Weekly update from Jared

Due to the contest I'm late in getting this out. Our family should have received this in their e-mail too. Love you all!!


Devin’s aunt Gretchen came and stayed with us this week. She came to visit Granddad and Grandma Hurst. She was not really here to hang with us and so we did not see her much. She did confess to something I got a good laugh at though. One of the first nights she was here she was in the other room and heard Devin and I raising our voices. I heard through the grapevine Gretchen thought we where fighting, and she thought it had to do with her visit. I guess she was relived to find out we where laughing and having a great time. We always love to have company over and visit. We will always try and keep our rare arguments away from you. I will say that more times than not we will have raised voices especially if they are laughing in good fun.
In case anyone forgot I am the Scout Master in my ward. This week we were working on the citizenship in the community merit badge. This gave me an opportunity to sit down and think about myself and what it means to be a good citizen in the community. It does not matter what you do but the most important thing is to be involved in your community. That can be doing simple things like removing water from your neighbor’s driveway. I know this sounds weird especially to all those in our family who live in warm climates, but it really is a problem here in UT especially in the winter. It could also mean going and doing service cleaning trails in your local park. Just taking the time to talk to you neighbors even makes a big difference. I would like to give a special thank you to my brothers Tyler and Josh for their service in the military. Because of their service not only to their community but to their nation Devin and I went and voted on Tuesday. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be in this country and vote for the people who will represent me in government. This is a special duty we all have and I am happy to do so.

Saturday Devin and I watched our neighbor’s kids while they went out on a date. They have 5 kids ranging in age from 4-13. The 4 year old wanted to build a fort, so we went upstairs and pulled the mattresses off of all the twin beds and built a fun little fort. That quickly got boring and I got an idea. Does a mattress fit in the hall. I grabbed on of the mattresses and tried it out. Not only did the mattress fit. the mattress barely fit. That is an excellent thing especially if you want to do something crazy like line the stairwell with mattresses. We had 2 mattresses going down and one mattress as a landing pad. I am pretty sure none of the kids wanted to crash on the tile. Since the mattresses barely fit they did not slide much when coming down the stairs. Everyone had fun fighting their way up the stairs while someone else came down. This went on for a very long time. To bad for all you people in TX who do not have a good stairwell you will just have to come up here and visit to join in all the fun.
Devin has been reminding me that this month is National Adoption Month. I am a little disappointed at the level of national recognition. Last month every where you looked there where signs to remind everyone about breast cancer. I know that it is easier to get men behind the cause of not letting a good breast go to waste, but that does not make our cause less interesting. OK I will admit for the men it is probably a lot less interesting. Devin and I just want to say thanks to everyone who has kept us in your prayers as we have gone through the adoption process. As a quick update Devin and I are still waiting to hear anything from LDS family services. We have not had much luck. We are still licensed foster parents but Devin’s school is preventing us from taking children full time. They are excited for Devin to finish school because having a nurse will allow them to send kids with special needs to our home. We enjoy having any kids over and playing with them. We look forward to building our family. We love you all and hope you have an interesting and fun week.