Mall Walker

Have you ever seen those red-faced, usually chubby women powerwalking in the mall? I am officially one of them. I take Sam on walks in the mornings, but if he wakes up later than 6:30 it's way too hot and the sun is way too strong to walk outside. I have walked in the mall with Sam in the stroller twice, which is embarrassing, but kind of not-so-bad because I have him with me. It's like an excuse to get the baby out of the house or something. Today, however, I went walking in the mall by myself (after Devin arrived home). I was embarrassed for myself. I caught my reflection in one of the store windows and I couldn't help but let out a chuckle. I had on the Barry reunion tie-dyed shirt, ugly khaki shorts, a baseball cap (so no one would recognize me), and huge headphones. oh man. So this old couple stopped me mid-stride to comment on my speed of walking. Awkward, yes, but they were cute. Since they stopped me I had to take my headphones off so I could hear them. After our little chat I was trying to put my headphones back on, but it was impossible to do so since I was holding a water bottle in one hand (side-note: I heard teenage boys laughing at me as I was trying to put them on one-handed. rude.). So I set my water bottle on the edge of a potted plant by the walkway (it looked stable), and it tipped over, making a huge puddle of water. An employee standing in the doorway of Lenscrafters offered to call someone to clean it up. The teenage boys laughed some more, so I decided to do the remainder of my laps on the first level of the mall. As I was nearing the end of my last lap, I had to go back to the upper level (since that's where I parked). I got on the escalator, which stopped abruptly as I was walking up the moving steps (to keep my heartrate up of course). My body jolted forward, to make for one last awkward moment right before I exited the mall doors.

Our First Lawsuit!

and hopefully our last.

A few months ago Devin and I got a "notice of trustee's sale" posted on our front door. This surprised us, because we were on schedule with our mortgage payments. Looking closer at the notice, we saw that it was addressed to the previous owners of our house. The sale of our house last June was never recorded! So as far as the county records showed, the people we bought it from still owned the house and had been neglecting payments for the past year. Long story short, Devin has been contacting the title company almost daily to try and get the situation taken care of before our house went up for auction (which was scheduled for June 19). They have been not the easiest people to deal with, not returning his phone calls, repeatedly saying "the person who deals with this isn't in..." etc. So yeah. June 19 came and went, and we're still in our house, so we just assumed it had all been taken care of. Today we got confirmation of that. We received a summary of our lawsuit that told us that the threat to our house "has been eliminated." The title company screwed up here. They are paying for a lawyer at no cost to us. But we still get our names in a lawsuit (which is weirdly exciting...to me at least). So that's it! Our prayers have been answered.

***That is a HORRID picture of us, but I had to document the moment.

Don't ever let Dixie lick your face.

Sam just had a diarrhea blowout on the floor and Dixie ate it.

Father’s Day

Devin enjoyed his very first Father’s Day this year. Devin is such a cute dad. He loves Sam so much. He does a great job taking care of him. He lets me have breaks when I need them. When Selena came into town, Devin took care of Sam from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. so I could spend the entire day with her. 

 

To celebrate Father’s Day, we went over to my parents’ house, which was pretty uneventful because my dad was recovering from appendicitis.  Here is my mom with her two grandsons.

 

It is so great that my and Devin’s parents now live a mile apart. It makes for easy travel on holidays. After my parents’ house, we partied it up at the Barrys. There was food, laughter, fun, and blood. (Oaklee had a little accident upstairs).

Bastian playing dress-up The two youngest Barrys (Forbes)

I think it’s time to retire the trampoline…

After dinner we went around and told happy memories of John. Me, Brooklynn, and Anya didn’t remember any of the memories (probably because we weren’t around), but we laughed just the same. Then we complimented John, which he just loved! Then we told things about each father. Here’s what each of us said:

Brenda remembered one time when she was overwhelmed with a church project. No one showed up to help her decorate for an event. She called John in tears, who then arranged for a troupe of men to come and help out with the decorating.

Scottee loves that Brian plays with the kids in the mornings so she can sleep in.

Mindy loves Ryan’s testimony. He also lets her sleep in. (Devin are you reading this????

I love how Devin always wants me to have the best in everything (especially soap:)

Anya loves Adam’s testimony.

Alli was taking a nap at the time, but Scottee said that Alli loves that Greg plays with Bastian.

Treslee had a story about how one time she thought Rich was going to be mad about something, but he didn’t even care. Rich is slow to anger.

The End.

Splash Park

Mindy and I and our babies went to the splash park this morning. Both our wards have play groups at the same time. Go Mindy for inviting me! I wouldn't have ventured out into the heat if you hadn't done so. Please notice that Mindy is soaking wet. She went into the water in an attempt to get rid of a pretty cool spray tan she has :)

I should not be left alone.

I am lonely on Tuesday nights because Devin goes out with the missionaries.Tonight began with the greatest of intentions. I was planning on working on my lesson for next week's personal progress, but after doing so for about half an hour, I stopped because it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Then I thought it would be nice to sit on the front porch and maybe read. I trotted outside with Dixie, then noticed our neighbor trimming his yard (our houses are literally like 3 feet apart). That would be way awkward...me sitting and watching him trim his bushes. I might as well have held the trash bag for his clippings. Anyhoo, I have been craving to make a video today, so I had the bright idea that I should give myself bangs! How pathetic am I that I am willing to butcher my hair just for the sake of having something semi interesting to film?

My Day with Selena

This past Saturday Devin watched Sam for the entire day so I could hang out with Selena. I heard Sam watched quite a bit of Baby Einstein, and that a 3-hour Risk game was involved. Thanks Devie!!

7 Months Old

Our special boy is 7 months old today.

Sam is such a joy to have. He is the happiest baby I have ever seen. He wakes up smiling, goes to bed smiling (most nights at least), and smiles every moment in between. My favorite thing he does right now is that he will climb up on Devin or me when we are sitting on the floor and want to sit in our laps.  He still wakes up several times a night, but we are working on that… 

He is so active now- life has changed around our house! Sam is curious and strong. He is an excellent, FAST crawler, and can also pull himself up to stand.

We are best friends.

Happy Birthday/Anniversary

Saturday was Devin's 25th birthday! I love being married to an older man. He will be older than me for about 3 months, then I'll catch up.

We had a joint party for he and Becca at my parents' on Friday. Then on Saturday, Devin had a surprise party with his family. He totally knew about it, but he thought it was going to be on Sunday, not Saturday. So I guess you could say the surprise was a success...?

Today is our 2 year wedding anniversary! I love my Devin and am so glad I got him and no one else did. Devin is selfless, fun, energetic and at the same time very lethargic (my husband loves his naps!). He makes every problem I have seem so small. He takes care of our little family and provides for us so I can stay home with Samothy. There is so much more I could say, but I'll save that for Devin's ears only! Here are young and skinny pictures from our wedding.

What we did in Heber

So I have been trying to upload the video I made of the stuff we did in Heber for a few days now...I have come to the realization that the video is just too dang big. I can't bear to not post it, so I'm going to post it in 5 different parts. Ok...here goes.