Our Texas trip

We spent the last week and a half in Texas with the Payne side of our family. It was a blast!! We had so much fun. I'll write a day by day thing of what we did. I'll only put the highlights though. Most of the time we just hung out, visited, and had fun being together.

Fri. and Sat. 18th and 19th- people were arriving, hanging out, and nothing really happened.

Sun., 20- I played the piano for a couple did things that day. It was a great Sunday filled with Christmas programs.

Mon., 21- hung out. We celebrated Krystal's (Jared's sister) 18th birthday. We had a dance party that night. It was a blast.

Tues., 22- We went and got family pictures. I'll post those later. Earlier that morning Jared's brother Tyler stepped on something really sharp while playing with the kids. He ended up getting 4 stitches. Fun part? Brian, Jared's other brother, gave Tyler the stitches in their parents kitchen. Brian is about to start residency for being a doctor.

Weds., 23- we went to Maverik (read earlier posting) and had family skit night (also a previous posting). After the skits we played charades. The catch? We were acting out other couples that were there. It was so much fun!

Thurs., 24- we had the Payne's traditional fish dinner and reenactment of the nativity. After the kids were all in bed, the adults stayed up and listened to Grandma and Papa Payne talk about their childhood, courtship, and what Dad Payne was like as a kid. OH! It actually snowed in TX and stuck. It was kind of neat, but kind of aggravating. We left UT hoping to get out of the snow.

Fri., 25- Christmas fun! A bunch of us went to the church and played volleyball and/or basketball. I think it was that night that Mom and Dad Payne talked about their childhood, courtship, and Mom also talked about her parents. Both of her parents are now deceased.

Sat., 26- Fun, nothing really happened.

Sun., 27- nothing really happened. We did have a family testimony meeting which was really, really neat.

Mon., 28- Jared and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. We went to a place called Medieval Times. They have a dinner and theater show. It's a bunch of knights "fighting" the bad knight. Yeah, our night was the bad knight. It was neat. When we got home there was another dance party.

Tues., 29- we came home. It was snowing again!

Talent Show

The last Payne experience I got pictures of were of our talent show/ skit night. (side note: I'll write about the rest of the trip in another posting) It was so much fun seeing all the skits and acts. Here are a couple of the pictures I was able to get. Our camera was acting kind of funny that night, so I'm sorry if the pictures aren't that good.

Josh ( one of Jared's brothers) performing a lemonade stand skit. The poor guy kneeling on the floor is a friend that just came to have fun that night. He didn't know what he was getting into. He had water poured on him and people spit on him. Our nieces Katie and Daisy and our nephew Joshua are there also.



A bunch of people watching skits.



Brian (one of Jared's other brothers) and his family performing "5 little monkeys". It was cute. Our niece Chelsea is looking in.



Josh performing a midget skit. It was hiliarious. Josh's wife Jill is behind him being Josh's "arms". I don't know how to describe it. It you really want me to try to, send me a message. Anyway, Josh's son Joseph is looking in on the skit.



Bart and Jeni (Jared's older sister and her husband) performing "It's Cold Outside". Aren't they cute? Our nephew Joshua is the little boy in the picture.



Other skits were performed were...

Jessica (our sister-in-law; she married Jared's brother Tyler) read a Christmas book from the South.

Jason got his sister-in-laws (meaning me, Jessica, Tawnya, and Jill) to "shake it". We shook our arms.

I did get pictures of these. I'll have to post them later.

Maverik

As part of our Texas trip the whole family (yes, all 31 Payne family member were there) went to a place called Maverik. Best way to describe it is a gymnastic place. They have trampolines, spring boards, foam pits, rock climbing wall, etc. It was a blast. Here are a few pictures from it.

Jared and our niece Faye



Jared's brothers, Teancum and Brian, got 2 of Brian's girls (Faye and Daisy) up in this net that was hanging from the ceiling. In this picture Brian is throwing Daisy into the foam pit.



Brian carrying Daisy up the rock wall



Faye getting ready to jump with her mom's help. Everyone else playing in the background.



Everyone playing... everyone that I could get in one shot

Jared... a teaser... NEVER!

As some of you may, or may not, know Jared has always teased me that he is going to get a mohawk. I keep telling him ... to sum up, over my dead body. Well, we just spent the last week and a half it TX with the Payne side of our family. Jared arrived a day before I did (we won't go there on why) and when he picked me up from the airport, guess what my husband greeted me with? YEP, a mohawk. You may be wondering the first words out of my mouth. Or maybe you aren't but they were "JARED GLEN PAYNE, WHAT DID YOU DO?!?" Yeah, kind of yelling too. He just got this big grin on his face and asked if I liked it. Needless to say, Jared offered to take me on a date and I told him I was to embarrassed to be seen in public with him. The mohawk came off that night. Here a couple of pictures of the horrid haircut.

Jared and his brother Joseph. Joseph is the one who gave Jared his mohawk.



Us at Mom and Dad Payne's... can't you just tell I love (said sarcastically) the hair cut?

Finally, an update!

I would like to apologize for not writing for the past few weeks. We have been so busy that we have not had time. We have had lots of stuff to put in the letter so lets get to the meat of this thing. Grandma and Granddad Hurst were at our house a couple of weeks ago. They had some tests and other stuff. We were all just hanging around. Grandma, Granddad, and I were down stairs talking and noticed Devin left to do something important. I said “I need to go upstairs and harass Devin”. Grandma thought for a second and asked me, “Is that a real word?” Being a pain helps at this stage and I quickly responded, “No, it is not a real word. It is actually two words.” Grandma then said, “What words? hair and ass?” At this point Grandma quickly realized what she had said and tried to take it back. I just laughed and laughed. Devin and I would like to say that we have loved having Grandma and Grandad around over the last few months and we were a sad they will not be staying with us as much. They have moved up here to Orem for the winter and they will not need to stay here. We are happy to have them close to us and are excited to be able to see them often.

I am the ward mission leader for our ward and we have been teaching a family in the ward. The family has a daughter named Tristan, who is 7, and a son Hayden, who is 6. They really are a nice family. We had gotten to a point where I had to teach the children about the end of Christ's life. I was stressing about this a little bit because the Garden of Gethsemane is not a very pretty scene to describe to small children; also being whipped and then crucified. This part of Christ's life is very important and should not be skipped over but I wanted the kids to understand it was important what happened. After a few weeks of thinking about what I should do, I came up with a plan. We would act out some of what Christ did and then talk about the rest. Luckily for me Christ was at a religious event right before the atonement, so I decided to have a passover dinner. We got dressed up in fake old time clothes, moved the table to the front room, set a table cloth on the floor, and set the food on that. We sat on pillows and blankets and did a good part of the passover meal. I had been excited about this and got to cook a meal that was different from what I normally cooked. I told the story of the Jews leaving Egypt. We talked about the food and why the food was a reminder of being slaves. The kids loved the meal. I then talked to them about Jesus going to the garden and being betrayed. I told them of the trial and the crucifixion. Tristan was very concerned about what happened. I then told her about the resurrection and Christ coming to Mary. The lesson went very well and we were happy to have had such a good time teaching the gospel.

Our ward had the Christmas party this last weekend. The activities committee wanted me to do something and have fun with it. At first they wanted me to be the centurion but they changed their mind and had me be the tax collector instead. I decided to be corrupt and require people to pay me more than what was necessary. I invited my brother Jason to attend with me. After we ate, the centurion had to run home for something and gave Jason the sword. This worked out well for me and we went to the kids in the ward and started to try and extort more taxes out of them. Jason just stood behind me with his sword and acted like my enforcer. We had the kids sing songs, run around the gym, or just pay us all the beads for their taxes. Jason would drop a few for some of the younger kids to find and pay. We had a real fun time with the kids. After that the ward played out the nativity and sang songs Jason, Michelle and I were sitting in the back while Devin played the piano. Jason leaned over to me and said, “I bet I can sing this song louder than you.” I knew he was wrong and I challenged him and said, “I bet I can sing it worse.” Jason quickly took up the challenge. The closing song was “Silent Night”. This sounded like a very fun thing to sing to. Jason and I started out. Originally I decided to just sing normal but slightly louder. I noticed that the people a little in front of us started laughing. So I decided to really give them something to laugh at. As I sang I cracked my voice a little and thought it was pretty funny. Sitting to our right was an older couple who are active choir people, who are really serious about music. The lady turned around and tried to help us sing better. Jason and I just looked forward and continued to sing. Michelle said you could tell by the look on their faces that they were struggling with the joyful sound Jason and I were making. By the third verse they had enough and left. I now have a new thing I can claim. I have now driven people out of church meetings by singing.

This weekend has been fun. Friday my brother, Brian, came into town. This next week he has an interview for his medical residency. Friday Brian, Jason, Michelle, Devin and I went out to the play “The Forgotten Carols”. Devin and I like the play and try to go every year. Brian, Jason and Michelle had never seen the play but had listened to the music. I do think that the play does add meaning to the songs. We all had a good time. With Brian here we did not do much. We mainly hung out and watched movies. But we also had fun debating medical reform, the prison system, and other such political topics. We are looking forward to going to Texas at the end of this week and play until the end of the year. We wish you a merry Christmas season and hope the holidays treat you well.

Devin & Jared Payne

Fun times with nieces and nephews!

Today I had a blast with several nieces and nephews! I just thought I'd share a couple of pictures of those cute little kiddos! Neither is an extremely good picture, but you get the idea of how cute they are :0)

We're slackers

Yes, we're slackers and have not written a family letter recently. You can see all our recent happenings here though! We had a blast in Vegas (you might need to look for the bridal shower pictures. They somehow got out of order. They're between "Other Vegas fun" and "Papa giving lawn mover/tractor rides". Anyway~ to sum up Vegas trip, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, we went with Mel to get her bridals taken, and had a bridal shower for Mel. Then last week our excitement was the passover dinner, which has been blogged about. We did have our ward Christmas party. That was awesome. I played the piano for about half the time (luckily there was another lady that I traded off with). I enjoyed playing though. I'm going to let Jared go into detail about it later. Sorry, suspicion is great! Anyway~ that's about us the last couple of weeks. Love you all!

Passover

Yes, we had a passover dinner. Jared threw an awesome passover dinner almost a week ago now. So, here's the story about it. There's a family in our ward that Jared is teaching the gospel. The parents requested Jared focus on Christ, being the Christmas season. Here's the order lessons went: the creation, the birth of Christ, Christ teachings, miracles Christ performed, and this last lesson he talked about the crucifixion and passover. Jared thought it'd be fun to dress up (Well, we dress up with every lesson) and have a passover dinner. So~ my amazing husband put it on. It was a blast! I was a little weird-ed out at first, but it was fun. The kids LOVED it. I think they really learned a lot that night too.

Jared teaching about Passover, the crucifixion, and being awesome!



The kids intently listening to Jared. Honestly the did! The kids enjoyed the stories Jared told.



Everyone that was at the dinner, except for me that was taking the picture :0) Notice Elijah's plate? It's hiding in the corner towards the back door.



This is Haiden. He's 6 years old.



This one is Tristen. She's almost 8 years old.

Other Vegas fun!

Here are a couple of random picture from our trip

This one is Justin, Mel's fiancee, getting "pretty". Courtesy of my niece and brother's girlfriend's daughter. Did ya follow me on that one? ;0)



My gorgeous oldest sister, Shannon. She wasn't too happy I took this one. :0) She loves me anyway!

Mel's bridal shower

The Sat. after Thanksgiving Mel (my sister) had her bridal shower. Her best friend (who's her maid of honor) threw it at an aunt's house! This place was gorgeous! Anyway~ here are some fun picture of the shower.

Taylor, our nephew, being silly. He was bored waiting for all the guest



Mel being silly!



Getting my "wedding dress" (made out of awesome toilet paper) made by Taylor, my cousins, and aunts.



Finish "wedding dress" in the front.



The back

Papa giving lawn mower/tractor rides

My dad has a John Deere riding lawn mower. My niece and nephew LOVE to get rides with Papa on the tractor when they come to visit. Here's pictures and a couple of videos of Papa giving rides.
* please forgive the talking in the videos. I was on the phone with my sister at the time*
*the one with my nephew is a bit shaky. Sorry*

bridal pictures

This last weekend we went to Las Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with the Zobrist side. On Friday we went with my younger sister, Melissa, to take her bridal portraits. Aren't they an adorable couple? Bridal shower pictures to come!