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!