socks. This drove Devin up the wall. At first she thought that I might have misplaced a sock because she knows that gremlins do not want to cross her. This went on for a long time. Eventually it became obvious that I was telling the truth. Devin must have slipped into their alternate reality and knocked some heads around, because on Tuesday morning when Devin took the sheets off the bed there was my sock under the fitted sheet. Devin took the opportunity to point out that it was my mistake that caused the sock to appear under the sheet, but we all know what Devin really did. If you are having trouble with Drier Gremlins hit up Devin for her trick it may work for you as well. That is if she will tell you.

Friday night my sister Jeni her husband Bart and their 3 kids Jessi, Brian and Chelsea came for the weekend. We stayed up late talking and just having fun that night. Family visiting brightened up my mood because earlier that day when Devin and I were grocery shopping, Devin told me that I could not have hot cake and cold pudding for breakfast. I even called my Mommy and told on Devin but my Mommy was not at home to fix the situation. We went to bed well after midnight which is very late for people who go to bed at 9:00. When I got up the next morning I helped prepare for Michelle's, my brother's fiancée, bridal shower that day. Those girls had soooo much stuff if they did not have enough of everything I would be surprised. The boys where in the process of getting the girls out the door when something amazing happened. My Mommy called Devin and told her about all the good things that are in cake and pudding and why they make such a well balanced breakfast. The high milk content in the pudding could not possibly be bad for you. Cake has eggs which provide needed protein. Cake also has flour which if you do not remember is a grain which is very healthy as well. That sounds like a well balanced breakfast if I have ever heard of one. Certainly it is no less healthy than pancakes and syrup. Thank you Mommy for talking to Devin about the nutritional values of cake and pudding. Well back to Jeni's visit. While the girls where doing boring stuff like shoving lots of bubble gum in Michelle's mouth, forcing her to pick out Jason's legs from a bunch of photos and eating delicious foods and just having a good time talking. The boys did exciting stuff like going to Cabellas and looked a manly things like guns and cannons. Brian even got to feed some fish. Everyone just had a great time talking and having more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Later that night we sent the kids upstairs to watch a movie while we played cards and talked to well after midnight again. That did not work out so well this morning because we had to get up early and Daylight Savings happened last night but we are surviving. Devin and I wish everyone a good week and hope everyone gets cake and pudding for breakfast one day this week, well I do at least.

Family Letter March 1, 2009

Since I had more fun this week than Jared, I get to write the letter. Jared talked last week about how my grandparents were here for my cousin's farewell and doctors appointments. I got to have the honor of spending the time with them and driving them around. Monday we went and visited quite a bit with family. We started off by visiting my other cousin, who just had a baby. We actually saw them last Sunday but Grandma accidentally left her coat there so we had to go back. OF COURSE holding the baby took place again before we left. We then went to see my cousin who just got home and his family. We had a great time visiting there and they fed us leftover soup from the luncheon the day before. Then what I thought was the most exciting visit took place. We headed up north and saw my great aunts. Granddad and Grandma each of have a sister in the same assistant living center. Aunt Margie is Granddad's sister and Aunt Collen is Grandma's sister. Collen's husband, Owen, lives there too. It was so fun to see these three. I've heard their names, knew they were my mom's aunts, and I know I had meet them when I was younger (like to young to remember them). It was so neat to visit them, see my grandparent's interacting with their siblings, and just hear the stories they all told. Once Granddad and Grandma mentioned who I was Aunt Collen and Aunt Margie seemed to remember me, which was kind of a good feeling. When we were done there we came home, just in time for Jared to get home about 10-15 mins. Later. We just had a good time visiting the rest of the evening. Tuesday was a big day. I took Grandddad and Grandma to a couple of doctor appointments. One of the things we did was blood work, so not sure how that turned out. But the two doctors we saw said good news so life is good! That night was the Blue & Gold banquet for scouts. I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved and glad that is over for the year! It was such a big event to put on. My most amazing husband did so incredibly much too. Thankfully we have Jason and Michelle (for those of you who don't remember Jason is Jared's bro. And Michelle is Jason's fiancée) who came and helped out too. Thanks so much again guys! The banquet turned out great though, and the boys seemed to have a great time. I feel honored in a way because one of my wolves earned his wolf! As his leader it made me feel great to have helped him receive this great achievement. Anyway~ the next few days were back to our regular routine of work and not doing terribly much. Friday held some excitement for us though. Not the kind of excitement that you hope for though. I was about to leave school when my neighbor called asking if I were home. She was at work, wanted to check on her son, and he wasn't answering the phone. Now the excitement is in why she wanted to check on him. Apparently about 12:30-1 that day, there were two men in our neighborhood that got in a fight. For story purposes, I'll refer to them as 45 and 25 because that's their ages. 45 started chasing 25 through the yards in our neighborhood. They got to a field about 3 blocks from our house when 25 turned and shoot 45 in the chest and stomach. 45 died at the hospital. Police have now arrested 25. Yeah, SCARY! This is definitely not something you would expect in our little quiet, peaceful neighborhood. Anyway~ the rest of the week was our normal routine. Tune in next week. I'm going to be mean and say we do having something kind of exciting happening, but not going to mention what. All will be revealed next letter. :0) No, we're not getting a baby. No, neither one of us is changing jobs, getting new callings, or anything like that. Hope all is well. Love you guys!

Family Letter Febuary 22, 2009

Devin ran into a problem this week with scouts. Devin wanted the boys to pass off a requirement that they make something useful. The scout book recommend something like building a birdhouse or bookends. Devin's budget does not allow for such extravagant things to be built. Devin wanted to know what she could make with the scouts because the next day was scout day. I took Devin to Radio Shack and looked around and I figured out how to build LED flashlights. The next day I came home to do scouts with Devin. We worked with the boys for the whole time the scouts were here. We twisted wire, we taped batteries together, and we even discussed how the things work a little. The boys where convinced that there was enough electricity generated from 2 AA batteries that they could electrocute themselves to death. Devin and I tried to correct this fallacy but the boys continued to believe what they wanted. Eventually we put the flashlights together and the boys pushed the button to turn the flashlight on. The LED bulbs came on there was an instant flash of success followed by the smell of smoke and no more light. Even thought the flashlights did not work well it still worked for passing off the requirement.

After scouts Devin and I decided to go out on a date. We did not know what to do so I gave a suggestion. We could replace the blower in my car. When we go out on dates and other events we never take my car because of the blower. For those of you who do not know what the blower is. The blower is the fan that moves the air when your heater/air conditioner is on. The blower that was in my car worked but had a major problem; it sounded like a chain saw except louder. Devin and I spent the evening crawling under the dashboard replacing the blower. Devin is a champ and did a good job. The new blower is much quieter and I can now have the heater on and listen to the radio at the same time. I am happy that Devin will get in the car with me now.

Friday night and Saturday were a lots of fun. I came home from work and we made a long list of things that needed to be done that night and Saturday. The major events that were happening where: Grandma and Granddad Hurst were coming up from Blanding, UT to visit. Also, in case you forgot I am the ward mission leader and we had a baptism for Jordan Max Long (info. On him to follow) on Saturday. Devin and I have not gone shopping for a while so we where missing some important ingredients to have food over the weekend. We, also, had not attended the temple this week. Devin put everything on a prioritized list. We put the temple at the top of the list. I want you to know that putting the temple at the top of the list was the best decision we made. After attending the temple we felt calm and ready to tackle the rest of the list. We actually got a good hunk of them done that night. I got the rest of them done the next morning.

I had a good time at the baptism. Jordan is a 10 year old boy who's family has recently become active in the church. They brought a lot of family to the baptism. Everyone was excited to see Jordan get baptized. When I got home Granddad and Grandma Hurst were there, and to my surprise, Devin got off of work early and she was there as well. My brother, Jason, and his fiancée, Michelle, were here as well doing laundry. We all had a good time sitting around and talking about the boring normal stuff but we were entertained. Today we went to Salt Lake for the homecoming of Mike, Devin's cousin. Mike had been serving in the Portland Oregon mission. Mike did a very good job talking on his mission. After church we went over to Jim and Nikki's (Mike's parents) house and had a big family get together. We all had a great time talking about life and everything else, and eating lots of soup. It is always so much fun to have family around and see were everyone is going with their lives. We have enjoyed having Granddad and Grandma here. We also look forward to having them around for the next few days. Hopefully we will get some fun stories for you next week. We love you and wish the best.

Family Letter Febuary 15, 2009

This week you get to be tortured by getting the letter from me! My wonderful husband is cleaning up the kitchen and getting dinner ready for after church. Aren't I lucky? I want to begin by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA! My grandma Hurst is an absolutely wonderful lady. This week though, nothing exciting happened. Last Sunday, we did our typical Sunday routine with Jared having church meetings, hanging out, church, dinner and games with Jason and Michelle. Monday was our typical work day. We both worked, Jared had dinner ready when I got home, and we went to bed early. Oh! The floor I worked on has only two aides on one side. The other aide I was working that day was awesome and so sweet! She had busy patients and mine weren't as busy. So obviously I did what any coworker would do and I helped her where I could. She was so appreciative; it was nice to be recognized. She wrote her manager, who in turn wrote my manager, and she also told ... I guess you could kind of call them assistant managers... and he gave me some vitality bucks, which is pretty much something you give so the person can get a free meal in the cafeteria. I don't feel like I honestly did that much, but this other aide sure did. It was a great day. Tuesday started out nice because we went to the optometrist together again. Jared picked up his new oakley glasses and I was told to keep wearing the new type of contacts. First off, let me tell you... my husband has more pairs of glasses then anyone I know! He has three pairs sitting in a drawer at home, one pair he wears all the time, one or two pairs at work, and let's not forget the pair of prescription sunglasses he has in his car. He keeps wanting more too. Thank goodness for insurance or he would not be getting them. Anyway~ other than that on Tuesday I did stuff at home while Jared worked. We went to a foster care training class that night. I thought it was cool, but Jared wasn't as impressed. It was on peaceful parenting. The part that sticks out in my mind the most is how she said that the kids who have separation issues tend to pass those issues on to the parents. I just thought that was really interesting because normally you hear about the parents influencing the children. That whole thought kind of makes me even more nervous to foster children. It'll be great though, once we get to that point. Wednesday was another work day. It wasn't our typical one though. Jared got off maybe 20 minutes before I did so he picked up a movie and dinner, we came home and quickly ate. We thought he'd have a ward missionary meeting, but no one showed up. This ended up being a blessing in disguise though because it allowed us to get other things done. Thursday was a LONG day for us. I studied most of the morning after I got Jared off to work. Took a test, held den meeting for scouts, then relaxed and ate dinner for about an hour until Jared got home. He had a company dinner thing because his boss' boss was/is in town. We thought he'd only be home for 20 mins. Before having to go to a stake missionary meeting, but he ended up being home for just over an hour. He got home just after 9 p.m. From that and then he helped Jason and Michelle with labels for the wedding invitations. Yeah, LONG day. Friday I went to school, Jared worked, then that night we went to a Stake Valentine's Dinner and dance. It was a lot of fun! Nothing to exciting or special though. Yesterday was a lot of little things. We got up so Jared could play church ball, but it ended up only one other guy was though, so no game. We went home, grabbed breakfast, then went back and Jared was scorekeeper for the next game while I played with the referee's kids. They were fun. We came home, cleaned house, then I went to lunch and a movie with Shannon and Melissa. We saw “Confessions of a shopaholic”. It was really cute. Definitely more of a chick movie, but I think it'd be tolerable for the men. I came home, we went grocery shopping. While we were there we found out that our friends are in the hospital. He's been having some health problems. So we went up and visited with them for a bit, brought them a smoothie, which he wasn't able to have. We didn't know until after we were there though. Yeah, we're sad. We didn't even really celebrate Valentine's. Nothing really new going on though. We're still waiting on paper work stuff to go any further with the adoption process. We do have a case worker assigned to us though. As you can tell, and to sum it up, school, work, scouts, and missionary stuff is keeping us busy! We love you all and hope this finds everyone doing great.

Family Letter Febuary 8 , 2009

I apologize for Devin not writing the letter last week. I was at home by myself being very bored last Sunday. Devin had to go to work and was very busy helping others. In my opinion Devin should have written the family letter. I am sure that if she really wanted she would have been able to find the hour or so required to put one of these things together. I was obviously way to busy not doing much. I am sorry about last week for all of you who hang on every word. I have been very busy these last few weeks at work. We are releasing the product at the end of the month and there is still lots of work to be done before it is released. I could go on but I am positive that you have heard enough techno. jargon for the letter. I really liked Tuesday this week. My main reason for liking Tuesday is that I did not go into work until about 10:00. Devin had an eye appointment and I get a new pair of glasses so I went to her appointment with her. I eventually picked out a pair of Oakley glasses that I really liked and Devin is going to get a new type of contact lenses which she says already feel better on her eyes. Unlike normal Devin was driving the car that particular morning. As we were headed to my work I noticed something. They way I drive must cause Devin to go loco. I am one of the most passive drivers there are. I will pick a lane and just stay there unless I absolutely need to change lanes. I will follow a slow person for miles and not think twice about it. If I think I am going to hit a red light I will take my foot off the gas a block or two before I get to the light. In order not to turn left onto a busy street without a light I will go a half mile in another direction. When I follow someone I like them to be 3 – 4 seconds in front of me. I think this is normal and completely OK to do. While I am driving Devin is probably trying to push the gas peddle on her side of the car and wanting to just get there. After realizing this I looked over at my most BEAUTIFUL WIFE and asked if she had trouble watching me drive when she sat in the passenger seat. Devin confirmed that my driving habits are not what she would consider normal. And that I am one of the pokiest drivers in the world. I will take that as a compliment. I look at my driving habits as a way to trap my wife in the car with me. I like to spend time with her and if it takes and extra 5 minutes to get somewhere I would rather take that time and be with her than being at work, church meetings, grocery stores or wherever else we may be going. Being in the car might not be the best time together but it is still time together. With Devin's more aggressive style of driving, especially on the way to work, gives the impression that she does not want to be around me. I have been working long days and Saturdays and she just wants to hurry up drop me off to get rid of me. I know you all feel my pain when you are discarded so callously.

One of the other exciting things that happened this week was that Devin had scouts on Thursday. I know that Devin has scouts most Thursdays but that did not stop this one from being special. For at several reasons the first one is that three boys showed up. I do not think this has happened many times since Devin has been the wolf leader. Another reason is that two of the boy just got placed in the Den and they showed up. The boys seemed to have a great time we cooked hot dogs and smores on a grill. The boys where passing off a requirement to cook something outside. We also had a long snowball fight the boys had fun. Running around and playing. One of the other things that was exciting is that one of the boys passed off his final requirement for getting his wolf badge. Everyone seemed to have a good time and they seem to want to come back to scouts and have a good time. Devin works very hard at scouts and does an excellent job of getting the boys motivated to do scouts. I am lucky to have such a WONDERFUL WIFE who I love very much. Hopefully next week something more interesting happens.

Family Letter January 25, 2009

Devin keeps harassing me because I keep forgetting to put an important fact into the family letter and I fill it up with trivial stuff. January 9 Devin and I went into LDS Family Services and started the process to adopt through them. We have gotten all the paperwork in and much of the starting paperwork done. We are happy to start this process and are looking forward to adoption. We are still currently foster parents but we have not had any children placed with us.

This week Devin had her first test for one of her classes that I can no pronounce or spell properly. One evening this week she asked me to help her study for her test. Devin had a cheat sheet that had lots of abbreviations and conversions. I believe that medical people have an unhealthy obsession with a language that has been dead for a very long time. Really, Latin? Why pick a dead language? Pick a living one. It all started out with a line that looked like this “s= without (with a line above it)” What does “without with a line” mean in the first place? It almost seems like a contradiction in terms. It ends up meaning “without” but why would any one ever think this by the line describing the abbreviation? I had to get moving one and we soon came to “hs”. I immediately knew what this was an abbreviation for, High School. I knew that I could probably remember this one but when I looked at what it stood for in medical circles it means bedtime. I am sure that no sane person would shorten bed time to “hs” but I guess that doctors are not sane. I will use my brother Brian as an example. I know he is not a doctor yet but he is going to school to become one. Then we got to 2 that look exactly the same to me, OS and os. I know it looks the same to most of you but the capitalization is the difference. Also if someone wrote this by hand how would you know witch one to use because “O” and “S” look almost the same lower case as upper case? I was starting to realize why doctors need to go through so much school. They need to learn lots of retarded things that make no sense. It ends up OS is “left eye” and os is “mouth”. I still wonder if someone had an infection in their left eye and they were given an oral medication (Devin disputes that would likely never happen), that described application by os, if someone would put the oral medication into their eye. Moving on, we come to “NPO”. I know this as a Non-Profit Organization. I know that there are many medical NPOs and I figured that this was a reference to the help they can give to patients in need. It ends up meaning “Nothing by mouth” N makes scene but “P” for “by” and “O” for “mouth”. Devin claims that “os” is latin for “mouth” and it is plainly clear but normal people would disagree. Devin had trouble remembering what “ung” stood for. I tried to convince her that the UN was full of Goobers and that they sat around rubbing each other with lotion. Devin clams that “ung” stands for “ointment”. I did not see much difference between her explanation and mine. Except my reasoning happened in a specific building. Then came the conversions. Most of them were quite simple: 1oz = 30ml == 30cc. But then we came to one that I could not stand. Being an engineer I realized that the conversion was completely wrong. The conversion states “Pounds to kilograms = divide by 2.2”. Now those of you who know anything about pounds and kilograms you know that they measure two completely different things. Pounds is a force measurement and kilograms is a mass measurement. As an example if you have a 10kg bag of flour on the surface of the earth it weights roughly 22lbs. If the bag of flour is taken into orbit in a spaceship the bag of flour is still 10kg, but the bag of flour now weighs 0lbs. The conversion they are talking about only works if you are on the surface of earth. That is a huge difference. Devin claims that since almost all humans are currently living on the surface of the earth that the difference is minimal. I disagree and think that if you want to measure weight in the metric system you need to use newtons. Well even with the ambiguous abbreviations and totally wrong conversions on the paper Devin went in and took her test on Friday and she got an amazing 98% on the test. She only missed one question. I am hoping she learned something about mass and weight and correctly answered a question and can contest the answer. The teacher should be impressed wither her knowledge either way. We hope all of you in school get as good grades as Devin and we hope the rest of you just enjoy not taking tests.

Family Letter January 18, 2009

I get to start this letter out by saying welcome to a new missionary to the list. Theda Beauchamp is going to the Cape Verde Mission, just west of Africa. For those of you who do not know Theda is a sister from the ward I grew up in. She is a very caring person who, as far as I can remember, was always helping and serving others. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to take her to the MTC this week. I learned several things about the MTC this week. It started on Sunday when Theda called me to remind me that I told her I would take her to the MTC the next day. I was planning on taking her to the MTC on Wednesday. I had no idea that only the 19-25 year old missionaries go into the MTC on Wednesday. Monday morning I went to work early to have the time to take Theda to the MTC. I was expecting a thing similar to dropping of those young whipper snappers; where they say some words of encouragement and then you go your separate ways. When we got to the MTC it was not crowded. There were not thousands of people around it; was actually very calm. We walked to the front desk at the MTC and they put a check mark by her name and called security to pick up her bags. I loaded them up and gave her one last hug and Theda started what looks to be a great missionary experience. Theda said she is the companion to the mission nurse so it looks like she will get to go around and visit with many people around the country. It was a very different experience than what I had grown accustom to. Devin and I are very excited for you Theda and wish you the best mission possible.

Now I want you to know that Friday was a very special day. For me there was nothing out of the ordinary. I went to work and came home like most days but Devin did something exciting for most of the day. Devin started nursing school!!! She got up a little early and prepared for school. I had a little trouble telling the difference between getting prepared for school and work but Devin says the preparation is different. Devin's first class has a very weird name and I can not pronounce it properly. The class is 4 hours long and Devin says it is has an overwhelming amount of information crammed into that time. This looks like a class that will need copious amounts of studying. After that class Devin gets an hour lunch break until her drug class starts. Devin did not talk about that class much so I am going to guess that it was not as strenuous. I can not pronounce the name of that class properly but it is all about drugs and how to take drugs without over dosing. I think that if you are going to be a drug addict you should be required to take this kind of class. Devin is excited and took her first online quiz on Saturday. She got a 9 out of 10 on the quiz. If this keeps up she is going to be an “A” student. No pressure, my good looking wife.

Devin's note: First off, my first class was pathophysiology, or patho. The first two hours were so long and boring because the teacher was going over stuff like “don't cheat; this is considered cheating; here's where you find this; this is how you do this”; it was tedious! Necessary, but boring. The last two hours she just threw a bunch of information at us. I believe this will be the tougher of the two classes. My second class is pharmacology, or pharm. This is a two hour class and the first hour was the whole “don't cheat” stuff again. The second hour we reviewed math stuff, which was so incredibly easy for me when I took that math class. We'll see how next Friday goes.

Now comes the exciting part of the week. Saturday I had to go into work for a good hunk of the day. I was sad about this but it was necessary. I told Devin she could come along if she wanted and can you believe it? Devin wanted to come to cubical land and watch me work. Devin distracted herself with school for about 4 hours but eventually lost interest in being at my work. While we were there something simple happened. Devin took my work badge and went to the restroom. At my work the work area has a security lock and your work badge will allow you to open the door. Now this may not sound interesting yet but it will get more interesting, I promise. After a little while longer I realized I needed to use the restroom. As I tried to get back into the work area I realized that I had not picked up my badge on the way out. I had thought about doing so a couple of times but being the imbecile I am, I walked out with no way to get back in. I thought about several things I could go outside and try and get Devin's attention. I was about to do this when I realized that we were on the third floor and that would probably lead to me being stuck outside. Next I thought I could call Devin and tell her to let me in. The only flaw in my plan was that I left my phone at my desk. I tried banging on the door but since it was Saturday I was unable to get any one's attention. I waited for about 5 minutes looking for someone to let me in but I could not do that simple task. I then noticed something behind me. It was a conference room. I decided to grab a chair and sit at the door and wait. It was better than standing. As I was grabbing the chair I noticed the second thing in the room that could make my life easier, the phone. As I picked up the phone I realized something. I do not know Devin's phone number. I always call her from the speed dial and I do not use the numbers very often. Then I remembered that my phone was on my desk if I was lucky Devin would answer it. I dialed my phone number waited until I heard the sweet voice of my wonderful wife. Devin is truly a spectacular woman and really helped out. We actually had an interesting week this week and I even cut 2 other fun stories. Hopefully yours will be just as interesting.

Family Letter January 12, 2009

I want all of you to know that unlike most weeks I do can not think of any stories you might be interested in. I did not loose a pen and Devin did not leave a mess in a closet for the night. I am really drawing a blank on a good story. I could tell you of my troubles of trying to install Ubuntu Linux on a jump drive and failing miserably, but even that sentence is probably too much computer talk for most of you. Devin could not think of much to write about so I will start with Saturday and see what happens after that.

Saturday started out with one of the rarest of occurrences. I actually got out of bed before I felt like it. I was happy to get out of bed though because Devin and I had devised an evil plan; to drive someone close to us plum loco. We then headed over to Shannon's house. Mom Zobrist was staying there for the night and it looked like every one had a great time. Our niece and nephew, Emily and Ben, had slept over and were eating cereal in front of the TV. They seemed excited that they had watched “Sponge Bob Square Pants”. From my perspective things could not have started better, they had already primed the pump and I missed every second of that most annoying show. We talked for a few minutes and then we began Mom's trip to crazy town. Our plan was simple: put Mom into the car and then go in circles all day long. We did not want her to enjoy her trip so we just drove her around and around and around. Mom probably thinks we where intentionally driving her crazy and we were. Our first stop on the way to casa de crazy was 0 North, 0 West in Salt Lake City (more commonly know as Temple Square). While we were there we ran into the trouble makers for our evil plot. Some how several of relatives from Devin's side of the family just happened to show up. Now I know they say it was a coincidence but I will prove they were out to foil our plot. Since everyone was together it seems that Devin's cousin Garrett decided that it seemed like a good time to get married to some random girl named Paige. I am confident that they had planned and planned just to thwart out attempt to take Mom to insane asylum. Since we were already there it was only polite to attend their sealing ceremony. Well after that Devin felt that Mom needed to go a little more crazy so we forced Mom into the car and drug her to a taco stand then forced her to buy us tacos. They really were very good but there was no time to waste, Mom's clear thought was getting in the way of our plot. We started to drive south for about an hour. Then we realized that we took a wrong turn some where and then headed north. I am sure that if Mom had not had a semi full stomach she would have realized how lost we really tried to be and would have gone 10 points more loony because we went through 2 towns before turning around. Our plan to trap Mom in the car and drive her to crazy town was back firing already. We did stop at a church building and can you believe it more Zobrists were there eating lunch. Garrett and Paige had selected the food and there was plenty of food for everyone. For the second time that day they had divined out location and planned to stop us from driving Mom crazy. Because the family was there we lost precious ground on our trip. We could not stand for this and headed back in the direction we came from. I think we headed them off at the pass because no one found us at least for a little while. If Garrett and Paige had not been so good in their planning I am sure that Mom would have been turning into a raving loon at this point. After collecting our cool Devin and I decided that in order to drive Mom a little more crazy we should shoved Mom back into the car and drive south. Now I am have not been able to find their source but who ever they are they are still hiding very well because I could not believe that the Zobrist clan knew what our new plot was and they set up a big party for Mom. Devin normally loves parties but this one was destroying our plan. Garrett and Paige had even rented out the community center. They seemed quite determined to not to let Mom loose her mind by driving around all day long. Mom, I am sure that you must be Garrett's favorite aunt because he seemed quite determined to help you keep what sanity you have. There was only one option left for us. In order to make the plan a success we had to take Mom from the party and take her back to where the plan started, Shannon's place. I am sorry to say that we failed in our evil plot to drive Mom crazy. We really tried; we drove about 300 miles in all and she weathered it like a champ. I am sure that if Garrett had not been in the picture all that driving would have worked.

If any of you have ideas on how to drive people crazy please send them to us. Our ideas do not seem to work well. Until next week have a great time.

Family Letter December 28, 2008

How was your Christmas? This is really a one way communication so I will not stop and wait for all of your replies. Devin and I had a wonderful time doing what ever we wanted this past week. To be more accurate I did what ever Devin wanted me to do most of this past week. Monday was no exception I did not have work and Devin did and it snowed all day long. Devin had many things on her list that needed knocking off. I had planned to help get things ready for Christmas but Devin told me not to clean the house because she wanted it done on Tuesday. I guess the Monday is just too early in the week. Personally I do not think it makes much difference which day the house gets cleaned but it was important to Devin, so I did exactly what she wanted and sat on the couch, played dumb video games and watched T.V. All day long. Tuesday was nothing like Monday. On Tuesday Devin and I got up and ran errands until the sun went down. Now after the sun went down we kept running errands. While we where out doing the last thing on the list for the day we got stuck in the snow. Now I want you all to know that for two people who grew up in fairly warm climates we did a bang up job of getting the car out of the snow. It only took one other person and about 20 minutes.

Christmas Eve was a wonderful day. First of all someone called at 5:00 a.m. Now most of you may be thinking that is not a good way to start out a holiday, but I was very happy to get a phone call. Not just because I happened to wake up at 4:00 and was watching Stargate. Devin got put on call and did not have to go into work yet. This was a great blessing because it allowed Devin to finish her checklist before heading to Las Vegas for Christmas. She also did not get called into work so we got on the road early and we were able to spend Christmas Eve with Devin's side of the family. We all sat around and sang Christmas Carols and read the Christmas Story, along with lots of other Christmas stuff. Devin has a tradition from her family of getting pajamas. I know that the Paynes have this tradition but it is nice to see that we are not the only people with this tradition. We had a nice time celebrating the birth of the Savior. Christmas is truly one of the best times of the year.

Christmas was a nice day as well. We woke up waited for everyone to get together and then sang another Christmas Carol before opening the presents. We then sat around and shared some of our favorite Christmas memories from when we grew up. Family is truly one of our greatest blessings and Devin and I are very grateful for all the people in our family who worked so hard to put on the event that Christmas is. We really enjoy being with you and doing all that regular boring stuff that we normally do by ourselves. We also liked to do the not so regular stuff like making graham cracker houses. They are just like Gingerbread houses except you use graham crackers instead. Devin and I attempted to make a house for a bear but we lost patience and made him 2 tents that are too small for our bear to get into. Lucky for the bear there is a tasty fish in the pond and a delicious hiker coming by ready to be eaten. I think everyone else had a better looking house than we did. We still had lots of fun. After everything Christmas related was done I was a little bored and did something I like to do, and Devin likes to make fun of me for doing it. I programmed several different sorting algorithms. Now that is a great way to spend a Christmas.

Saturday was a special day for Devin and I we celebrated our 2 year anniversary. Our anniversary is actually Sunday but we wanted to go out and celebrate early. I can not tell you how much of a blessing Devin is to me. She keeps me organized; ask my parents how hard that is to do. She brings the spirit into our home with beautiful music. Devin is always willing to go out of her way to help others. Devin almost always thinks of others before she thinks of herself. Devin is truly one of the greatest blessings that I have been given. I thank you for all you have done to help make Devin the wonderful person she is. We are looking forward to eternity together and we both think that is just to short. We are excited to have had as much time with family as we have over this Christmas season and wish you all the best.

Family Letter December 21, 2008

Now first things first. For those of you who get our family letter by e-mail last week I did not forget to write the family letter. I was not lazy and just not do it last week. Those of you who get the letter from the post office can vouch for me. As a matter of fact last weeks letter was much longer than normal. It also had several interesting stories. The first one had to do with me loosing my journal pen and Devin finding it. Another story had to do with Michael McLean telling Devin not to make out with me during “The Forgotten Carols”. If you are interested in these stories please call Devin at (XXX) XXX-XXXX and ask what happened.

I know that many of you are concerned about my sleep patterns over the last month or so. I have spent many night laying in bed not sleeping, but if I go down to the couch I normally crash like a teenager in a sports car. Now I was very concerned about this because. If I sleep on the couch I do not get to be with my super fine wife. Everyone knows being with someone that cute is better than being alone on a couch for any amount of time even if she is asleep. I thought and thought about what would make a couch more comfortable than my wife's arms. Then I realized something. I have not slept under the covers for a very long time. Now I want you to know that at this point I did not put 2 and 2 together. At this point if I was adding 2 and 2 I would probably get 2 just because there was already a 2. Then I went down stairs to run a quick errand before heading off to bed. As I walked down the stars I thought boy it feels nice down here, still clueless as to why I could not sleep. When I walked up the stairs I thought it sure is hot up here. Then the blessing of writing in a journal happened I wrote all these things down and realized what the problem was. Upstairs is 5 degrees hotter than down stairs. The thermostat is downstairs in the kitchen and was set at 78 degrees. In case you are having trouble with the math involved in the story if I add 5 degrees because the bedroom is upstairs to the 78 degrees to the thermostat you get “WAY TO HOT TO SLEEP”. You may think that the solution would be easy to solve turn down the heater. Now the women reading this letter know that the temperature of the house is directly proportional to your happiness. In men's terms women get cold easier than men do and if they are cold they are grumpy. It is not a good idea to trade a grumpy husband for a grumpy wife. If the wife is grumpy the whole house is grumpy. What could I do? I tried the only tactic I knew. In a passing conversation I laid out the facts and asked Devin what we should do. Devin thought about this for a little while. Her thoughts went something like this. “Jared is a pansy and needs to just deal with the situation. He is also very inconsiderate for asking me to be cold all the time, but he does have a cute back side”. If you noticed none of my logic had any effect on my wife. It ends up that having a cute back side is the thing that saved me because she wanted it close to her. She relented and let me turn down the thermostat. I still sleep on top of the sheets but at least the upstairs is no longer an inferno.

Devin has to work on Sunday every 3 weeks. Devin's last words to me just as I was writing this where “You always just forget”. Now these statements may not seem related but trust me they are very closely related. As I mentioned today was Devin's Sunday to work. She normally likes to send me text messages in the morning to make sure that I have done basic things like get out of bed and eat breakfast. Today was one of those days. I was not out of bed and I had not eaten breakfast and I was in a rush to get dressed and to my church meetings this morning. As I was sitting in my meeting I got my third text message from a complete stranger. They keep trying to get me to text with them. In case you do not know I only text with Devin so you are out of luck if you want to communicate with that horrid method. Because I was in my church meeting I promptly put my phone on silent. This ensured that I would not be bothered by this anonymous personality. In case you are wondering about the statement “You always forget” here is where it comes into play. I always forget to take my phone off silent on Sunday. Two thirds of the time this is not a big deal because Devin is with me and remembers to take my phone off silent on the car ride home. She is very good at remembering. Since my phone was not making any noise all day and not vibrating all day I had no way of knowing that my wife was trying to ensure that I was out of bed and eating breakfast. Because of the status of my phone I barely got out of bed on time and I did not get breakfast. Here is another time when I always forget. OK I do not always forget breakfast but when Devin is not around I normally forget this meal. Now Devin was getting frustrated at this point because she thought that I was ignoring her, or even worse I was dead and she would not know about it until she got home latter that night. To make things worse she was working with a nurse who always assumes the worst has happened and was fanning the flames of fear. What could keep Jared from responding in a prompt fashion. The obvious answer is that my phone is either off or on silent. Devin did not know what to do she waited and waited for Jared to respond. She tried to send text messages she tried to call but nothing happened. Finally sometime close to when she was about to leave work Jared responded that he forgot to take his phone off silent. I think that I figured out a solution to Devin's quandary the next time I do not answer my phone on Sunday she should call the house phone because it is never on silent. We hope that this new way for Devin to contact me will result in her not calling the police and wondering if I am dead.

Devin and I have been having lots of fun preparing for Christmas and look forward to seeing several of you this week. We hope all is well with you and hope that you have a fun Christmas this year.

Family Letter December 1, 2008

Devin and I played and played and played all week long. We almost had no responsibility and had more fun than a barrel of monkeys. And I believe monkeys in a barrel have lots of fun. For example on Monday my siblings living at home had school so Devin Mom and Tawnya, a sister in law, sat around and worked on a puzzle for most of the day. I do not have any thing against puzzles I just do not enjoy putting together a 1000 piece puzzle. I think it hurts my brain so I did puzzles with Faye(3), Daisy(2) their puzzles where more on my level of difficulty. We also had fun talking to the chickens and Glory the horse and the cow. Every time we saw the cow Faye made sure I knew that the cow was the girl cow and that there was a boy cow but it died. I want all of you to know that the boy cow tasted delicious. We had him for dinner several nights. We also played a few games I believe the girl's favorite game race. It does not matter what you race to just racing is fun. Often times it was to a tree. After we got to the tree they would often pick a new tree to run to but before we left for the next tree Daisy would hug the tree. Brian I think you have raised a tree hugger. We also played on the trailer they often fed me fake peanut butter sandwiches and different colored grapes. I want you to know that black grapes where my favorite.

I decided to take over since Jared is extremely tired and he's watching “Hancock”, the Will Smith movie (my sister's ... 3rd? Husband) Anyway~ we had a blast in Texas. Jared told you about Monday. I must say I enjoyed putting the puzzles together. Tuesday we went and helped Mom Payne at her job that she does (helping a family in need keep their house clean). We had a picnic after too. It was a lot of fun. We just had fun, relaxed, and didn't do much for the rest of the day. Wednesday Mom Payne, Tawnya, their two girls, and I went to a place called “Jump X-treme”. It was so much fun playing with Faye and Daisy. They absolutely love it. Before we left we started some pies and other foods for Thanksgiving dinner. When we got back, Jared and the other boys pretty much had it finished. We just had fun for the rest of the day. Thanksgiving was a blast! We started the day by the girls going and watching the boys play in a football game, the Turkey Bowl. It's where two wards play together. It was a lot of fun. I must say it wasn't all guys playing. Tawnya did an awesome job playing. We went home, finished Thanksgiving dinner, then when the guest that were invited over got there we ate. We totally stuffed ourselves. I know at least for me, I couldn't really eat until the next morning! It was so yummy! After we ate we just enjoyed visiting, some went out to play with Glory the horse, and we just had fun. Friday was by far the best day though. Mom and Dad Payne, Brian and Tawnya, Jared and I went and did a session at the Dallas temple. They asked Jared and I to be the witness couple (little known fact: Jared and I have served as witness couple a time or two in Vegas and now Dallas... we have only done it once in Provo a while ago). It was neat to be there with them all. After we went to the bookstore, went home, and had fun. Later that night, I had the chance, with Mom and Dad Payne, Tawnya and her girls, to go to “Parade of Lights” in Fort Worth. Krystal rode Glory in it. The kids had a blast. It was so neat to watch her in the parade too. Jared and the boys don't like parades so they just hung out at home. Saturday we went to the store, then decorated for Christmas. Faye and Daisy were by far the most excited for it. Faye turns 4 just after Christmas, so she kept asking if it was her birthday tomorrow. Later that night we played games as a family. It was fun because Tawnya and I kept winning :0) It was more fun just hanging out. Yesterday we did the normal go to church, have dinner, and relax routine. We sang while I played the piano for a while too. It was great for me. I love just playing for things like that. It was nice. After we finished there we just spent time talking. It was a great way to spend our last night there. This morning we just got up, got packed, and played “Hearts” with Mom Payne and Tawnya. Our flight was good. Uneventful, which is a good thing. We had a wonderful time in Texas. It was a blast. After our excitement of the Bahamas and Texas, we've been gone all month and it's good to be home for a while. We hope this finds everyone well. Thanks for such a great time in Texas everyone involved! We love you all!

Family Letter Nov 16, 2008





Let me start out by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA! It's hard to believe my baby sister is now 22. Man, I'm old! Jared wants to start out by saying “nanny, nanny, boo boo! I had a better week then you do!” The start wasn't as great. I worked Sunday, was on call Monday, and got ready for our trip on Tuesday. That night (Tuesday) I had a meeting for cub scouts. Jared worked Monday and Tuesday. I think he was getting anxious to get going to the Bahamas though because he eneded up coming home early both days. Tuesday Jared went and helped Tyler (just a reminder, that is his friend that he's been helping with school) and they FINALLY!!! got the project passed off. Just in time for Jared to pick up Jason, his brother, and Jason's girlfriend Michelle. The four of us went out to dinner to celebrate Jason's birthday, then they took us to the airport. Let me tell you, red eye flights are not fun! It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but I'd much prefer to travel during the day. We ended up in the Bahamas at 12:00 pm eastern time. I will let Jared take over here and tell about our trip.

Let me tell you that going to the Bahamas on someone else's dime is not very comfortable. First of all a dime is very small and if you bring you spouse with you It is nearly impossible to get both of you on a dime. Going to the Bahamas when someone else is paying for it it a wonderful thing. Especially when they put you up in a 5 star resort. Wednesday we got to the Bahamas and went out and played. As you can see from our 10^th floor balcony the water park is pretty cool. I am sorry to say that you can not see all of the park it is just too big. In case you did not know Devin has a problem with water slides. As a matter of fact Devin does not like watersides in the least. She feels like she is out of control and going to die. I decided to start Devin out easy on a ride I know she likes the lazy river. I want you to know that I did not know in advance that the lazy river was anything but lazy. When we first got in it was quite relaxing but then the river dropped about 5 feet and speed up Devin held on to my arm yelling my name. At the same time I was yelling because I thought it was fun. Devin was not impressed with this early experience and it only got worse. After about 30 feet of rapids things slowed down and Devin caught her composure. Devin did not know that the large building just next to the river was pumping large amounts of water up high in order to create a wave to push people through the next section I throughly enjoyed the waves and tried to hit the waves where they crashed. Devin wanted nothing to do with that but had no control. After the river slowed down the river came to an end at a conveyor belt that lifted you up hight in the air the whole way up Devin complained about the eminent slide at the end. Did I mention that Devin HATES watersides? After we got to the top to took a breath of relief there was not slide and the conveyor belt gently placed us in the water. Devin was only passifed for a few minutes before she realized that the river was very steep with lots of rapids for a very long time. Devin then resumed her normal position of holding onto my arm and screaming my name in a futile attempt to get me to save her. I continued to laugh and yell which I think panicked Devin a little more. Devin at this time was ready to get out of the river and do something else. I want you to know that it took us trips along the river in order to get 1 full loop around. Devin went on 2 other slides one she wanted to go on that ended by slowly going trough a glass tunnel surrounded by a shark tank and another one that I think is kind of wimpy that Devin said was way to scary to go on again. I will say that the shark slide was very cool at one point we where only about 3 inches from a shark.

Over the next couple days we spent lots of time walking around the resort looking at all the gigantic aquariums. We saw all types of cool things. They had manta rays, moray eels, Lots of sea creatures I will say that we saw more types of fish in their aquariums than we did on our snorkeling trip. For example just in the shark category we saw black tip, nurse and hammer head sharks. My favorite fish that we saw was a saw fish it is a really odd looking animal that was really interesting to look at. There was more to do at the resort than you could possibly do in 4 days. We tried but did not come close.

Our favorite part of the trip was on Friday when we went snorkeling. We went with many of the people who I work with. We ended up going to three locations that where quite different. The first one was a coral reef. At this location we saw lots of fish and coral. At this location I lost track of Devin and ended up just doing what I wanted to do most of the time. I eventually ended up close to Devin but she wanted to stay close to the boat so I took off again and looked at all the other stuff around. The second location was a wreck. It ended up being a plane wreck. As a matter of fact the plane was wrecked for the movie “Jaws”. The wreck it self was not very interesting so we headed over to tom coral a little ways away. We ended unintentionally being pulled quite a ways from the boat by a fairly strong current and had to work real hard to get back. The third location was very cool we got to go snorkeling with sharks. Can you shocked that Devin decided not to get off the boat and swim in shark infested waters. I know I was. I got in the water and got some pictures of the sharks. They where back tip sharks and while I was in the water they where about 15 -20 feet away from us. I wan to let you know that unlike the other locations we had very different rules the boat captain threw out a nylon rope with a float on the end. They then called the sharks close to the boat by slapping the water. This is what they normally do when they feed the sharks. At this point the sharks came within inches of the boat looking for some food. They then let the sharks drift away from the boat. Everyone who got in the water was not allowed to splash the water with their fins and had to keep 2 hands on the rope at all times. The sharks circled us. There where about5 sharks around us at all times it was very cool. No matter what Devin days swimming with the sharks was lots of fun.

One day we got to go to a dolphin show the Dolphins did flips and some of the dolphins threw their trainers in the air and their trainers did flips. It was fun to watch the Dolphins. The last day we where in the Bahamas we finally got out to the beach. It was very nice and looked like it was fun unfortunately we did not have time to go in and play in the ocean. The only other things we did of real consequence was go to meals that my work provided, but I am quite sure that you do not wan to hear about those. As a matter of fact Devin and I bailed early on all of them except 1. Snorkeling was my favorite event but it was not my favorite part of the trip. My favorite part of the trip was being with Devin without any real commitments or time constraints. We got to sleep in as long as we wanted do what we wanted and had a great time doing it. I would like to thank Jason for dropping us off and picking us up from the airport that was a big help. Attached are a few pictures of our trip and Yes dad in a few of the pictures I am wearing your new fishing hat. We hope you had as good of a week as we did but we know our week was pretty tough to beat. We will sign in again next week but until then have fun.

Family Letter November 10, 2008

So this weeks letter is going to be short for two reasons. One is because I'm writing it and not Jared. The other one is that although we had an absolutely, incredibly busy week, nothing happened! How that works, I have no idea. Tuesday I went and worked, then went to vote. Jared, on the other hand, had a crazy, busy day of work, voting, eye doctor appointment, and went out with the missionaries. Wednesday was probably the funnest day, for me. I had the first of two orientations for nursing school (one orientation for the school, one for the hospital). They gave us a lot of useful information, we ordered our uniforms, and all that good stuff. I must say though that they were not smart when they did our drug testing. So being nurses there were A TON of women, they only had 3 women testing at one time. Yeah, I was towards the end of the line and ended up waiting for almost two hours just to drug test. On the bright side, I got to meet a few nice women. Anyway~ later that night we watched I watched our friends, the Hoffman's, kids while Jared was in and out due to home teaching and missionary work. Thursday night Jared helped his friend Tyler with computer homework stuff (although they weren't able to get anywhere. Apparently Java stinks) and I went to institute. I have absolutely love my class! Having time with my friend Becca doesn't hurt one bit either. We're taking the first half of Old Testament. It's awesome. The teacher is great. Friday was the best though! We went and did temple sealings. I don't know that much explanation is required on why it was so great. Sat. I worked and Jared helped Tyler some more. This time they made progress. We'll find out tonight if the boys were able to successfully complete the project. Yesterday I worked again (yes, it's been a long weekend for me but our trip to the Bahamas is keeping me going!) while Jared had the typical Sunday of meetings and church. After I got off we went to the Hoffman's and had dinner and watched homemade movie clips. Nate and his brothers make silly little movies. They're fun. It was nice to visit with them. They're great friends. So, now to why I'm writing the letter and not Jared. He ended up falling asleep when I did last night, even though he told me he'd write the letter after I fell asleep, then he left for work early this morning. I thought writing the letter would be fun. I was suppose to work again today, but they put me on-call. Which is nice so that now I don't have to be stressed with ALL trip preparations tomorrow. We leave for the Bahamas late Tuesday night. We're so excited! We will let you know how it goes next week! Until then, have fun, be safe, and we'll see you all soon hopefully. Love you!

Family Letter November 3, 2008

I am going to write this letter very fast this week. We have lots to do and not enough time to do it. I want every one of you to know that in the nearly two years that Devin and I have been married I have acquired a few talents that I did not have before. One of which is that I now make the bed most days that Devin goes to work. In the many years before I was married I only made my bed on the day that I did laundry. Sometimes I did not even make my bed then. But that is not my most impressive skill. Since I have been married I have learned how to notice when the floor needs to be swept. Just so you know my mom did teach me how to sweep the floor. Now Devin may not approve of my methods and I am pretty sure my mom would not approve either. I normally sweep all the junk into a pile and then try and brush it all on to the carpet. I figure I will have to vacuum in a few minutes any way, but sweeping is not my coolest attribute. I have learned how to decorate a house so that it looks more like a home. If any of you come to our home you would probably think that it looks like a cozy place to live. Devin did not put much effort into decorating the house; I did it all one day when she was at work. Interior decorating is not my most impressive talent. In case you did not notice this was a very slow week and I am waisting your time with lots of fluff trying not to tell you what my new super power is. My new super power is the ability to read Devin's mind and tell what Devin wants for a snack. I know this most awesome ability is just the most awesome thing you could possible want to have. I noticed this power for the first time just after my Devin had a long day. I made dinner and it was about an hour later and can you guess what happened Devin wanted a snack. I looked at Devin and offered to make her some food. I specifically asked if she wanted a sandwich and at that moment I thought you should have offered her a grilled cheese sandwich. Devin protested me making food but reluctantly asked for a GRILLED CHEESE sandwich. At this time I thought that this may have been a coincidence, but it was a little odd that I would know exactly what she wanted. I dutifully went and made her the requested sandwich. About an hour after that Devin had a look on her face that said I am hungry, and I thought Devin wants apple sauce. I paused to think of the impact if I could read my wife's mind and figure out what she wanted for a snack. I mean Devin could just look at me and I would know things like Devin wants a peanut butter cup. Now if Devin ever looks at you it is probably a good guess that Devin wants a peanut butter cup but that is a different story. At this time I decided to throw the dice and I offered to requisition some apple sauce. Devin's eyes lit up more than usual and she confirmed my super power. She said “You must be a mind reader because that is exactly what I was thinking”. Now you may think that the story ends with my getting apple sauce, but it does not. As I was getting the stuff in the kitchen Devin sent an new thought in my direction it specifically said “CINNAMON, CINNAMON, I WANT CONAIMON IN MY APPLE SAUCE”. I put some cinnamon in and brought it to my spectacular wife and can you believe it, she said she loves cinnamon? This just confirmed my new found ability. When I make an inadequate dinner and my wife is hungry afterward I can establish a mental connection to her and learn what she want to eat because I am unable to cook a proper dinner. If that is not the best super power in the world I guess you do not live in my world.

Sunday night Mom, who had been visiting Jeni, came over and slept at my house since she had to go to the airport this morning. We had a great time talking with Mom and just hanging out. This morning we even went out to breakfast with her and my brother Jason and his girl Michelle. Michelle seems to like Jason. It was fun to spend time with Mom for a while. We recently learned a new piece of information about my brother Josh and his family. They are going to have a baby!!! On the way to the airport today Mom was talking to Josh he said Jill is feeling a little nauseated. Mom tried to empathies with Jill and said that she knew what it was like to be pregnant and feel sick and that you feel like you can not do the simple things around the house. Josh agreed that Jill being pregnant is rough on him and that we should all pray for him. Josh you are in our prayers, and Jill if you need some prayers pleas let us know. We love you all and hope you have a great week.

Family Letter October 27, 2008

I get to start this letter off with some really cool news. My sister Jeni had their baby on Friday!!! I mean how often do you get a new niece or nephew. I think that only happens about 3 or 4 times a year. Chelsae is a beautiful little girl she even has enough hair to style it, last I saw it was an fro. I think she may be allergic to me though. When I held her she sneezed 4 or 5 times but she did not sneeze for any one else. We had a great time this week end. Friday Devin and I went to Brigham City to pick up the kids so Bart could stay with Jeni at the hospital. Jeni was a little disappointed she could not go home the same day she delivered the baby. I guess the hospital has rules against this type of behavior. Jeni seemed in good spirits and we are happy to have Chelsae in our family. We went home that night and put Jessi and Brian to bed.

Saturday morning at around 6:15 a.m.,after Devin went to work, I was half asleep and I heard a noise in the hall. I opened my eyes ever so slightly, and there was little Brian peeking around the door frame to see if anyone was awake to entertain him. Luckily he did not notice me peeking and a minute later he left. I believe this behavior continued several more times because I heard little feet but I stopped opening my eyes. I eventually had to get up around 6:45 and as soon as I took a few steps toward the restroom I heard Brian's little feet running up the stairs because he finally had someone to play with. Brian told me he was hungry so we went downstairs to get him some food. The first thing he wanted was some toast so I started to make some toast. I believe at this time Brian got frustrated waiting for the bread to become toast so he insisted that he needed a cracker to tide himself over while the toast was being made. I got him situated at the table and he was eating happily when he decided that he also wanted eggs. Being the nice uncle that I am I also made him a scrambled egg. I guess that to a hungry two year old I look very similar to a short order cook. Jessi was much easier to handle she only wanted a bowl of cereal. After breakfast was over I had a new challenge ahead of me. I volunteered to pick my Mom up from the airport at 9:00 a.m. I do not get to see my Mom much and this trip is for Jeni so if I get to talk to Mom in the car from the air port so be it. This also meant that I had to get the kids dressed and out the door quickly which I did. I even left the house within 3 minutes of when I really wanted to leave. Mom did point out that Jessi had her shirt on inside out but I guess that guys do not notice that type of thing as good as Moms do. I picked up Mom and had a good time talking to her on the way to Jeni's house. When we got there Brian realized where we where and let out a scream of terror because he wanted to play at my house. I spent most of the afternoon talking to Jeni, Mom and Bart and playing with the kids it was lots of fun. I eventually had to head home Devin and I had plans with Jason and his girl Michelle. We went over to my uncle Toby's house and went swimming. Devin and I are going to the Bahamas and we wanted a little practice using a snorkel and fins before we got there. Jason and Michelle where just a bonus. We had lots of fun Devin especially enjoyed the hot tub. For those of you who do not know Toby has an indoor heated pool so it was not cold..

Sunday morning we had to get up early and head back to Jeni's house for church. They have church at 9:00 a.m. so we left here around 7:00 a.m.. Sacrament meeting was a treat because it was the primary program. This is one of my favorite sacrament meetings of the year. I love to hear the children's simple but pure testimonies, but what I like more is when the primary kids mess up their parts and talk about the wrong thing or say something off topic. One of the kids said something to the effect that Jesus loved him because he was a good soccer player. Another kid talked about the plan of resurrection, we believe he meant the plan of redemption. I will say that Jessi did very good she stood up and said her part without help. They did have her say an extra line that was added that morning that she needed help with but the part she practiced she new perfectly. I will admit that I missed about half of the meeting playing with Cheerios. I would take one cheerio out of the bag and place it on my hand and Brian would eat it without using his hands. As you can guess a 2 year old can slobber up a storm so it was a little disgusting. I would put the cheerio between my fingers and he would lick them up to get at them. Sometimes I would pretend I was going to eat the cheerio and he would push me away and get the cheerio before I got to it. After a while I put the cheerio on my knee and Brian would eat the cheerio off my knee. Devin quickly put a stop to this behavior because She had just gotten my suite cleaned and she did not want cheerios and slobber on the knees. So I started putting the cheerios on Devin's knee. That only lasted for 1 cheerio before we went back to the other forms of eating cheerios. I had a good time and Brian got a snack. Most of the afternoon was spent playing games eating lunch and just having a good time and if you wanted you could even take a nap which I did. I want to say thanks to Jeni and Bart for letting us come over right after having a new baby you are way cool. I am not sure if me calling you cool is a compliment or not since nerds are close to the bottom of the social food chain but you can think what you want.

We also got one other piece a good news this week Jill, my sister in law, is pregnant with their 4^th child. Congratulations and good luck to Josh Jill and the rest of their family. I mean 4 kids under the age of 5 is going to be quite a hand full. We are excited to see our family growing we now have 13 nieces and nephews with 3 more on the way. Good luck everyone, and tune in next week same Payne time same Payne channel.

Jared & Devin Payne

P.S. It is close to midnight and Devin works tomorrow so she did not proof read the letter so if it does not make sense it is her fault for not proof reading it not my fault for not fixing it.

Family Letter October 21, 2008

I would like to tell you that this week was so fun that I do not know where to start I would like to tell you that watching 4 seasons of Stargate in a row is more fun than it really is but I would be lying about how interesting our week really was. Wednesday I had my surgery to have the kidney stones removed. I did not have the surgery until late in the afternoon. This means that Wednesday was the best day of the week I got to spent most of the day just playing with Devin and that was more fun than the rest of the week combined. After the surgery I was very hungry. The Nurse kept telling me not to eat any spicy food. Unfortunately the only food I wanted was some curry, which happens to be a little spicy. I was getting quite frustrated listing spicy foods I wanted to eat that I was then told I could not eat. We left the hospital and immediately went to a Thai restaurant and got some curry. I was quite happy to ignore the doctors orders and have some food with some flavor in it. At this time I would like to say thanks to Shannon for coming down to the hospital and keeping Devin sane while I was in surgery. Devin is a worry wart and she really needed someone there. Thank you Shannon for all you did.

The next few days are a little bit of a blur. I was pretty out of it because I was on some heavy pain killers. On Saturday for example I would wake up take some pain killers eat a small about of food. Drink something and put on a Stargate. I would then fall asleep until the pain woke me up and I would start over again. I actually found a position to sit in that helped me not feel as much pain. I would put the couch and the love seat facing each other. I would sit on the part of the couch that the love seat was not in front of and put my right foot on the ground. My left foot would be propped up on the love seat and I would have a pillow on my right side. I would lean up next to the pillow and sleep there. I know this sounds like an uncomfortable position and after the pain went away I realized that the position was not nearly as comfortable as I thought. This position mainly kept me from pushing on my back where the kidney stone was. Devin even got a few pictures of me one night.

I am actually a little happy to be getting this letter out a day late because we got some really cool news this afternoon. Devin got several calls from a lady associated with the IHC Nursing Program. Devin was at work so she kept missing the calls. Eventually Devin got in touch with the lady and Devin was informed that SHE IS ACCEPTED INTO THE NURSING PROGRAM!!! The program starts in January. We do not know what this means for foster care and other stuff but we can now put together many scenarios we where not able to count on before. We will be putting together out plans in the next few weeks. We went out to dinner and Devin was telling me how she finally felt that her schooling is finally worth the effort. I know that this will be a great blessing to us in the future.

I am sorry this letter is short and late but I am tired and I spent most of the week not knowing which way was up. We wish you a good week and will write again soon.

Family Letter October 14, 2008

Hi Loved ones! Sorry we are late getting this out. We have been busy and also dealing with kidney stone! The surgery date is tomorrow (Wed. 10/15). We will find out the time later today. Our home inspection went well. We talked with Nathan (our inspector) for about 45 mins. then he looked at our house and made sure we had everything. We did not feel out a couple of the paragraphs about our childhood and courtship/marriage like he needed, so we redid them. We decided it'd be fun to just send these paragraphs for our letter. Hope you enjoy. Hope all is going well. Love you all!

Devin:
I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1985. I was born as an extremely sick baby. The doctors in Las Vegas didn't know what was wrong, so they sent me up to Salt Lake, to Primary Children's Hospital. I had pediatric colitis. but I was also diagnosed with Turner Syndrome at this time. As a result, I saw a pediatric endocrinologist quite regularly. I was on various medications at various times in my life. These include growth hormone injections, estrogen, and currently birth control. I would have to say this was the major part of my childhood. I played soccer from the time I was 8 until I was about 12. I then stopped so I could attend weekly activities for my church, called mutual. I attended mutual from the time I was 12 until I turned 18. I was active in the other church activities they had for the young woman my age, like an annual girls camp. I took piano lessons from the time I was 7 until I was about 14. I stopped piano lessons because I entered high school and joined the marching band and concert band where I played the flute. In junior high, I was involved with the jazz band playing the piano. I think I did ballet a year or two, but I don't remember that at all really. When I was 6 years old my family moved from central Las Vegas, to the outskirts of Las Vegas. Both of my parents worked for a family poultry company, so my older brother would watch us from when we got home from school until my parents got home. When we moved to the outskirts of Las Vegas, my parents got our family horses, goats, chicken, and turkeys. We had dogs and cats, which we had at our central Las Vegas house too. Part of our chores, especially on Saturdays, was helping clean the horse stalls and chicken coop. I would go out almost every night and morning to help my dad feed the animals and collect the chicken eggs too. Pretty much every Sunday we would go visit my paternal grandparents, who also lived in Las Vegas.

Jared:
I was born in Las Cruces, NM. My family has a tradition of naming boys born on the 4th of July Edward. I think Mom was quite relieved that I was born on the 5th of July. I am the second of 10 children, and the oldest boy. As I said there are 10 kids all girls except for 8. My Dad worked for the same company for nearly 30 years. My mother stayed at home to help support the family. When I was younger I played sports like soccer and baseball. I do not think I was very good at these sports when I was young because I never became proficient at any sport. I have several brothers and we liked to play sports in the back yard. Most of our friends liked to come over to our house because there was always something going on. I dislocated my elbow around my 13th birthday and it has been a little crooked ever since. In High School did gymnastics. Let me tell you not being able to hold a strait hand stand made me the least useful person in the gym, but I had fun any way. I had trouble in school growing up. When I was in the 1st or 2nd grade I was diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia. I struggled with English classes and writing. To this day I struggle reading a paragraph that starts with the letter W. For 3 years in high school one of my elective classes was reading improvement. I was not good at reading I do not enjoy reading but I knew I needed those skills. I know what it feels like to be looked at and have your peers think that you are dumb. I had people in school make fun of me for attending the remedial English classes. As I have gotten older I realized that I was not bad at English I was bad at creative writing. Also I struggled with spelling and writing a complete sentence but I grew out of that after high school. I am actually a very good technical writer and a significant part of my job today is writing documentation. Over the years I have also developed the skills I need to do creative writing and I like to do some of that from time to time. I also attended boy scouts from the age of 12-18. I did not like scouts but enjoyed camping and canoing We did not grow up around extended family, so for vacations we mainly visited our grandparents in Las Cruces New Mexico, and Knoxville Tennessee. For vacation we now visit our parents in Weatherford Texas and Las Vegas Nevada. Growing up we moved from time to time I can remember 4 different houses I lived in, but I only have significant memories in the last one. My family has lived there for the last 17 years. This home is outside of town we have about 15 acres set up to house horses and other animals. We have had cows, sheep goats, chickens, dogs, cats. I could go on but you get the idea. For daily chores we rotated responsibilities sweeping, dishes, cleaning the bathroom, picking up stuff in the yard. On the weekends we worked in the garden, built a green house fixed the roof and graveled the driveway and any other thing that needed to be done. I will say that church dances and activities ended projects early to my delight many times. My father was one of my heroes growing up. I have always wanted to be like him. I enjoy engineering because we spent time drawing electrical circuits in the dirt after working in the garden and while training for a hundred mile hiking trip I remember talking about physics with him. I do not think that most of my other brothers care much about the shape of my Dad's HAM radio antenna but I find it fascinating. I love the family I grew up in and I am great full for all that they have done to support us. I enjoyed growing up in a large family and think that only children really missed out on a fun part of life.

Courtship:
When I tell people about how Devin and I have fond memories of the day. I was riding my horse down State street and I saw this cute girl so I picked her up threw her on my horse and took her home. Ok that is not how it happened. It all started one early Saturday morning I had just moved into a new ward and I was helping clean the church. There was the Bishop's son with this cute girl I thought I need to get her away from him. Before I could think any thing else my reclusive inner computer nerd spoke up and said run away so I did. A few weeks later I was attending ward choir. Since I was new they had not consigned me to the same position I had occupied in the last 4 ward choirs I had attended page turner for the piano player. This was a shame because Devin was the piano player. I had picked a good week to attend choir because I was the only guy there and it gave me a chance to talk to all the girls. This ended up being a blessing because Devin will not step out of her shell very often and it softened her up a little bit. A few weeks after that we where at a ward activity, and Devin showed up and said “Hello”. Let me tell you this was the beginning of the end. The activity was in Salt Lake so we car pooled up and Devin came with me. She also brought 2 other friends for backup. We both now regret bring them along with us. They kept answering questions like “Devin what do like to do for fun”. I eventually found out that she listened to music and played the piano. Devin found out that I like to shuffle a deck of cards and then put the numbers in order using different sorting algorithms. The next day I asked her out to dinner we had dinner at “The Rice King” on center street in Provo one of our favorite restaurants because that is where we went on our first date. >From that time on we spent nearly every day together. We love being around each other and we are best friends. That does not mean we have not had our troubles. Before we where engaged Devin told me that she had turners syndrome. This means among other things that she can not have children. When she told me this I did not know what to say or do. I did not know even how I felt about this issue. I talked to my parents that Friday about this issue. They reacted very similar to the way I did. I did research about Turners Syndrome but that was not very helpful. That weekend was general conference for our church. I was watching conference and one of the church leaders talked about a couple who had never had children of their own. He talked about the love they have for each other and the service they have preformed in their years together. At that time I realized that happiness in a family is not drawn from having children or any other such activity. Happiness is drawn from being with the one you love every day. From that time forward I have not worried about the fact that we will not have children of our own. We look forward to raising a family but we are happy to raise children that are not biologically ours. From our first date to the time we got engaged was about 3 months. Devin had a reputation of dating controlling guys. For a long time her family thought that I was manipulating Devin to do something she did not want to do. At the end of August of that year, 6 months into the relationship Devin seemed wishy washy about getting married. Her family had put a lot of pressure on her to call things off. My brother Tyler was getting married soon and we headed of to Texas for his wedding. We had a great time and Devin met my family. She was a real trooper she even slept on the floor of my brother Brian's small 2 bedroom apartment with at least 5 other people. By the way my family thinks if you sleep in a hotel you might miss out on something fun. We had a great time even though Devin forgot to take her cell phone out of her pocket before going swimming in the gulf of Mexico. After we got back from Texas Devin changed her tune and felt like she really belonged in our family. December 28, 2006 we where married in the Mount Timpanogas Temple. This was one of the best days of our life. We have been married for nearly 2 years since then and enjoy being together. I think I have eventually proven that I am not a controlling jerk like they thought and I get along with her family. Devin has been willingly accepted into my family. Devin like my Mom will not spray some one who is not wet with the hose because she would feel bad for getting someone wet. For us most days are pretty boring. We wake up go to work come home have dinner and do something together. Devin has always wanted to be a mother and we feel that we can help many children in the foster care program. Since we know we will not be having children of our own we have been talking about adoption and foster care and we feel that foster care is a way for us to help others. We are still looking into adoption as well. In the last 6 months nearly a quarter of our marriage, we know that is not really very long. We have been preparing our home for foster children to come in. We have spent much of our spare time talking about how we are going to raise children in our home. How do we discipline them and about any other topic a young naive couple would think is important. We know we do not have children to show our parenting skills or much to prove if we will be effective parents, but we are willing to love any child brought into our home unconditionaly.