Sorry we're late... AGAIN!

Monday was the funnest day of the week. I can not remember a funner Monday in a a very long time. It all started out by me going to work. Well I did not have much fun I was at work and Monday is meetings day. Devin really had lots more fun than I did.

Yeah, my husband seems to be having difficulty writing the letter this week. I will take over from here. Monday, like he said, was a lot of fun. My grandparent came into town for doctor visits. I had the privilege of going to most of the appointments with them. It was fun. We had my brother, Nate, and his family over for dinner Monday night. It nice to just visit, watch their kids play, and just have a good evening together. We both enjoyed it. Tuesday was full of doctor appointments, work, and pack meeting. Jared led this pack meeting because our cub master is in the middle of the police academy or something like that. Our cub master is already a cop up in Salt Lake, but he's getting training to be a cop down here in Pleasant Grove. Anyway~ Jared led pack meeting. He did awesome! The boys absolutely LOVED how he presented their awards. It was a good night. Wednesday is the our week took a turn for the worse! Yes, we had a bad week. Could have been worse though. So, Wednesday I started my third (out of six) semester of nursing school. So far... I've been a bit stressed, but not as bad... I think. You'd have to ask Jared to know the real truth though. After school, I hung out with my grandparents, got them off back to their home, and had a... started out relaxing evening with my amazing husband. After dinner he got a migraine that lasted until about midnight. Well, about two in the morning Jared woke up with another kidney stone! I KNOW! Poor, poor man. I feel so bad for him. In all honestly though, this one isn't as bad as the last one. So far, there has only been once when I can't touch him, we haven't had an E.R. Visits, and he thinks he's felt it move down a few times. Crossing our fingers. The Lord definitely knows what He's doing though. As it turns out Jared has an appointment with the urologist on Wednesday. Jared has had this appointment for about six months now. We'll keep you all updated, but for now.. that's our excitement. Thurs. and Fri. were filled with work and school. Saturday I worked while Jared sat at home, trying to overcome the annoying pain. Yesterday, Sunday, ended alright. Jared hadn't really slept since Wednesday night, but Sat. night he got absolutely NO sleep. We just relaxed, had an easy Sun. morning. Our home teacher came over that morning (another tender mercy of the Lord- we set up this appointment with him like a week ago) and gave Jared a nice priesthood blessing. I was proud of Jared; he made it through all but about 45 mins. Of church. So... life is good! That about sums up our week though. Sorry I don't tell any exciting stories like Jared. Hopefully next week he'll be feeling well enough to write the letter. Please, please, please keep him in your prayers! Hope you all had a great week. Love you all!

Who wants to see pictures?

I've got a bunch of pictures that I need to put on here!! Once again, there is a brief explaination on the top of each picture. ENJOY!!

Here we are at temple square on my birthday! Sorry about the shadows.



Holding the present Jared got me. Isn't it beautiful? You can see my new picture in the next image.






Happy couple!



Another happy couple. My beautiful younger sister, Mel, with her boyfriend, Justin. He just returned from a two year church mission. He served in Uruguay!



BEWARE of the sisters :0)



To celebrate my birthday, I went to get a pedicure with my sis.-in-law Jeni and her daughter, Jesi. It was their first expierence. I think I got them hooked.



Gorgeous Jeni



Jesi... she was about to fall asleep! Can you find her lounging in the chair?



This is my other niece, Chelsea. She was excited for the cake! YUM!



Sweet Jeni made my birthday cake. According to Jeni, the first one didn't turn out right. Despite my protest, she wanted to make another one. She's holding the first cake. I have the second cake. The first cake did taste yummy, just like the second one. Thanks Jeni!



This one was fun. Jesi wanted to wet, she was grounded from the hose (due to unfortunate circumstance). The solution? Uncle Jared to the rescue! Jared was more than happy to squirt Jesi with the hose.



Jared's evil laugh



Jesi's sad face. Although, I must admit, she really wasn't upset.

our weekly letter

Last week was so busy I was not able to get the family letter out but we did have some stuff that was interesting. I want everyone to know that I am the favorite brother in my family, and that is saying something because there are 8 boys in my family. I found out about my most favored position last Saturday. I was over helping my brother Jason move into his new apartment. I had just helped unload the cars and we were about to head over to the storage unit for the second load. Now Jason wanted to express his appreciation and love for me by getting me a bottle of water. Jason soon realized that a bottle of water is just a minor token of gratitude and he wanted to increase the value of his gift. He thought “What if I went to the store and got the most expensive bottle of water for Jared?” Jason soon realized that the most expensive bottle of water would only cost 5 dollars at the most. My brother felt dejected and unsatisfied by the small value of the gift he wanted to give. Then a bright idea came into his heart on how to increase the value of the bottle of water. Jason realize that there was a bottle of water inside his car and that his car window was down. Most of you do not see how to add value to a bottle of water with this simple setup but Jason was not deterred and figured out how to accomplish his goals. As my younger sibling leaned into his car to get the water he took the time to smash his front tooth on the side of the car. This simple action looks to add $1000 dollars to the value of the bottle of water. I do not know about you but anyone who gives you a drink of water that costs that much must really like who they are giving that water to. This simple act proves that I must be the most favored brother. If you have an example of how you are the most favored brother let me know I would be glad to judge your status in comparison to mine.

This last week was really lots of fun for Devin and me. I took Thursday and Friday off for 2 good reasons. The first is that Devin is out of school and we wanted to go have fun for a day or two. The second reason is that Thursday was Devin's birthday. I decided to have lots of fun with Devin and celebrate being with my wonderful wife. We started the day out by doing something that Devin has been harassing me about for a long time. We went out to breakfast at a restaurant down the road. We had a great time cuddling in the booth and celebrating being together. We came home and got ready for the day and had a good time watching a movie and holding Devin. We then left and went to temple square. At temple square we walked around the visitors center and went to the family history center and looked up family members on the computer. We also did what we did on our first pseudo date and watched the Joseph Smith movie. We also had lunch at the Lion House and got pictures. Devin and I had lots of fun and chilled out. We then went to Brigham City and played with my sister Jeni and her family. The kids ran around and we sat under the shade of a tree and talked. For dinner we went to Devin's favorite restaurant, Wendy's. I will point out that my wife is a cheap date because she is happy with a junior frostie and a order of small french fries. We took this to the park and had fun being with family. That evening was when all the fun started at the Brockbank home. Jeni's older daughter Jesi complained of a stomach ache. Soon after that she threw up. This was only the start by morning Jeni was not feeling well and Bart had been puking during the night. By morning most people where feeling alright and the day looked like it was going to be a fun day. Then little Brian started to feel sick. He spent most of the day on the bathroom floor because he did not want to be far if he threw up. We did not let Brian stifle fun and played games most of the day. The girls also went out and got pedicures. Devin and I were sad that we had to leave. We really liked playing.

Unfortunately Devin had to work on Saturday. I was sad when I woke up and Devin was not there and I then learned that she had been feeling sick and was throwing up early that morning. I felt bad for my wife; having to work and being sick. I spent most of the day at a family reunion. It was really a BBQ at a local park. It really made it easy to attend. There was a lady who talked about what was going on with family history. We also had fun with the kids. There was a fun water balloon fight and everyone enjoyed being together. I just wanted to help Devin. She is feeling better now and we hope you do not get sick like everyone else this week. We love you and wish the best!

Our happy week!

Devin is the cutest!!!!! Since she is looking at the computer while I am writing the letter I thought I would let you all know that this just happens to be true. Devin is rolling her eyes as I am typing trying not to admit what I think is plainly obvious. She is now claiming that every part of the proceeding lines is a lie. We will let you judge for yourself on who is telling the truth.

I want to point out that I have happy Devin back in my life. This story starts a few months ago. Devin started her second semester of nursing school and I continued the long and strenuous process of not going to school. Devin really does not like to study books. Devin prefers to take time with patients and help them feel better. Devin loves to care for others which is why she will be a STUPENDIOUS MOM. The summer semester at school is short and the book she for the class had 50 chapters and felt like it weighted 50 tons. I told Devin that she needed to get the book in installments of what she needed for the week and only carry that around. Devin insisted that the book was needed as it came. I feel sorry for anyone who has to carry around such large books. I am sure that when you are old that you will be able to blame your back problems on your school books. Well, back to the story. Devin has spent many hours every day studying like an insane person. Devin will study for hours on end with no breaks and just trying to cram each detail into her head, in the hope that it will help someone in need someday. The stress of the semester had come to a head. The final exam was Thursday and Devin bravely went into the testing center and took the final step in the class. Devin hurried out of the building where she finally got cell phone reception and called me to brag about her good grade in the class. I was happy to answer and then surprised her at the school with flowers and chocolate. We then went out to lunch and ordered a huge meal. As a matter of fact we had so much left over we planned on taking the leftovers home for dinner, but that did not happen. Our excitement level was so high that we were a significant distance away before we realized that we left the food on the table. Since I now have a happy wife that is not stressed about school, at home life has become even more fun with Devin.

Not much else was important this week but I did have a dream I thought you all might like to hear about. It was a hot summer day and the press was out in droves trying to talk to anyone who knew my brother Brian. You see Brian was about to do something incredibly cool and everyone wanted to be there. Brian had created the worlds largest balloon. Just to get an idea about how big the balloon was, it was so big that there where rooms inside the balloon. Not compartments attached to the balloon like a zeppelin but actual rooms in the balloon. I mean what could be cooler than this huge red balloon in the sky? Everyone was outside and enjoying the view and everyone was talking about how brilliant my brother was and how he is a visionary. One of the news reporters came up to me and started to talk about some fun facts about the balloon like the fact that the balloon was not only the shape of the country New Zealand but also the size of New Zealand. For some reason in my dream New Zealand is shaped like Japan. Then something exciting was about to happen. Brian was going to go up to the balloon to christen it. Now if you have a country sized balloon up in the sky how would you get up to it. I think it is obvious. You tie a rope at the entrance of the large balloon as a guide wire and you use another balloon to lift you up into the one in the sky. As Brian got to the world record holding balloon Brian pulled out a knife and popped the New Zealand balloon. When he drifted back down everyone asked why he popped it. He replied “What else do you do with a balloon other than pop it?” Many people where disappointed that the balloon was popped but Brian told them that next year he was building a balloon the size and shape of Europe and they could watch him pop that one as well. Everyone went wild. I am not sure what this dream means but one thing is sure, my brother Brian is brilliant. We hope that you enjoy your week as much as I will enjoy being with happy Devin.

summery of our week

Monday morning was fun. I woke up and thought about going on a run in the cool part of the day in Las Vegas. I went out to the front room and saw the weather report for the day. It was already 92 degrees at 7:30 in the morning. I thought about going on that run for about 5 more seconds before the weather helped convince my lazy side to speak up louder. That is saying something. The lazy side normally is to wrapped up in doing nothing to even speak up but it was pretty noisy that morning. I spent most of the rest of the morning protecting my ears from being eaten by Noah and Taylor. We ran in more circles than I care to count. And I think I lost more ears than the two that I had on my head that morning. After a while we went for a swim at Grandpa Zobrist's house. It was lots of fun going down the slide, doing tricks on the diving board, and playing pool basketball. Taylor beat me 10 points to my 2 points. While the boys were playing like I had to go on a long boring car ride in a few hours, Devin spent her time in the hot tub soaking up the sun and relaxing. After a delectable lunch Devin and I hopped in the car and said good bye to our little vacation.

I would like to say something like: “Devin and I have a rule about what we listen to when we are on long car trips. The driver gets to pick. Since I was driving for a few hours I put on pod casts of 'Science Friday'. Devin got excited listening about how nursing will play a key role in lowering the cost of health care under the plans being discussed. She then listened to a section about eating healthy foods and how the food industry has given us bad food at every corner and how hard it is to eat healthy food. I think that after this trip Devin has finally started to understand how cool 'Science Friday' really is.” That is what I would like to say. The reality is that as soon as Ira started talking about health care Devin's eyes shut and did not open for several hours. After Devin woke up I helped her study for a test this last week. After that I just got to hold Devin's hand and talk about nothing important. I really enjoyed the trip and I particularly liked being with Devin. She is really fun to hang out with.

Saturday our new neighbors moved in. I saw them unloading their cars and took the time to walk across the parking lot and graciously offered my assistance to help unload the moving truck. Steve and Stacy callously rejected my offer saying that they where not doing any more at the time and that someone else was coming over to help in a while. I see my help is not as good as some other person's help. I went home and sulked for some time. Lucky for me I had a simple distraction. Devin was working and I had planned to make lunch and go and eat lunch with her. I started to make a delectable entree when our new jerky neighbors came over and asked for help. I had offered to see what I could do when the time came but they picked the most inconvenient time. Devin was at the hospital and starving! I could not let that happen so I finished cooking the afternoon meal and went to the hospital and devoured the most delicious sustenance. By the time I got home I tried again to offer my time and labor to help them get settled into their new home. They rudely said that if I really wanted to help I should ask when work needed to be done. Again I went home and sulked in my own self pity. Our neighbors really were nice and had lots of help moving into their place. Someone else who helped said it only took 20-30 minutes with the help they had. We also had them over for dinner tonight and had a good time talking about things like nuclear war and Keith Urban. I liked the part about nuclear war and Devin liked the part about Keith Urban.

I would like to apologize to any one who gets our letter through the mail. Last week we were out of town and when we got back into town we forgot to print it up and send it to you. We have sent last weeks letter with this week and hope you did not feel too left out. If you do feel left out tough tough coco puff. Deal with it. We love you and hope that you have an opportunity to enjoy life as it is, at least till next week