New pictures!

So... we have quite a few pics. that we need to put on here. With a video or three. I'll give a brief description with each.

These next two pics and the video are of Jared getting "beat up" by his cousin's little girl and our neighbor girl.







These next couple of pics are recent pics. of our little garden. It's doing great. We've gotten some strawberries that are delicious! Cucumbers are starting to grow too.

Strawberries


Baby cucumber


my handsome husband with the garden


These next couple of pics and video are of Jared playing with our nieces. If sound isn't working for the video, Jared is going to try to play "Ninja destruction" with our 4 year old niece. It takes a little bit for them to get started with the game. Just be a little patient.







Jared with two of our nephews swimming at my grandfather's



Here is a 4 generation picture. This is my grandfather with his current wife (my grandmother passed away about 11 years ago now), father, sister, and her two sons



This last video I think is hilarious. My brother has taught his son how to do doggy tricks. By this I mean my nephew is balancing a treat on his nose. Watch the video and you'll see. I think it's funny. Sorry if the lighting is kind of bad.



Stay tuned for more excitement!!

July 26, 2009 Update

Missionaries Family and Friends

I need to break my habit of missing letters. It seems to be happening more lately. I promise that I will think about doing better in the future. I had been excited for an event about a week ago. I had to go in and get my cholesterol checked. Over the past 3 months I had changed my diet significantly, exercised regularly, and drank fish oil almost every day. I had worked hard at changing my lifestyle in an attempt to lower my cholesterol. After Dad's heart attack I was even more curious to see where I stood. Devin and I went to the doctor to see the results and to my dismay my cholesterol had gotten minimally better. I now am required to take a cholesterol pill and need to go back in 3 months. Some of you may remember what this means. I had to do 2 things in order to get a motorcycle. I had to loose 30lbs and get my cholesterol under control without medication. In a few minutes at the doctor office my hopes and dreams of the wind in my face were dashed into more pieces than a plate dropped on a tile floor. I was dejected and sad about the prospects of getting a motorcycle. Devin decided that because I was working soooooooooo hard Devin amended the agreement and I just have to have my cholesterol under control. I am happy and look forward to getting to work on 2 wheels and not needing to peddle my way there.

This week was lots of fun. It all started Wednesday. I woke up at 4 in the morning. Partly because I was half way dreaming about entering test results in a database and partly because later that day we were going to have company over to play. My sister-in-law Tawnya was coming into town, from Galveston, for a family reunion with her 3 daughters Faye(4), Daisy(3), Lizzy(17 Months) and we got to have them stay with us that night. I was very excited and Devin and I wanted to have a party with the girls while they were here. We blew up lots of balloons and made cake. The girls had a good time running around and playing with us. The older girls would chase me around the house hitting me with the balloons and I pretended that they hit me with a ton of bricks. Lizzy would follow behind and be very cautious not to get hurt by the rough housing going on and make “pay attention to me” sounds. It was very cute. I loved to pick up Lizzy. She is a squishy little girl and is fun to hold. I was happy to go to work late the next day and play with the girls for the morning. One of my favorite things to watch was which plates the girls picked to eat their food on. We have several kids plates: Dora the Explorer, Spider-Man, Disney Princess, and Cars. I was very sure that Faye would pick princess and she did. Since Lizzy was small I was sure that she did not care what she ate off of but looked excited that the plate had a picture on it. Daisy was the wild card I could see her go with any of them except Spider-Man. Daisy saw one and was happy to pick the Lightning McQueen. Daisy kept telling me about the movie and that they had that movie. We really enjoyed having the girls over to play with us, and wish we got to see them more. Tawnya is alright as well and we're happy she came along with her girls.

Friday was another day that was exciting for us. We woke up at 4:00 a.m. and headed to Las Vegas. The reason for our trip to the city of sin was that a close family friend was returning home from a mission. Justin had been serving in Uruguay and we were excited to see him and find out what had happened over the past few years with him. We got into town and waited to hear from him since he also got home that same day. Melissa, Devin's sister, had dated Justin before his mission and was super excited to see the man of her dreams all day. We were instructed not to mention Justin all day so that they she could make it through the day easier. Every time she walked into the room I wanted to say something like “You showed up JUSTIN the nick of time to grab a plate and do dishes”. I was told that those comments would be inappropriate and I restrained myself until the next morning after Melissa had come off of her emotional roller coaster. Saturday Justin's family threw a welcome home party and we went and had a good time seeing friends in the area. Justin seems to have had a good time on his mission and was happy to have served. Both his family and Melissa are ecstatic to have Justin back. We are happy to have seen Justin and look forward to seeing you all soon as well.

Sometimes life happens

So... as many of you may or may not know, Jared has been struggling with high cholesterol. In Apr. the dr. gave him 3 months to really change his diet, exercise, and all that fun stuff. Well... today was the great and dreadful day. We found out the results. Despite all the hard work my amazing husband did, his cholesterol did not lower enough. It did change some... you can tell he worked on it. Unfortunately it wasn't enough though. The dr. started him on a cholesterol pill. This means that Jared's high cholesterol is all genetic. We are glad to find out and get it taken care of now. Especially with Dad Payne's recent events.

Weekly update

Missionaries Family and Friends July 12, 2009

Ever since we have moved into the house we live in, we have had a constant nagging problem. It is something that has bothered us many times. I have even tried to solve the problem on my own several times. I even cut up several of the harassing items in misguided attempts to solve our dilemma, but nothing fixed the pain point. When people come over we have explained our quandary and all of the suggestions they have given use are worse solutions than the annoying one we have dealt with every day since we came into this house. As a matter of fact if you have come to our house you have probably had to deal with our little annoyances. About a week ago I was thinking and figured out how to solve our little conundrum, and finally I came up with a workable solution. I described my idea to my GOOD LOOKING WIFE and she looked me in the eyes and said, “ I did not understand a single word that came out of your mouth. Start over and make it simpler”. I then told her about the wonders of polyvinyl chloride. I told her about the ability to quickly form frames and other things that do not need large amounts of rigidity. Then my WONDERFUL WIFE looked in my eyes again and said”What does that have to do with anything?” I then took a long pause and grabbed a piece of paper and started to draw my idea. After making two crude artists impressions of my most impressive solution to my DROP DEAD GEORGIOUS WIFE she said “Now I get it but I do not want polyvinyl chloride in my kitchen”. I then quickly described some of the design features and explained about how the features would hide the polyvinyl chloride from sight. After describing the plan Devin agreed that it would solve our situation but insisted that to many green backs would be lost to the plan. I insisted the cost would be minimized and Monday for family home evening we build the item that would rectify our problem. Since Monday my SMOKING HOT WIFE has been happy to have a garbage frame, it is not technically a can, that fits between the refrigerator and the wall, and I am happy to have such a SPECTACULAR WIFE.

Tuesday I went up to scout camp with the 12 1nd 13 year old boys. I would like to say that I have spent the day doing really fun stuff with the boys but that is not true. I spent most of the day in the air conditioned lodge getting leadership training for the scouts. I would say this was captivating but mainly they talked about not molesting the boys. I would have thought that was a no brainer but I guess it is a hot topic with the boy scouts. The boys asked me for help putting together some of their crafts and I totally did it wrong. After a second attempt we eventually got it. That night they wanted the boys to be quiet and think about what it means to them to be scouts and then have lights out and be in bed by 10:00. I leaned over to the other leader and said, “I thought scouts was about staying up late and making lots of noise.” We went back to our camp and spent the night with the boys playing a game called “Ninja Destruction”. The game starts out with everyone yelling “NINJA DESTRUCTION!!!” and jumping into their ninja poses. Everyone takes turns making a single motion in an attempt to slap another person's hand. The person who is being slapped at gets to only move their hands to dodge the attack. This is actually more fun than it sounds and we had a good time yelling very loudly on the quite night “NINJA DESTRUCTION” to start each game. The scouts really had a good time and liked being together.

I normally like to make light of what happens in our lives but this week we had something serious happen and I can not make to many jokes about it. Saturday I got a phone call from my sister telling me that my dad had a heart attack and that he is in the hospital. For the next several hours we waited for the phone to ring with any detail about what happened. After a few hours my Dad called and said he was doing fine and that things are looking up from where he was earlier that day. Dad had gone to the temple in preparation for ward conference that day. The ward has a tradition of a temple day. Soon after he got to the temple he had his heart attack and was rushed to a near by hospital and received the necessary surgery very quickly. I am happy to say that I am grateful to have a father who honors his responsibility as a priesthood holder and serves in his callings faithfully. If Dad had been home instead of at the temple he would have been further away from a hospital. If Dad would have managed to get to a hospital from our house he either would have ended up at Weatherford Hospital which is a terrible hospital, or he would have had to travel to Forth Worth which is at least 45 minutes away. Either of those locations could have cost him much more than his current hospital stay. I am grateful to have the father that I do. He is who I look up to when I ask myself what does it mean to be a husband, father, and patriarch of my family. I can not think of a better person to look up to and I hope to be able to live up to the example that he has set for me. I just wanted to say thanks for all that you have done for the family over the years. We are happy to have Dad alive and well and hope all of you are alive and well, as well.

Having fun with Tay!

On June 26-27 we had the chance to watch our nephew over night. We had a blast with him. Here's the proof.



Tay showing no mercy on his uncle



Devin's trying to put up a good fight. Any guesses who won either pillow fight?



Jared and Tay were playing outside when they found something in the grass. A BEAN!! When we planted our beans, one must have gotten into the grass and actually grew.



close up of our grass bean plant. To bad it got mowed over that day.

our weekly letter

Let me begin by saying today is an important day in time. 31 years ago today, my wonderful husband was born!!!! Happy Birthday Jared!! As you may (or maybe not) noticed, we did not get a letter out last week. Our sincere apologies. Life has been crazy around here. Good though. I think, and hoping, it's slowing down. I will give you an brief account of what the last two weeks has brought.

On Sun, June 21, my grandparents Hurst and Mom Z. came to stay at our place. My grandparents had doctors appointments and Mom came to help them out. So that's what they did, as well as playing, visiting, and having fun. Mean while, Jared and I were stuck at work, school, and doing our normal routine. We did get to spend some time with them, but not as much as we'd like. Thursday, the 25, my grandparents headed home that afternoon. My mom, two of my sisters, and I went shopping. Yeah, not my favorite, but it was fun. It was great spending the time with them. Jared, one of my brothers, and his family meet us for dinner. It was nice visiting. Shannon, my oldest sister, had a birthday on the 29^th of June, so we got the restaurant to sing to her. I think the kids enjoyed the cake and ice cream more than she did. After dinner, some of us went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. It was amazing!! It's a medium size temple and it is gorgeous!! We then went back and had ice cream cake to celebrate Shannon's birthday. OH! I almost forgot! We had our adoption home study that day. It went well. Adrienne, our social worker, didn't do or say much as far as our house goes. She was fine and said we passed. She did, however, give us quite a few pointers for our birth parent letter. We'll be fixing it here... hopefully soon. As far as where we stand on adoption now, I believe LDS is in the middle of getting us approved. Once we're approved we can get a baby any time! Friday, the 25^th, was fun. I went to day camp for cub scouts. It was a blast. We got some rain, but not enough to stop the boys. Jared had work that day. When I got back from camp, I watched my nephew and a friend's baby. I was worn out by the end of the day, but it was fun. Makes me excited, yet scared, to be a mom. Last weekend, not to much happened because I worked. Jared got to have fun with our nephew until Sat. late morning. Then he came and had lunch with me at work. That was about it. Boring, huh?

On to this week. It was a lot slower. We just had our normal school, work routine. Wednesday I watched my friend's baby again and when Jared got off work we went up to Draper. His sister and her husband went to a sealing there while we watched their three kids. It was so easy! Something about getting the kids nuggets, fries, and a frosty then letting them run around the park. It was fun to watch them play. Jared played with them while I fed the baby. That was cool too. Thursday I worked, but then the REAL fun came Friday and Sat. As I mentioned, today is an important day in history. To celebrate, we got a hotel room up in Salt Lake, turned off our phones, and just spent the time for us. It was so nice. Much needed too. We swam, talked, watched t.v., went out to dinner, walked around the mall... nothing to big. I just had missed my husband and it was great spending time with him. With how busy we've been we haven't had that much time for each other, so we got away.

For Jared's birthday I got him a grill. I think he liked it. We'll see once he cooks on it. He was surprised, I think, so that was fun for me. I made him a birthday cake too. His request was german chocolate icing (the coconut icing you put on German chocolate cake). We haven't had it yet, but that's what I made him. It looks yummy. We'll see though. He also got some money and he will be getting a different kind of those funky shoes he likes. You remember, the red toe shoes? Yeah, tomorrow we'll go get him something like that. Here are some pictures of the grill and cake. Next week will be pictures of the shoes.

Jared: I have a wonderful wife who is spoiling me today. The only thing that has been torturous was taking the pictures of the cake. Today is fast Fast Sunday and all I got to do was smell it. We love you all and hope you have a good week.

Jared and Devin

Jared with the yummy looking birthday cake!