I have found that some of my favorite times with Jax is when he needs to eat in the middle of the night and when it is my turn to get up with him and feed him. It is one of the neatest things to be able to sooth him and put him back to sleep. When he is just staring at me in the eyes as happy as can be just reiterates that he is supposed to be my son. One of my fondest memories as a child is my Dad singing "I am a Child of God" to put me to sleep every night for a long time. When I was spending time with Jax Friday night I thought of this so I decided to try it myself. He absolutely loved it so I plan on singing him to sleep more often. I am the luckiest guy on the planet to be able to have Shaileen and Jax as my family and soon to be eternal family.
Whatever you do, dont judge my crappy voice at this time of night morning!
This past Sunday was our primary program in our ward. We are primary teachers for the 7-8 year olds and love our calling. Usually primary programs don't hit me much but this past Sunday something in the program was meant especially for me. I was thinking while singing the songs how lucky we are to have children in our lives. How they teach us that things really are simple and if we do the simple things first such as being kind, going to church, praying, loving one another as well as many other things we will be much happier in our lives. I know this because the kids in our primary class show me that it works. Each child in our program put in effort to memorizing their parts so they could look out at everyone in the chapel while they were telling them what they know about Choosing the Right. How cool is it that young children are willing to do something that initially seems so difficult for them. I can definately take what they have taught me and apply it in my life. When someone asks me to do something I dont need to think about how difficult it can and will be. I need to know with out a doubt in my mind that I can do it. With that faith I can and will succeed. There were several kids that offered to do vocal solos as well. How incredible is it that they are willing to stand in front of a lot of people and sing their little hearts out. I cannot wait to have a little child come into our lives to love and not only for me to teach them but more for them to teach me to become the best person I can be. Also, during the program I caught a glance at Shaileen watching her with the children is incredible to me and gives me assurance that she is going to be the best mother ever one day. You can see it in her eyes and actions that she is such a caring and loving person. These little moments that come from being in primary is why I love it so much. It seems that I learn so much more when I am in there because the simple truths can get to me easier and I obtain them better. We had a little meeting with the bishop on Sunday to discuss our adoption process and how things are going and he asked how the primary is. We told him that we absolutely love it and he better never take us out. :)
This past Friday night after work we drove down to St George Utah. Shaileen's all time favorite movie is Aladdin. I would warn you to be careful watching the movie with her because you will not be able to hear anything the characters are saying. If you do Shaileen will be saying every word of that movie in each characters voice perfectly throughout the whole movie! (she may kill me for saying that).
Anyways, at Tuacahn (which is an incredible outside theatre) they are playing Aladdin right now. I thought it would be a fun vacation to get away and make it quick as well. Like I said earlier we left straight from work on Friday and drove straight to St. George. It took us a little over 5 hours to get there because of the nasty construction in Utah County still.
We cannot wait until that is done and we are also kind of scared for the time it is going to take to travel to the BYU games that start this week. We showed up there and were pleasantly surprised with the hotel. We stayed in the Crystal Inn which is off Bluff St towards the south end of the city. We certainly recommend that place to anyone. The rooms were huge and the bed was awesome. It had a good flat screen tv. The pool was big and even went to 8 1/2 feet deep.
It even had a full buffet breakfast. Anyways, on Saturday when we woke up Shaileen asked for the toilitrie bag and I said to get it out of her bag because she packed it. She said no I asked you to pack it. We then looked at each other and said CRAP! WE BOTH FORGOT IT! We ran to Walmart and bought a bunch of the cheap toilitrie stuff to get us by for the next two days. We then were trying to decide what to do because we had until 8:45pm until the show started at Tuacahn. On the drive down we listened to a book on tape called Grace that we really got into so we decided to drive to Mesquite just so we could finish the book and then we could grab a bite to eat down there. Man, that book was incredible. It had Shaileen bawling at the end and she was asking for more of the book. She did not want it to end. Check it out, it is a great book with a great meaning.
We then drove back after eating and didnt know what to do again. We stopped at Costco in memory of my Grandpa Earl. haha. Everytime we would travel with them whether it was in St George, Lake Tahoe, California or whereever he would always have to stop at Costco. We think it is just because of the samples. We stopped and walked around for a bit and had a few samples. We then had the best sample ever. It was cheesecake. We decided to buy it and take it back to our hotel room for later that night. We put it in the fridge and boy was it awesome.
We decided that we were there for relaxation so we went back to the hotel room and had a nap while watching tons of Teen Mom. (I should be ashamed for saying this) We layed around for about 3 or so hours and then got up and got back in the car. We drove to the top of the hill to get a good look of the St George LDS Temple. I got a new camera lens a couple of weeks ago so I wanted to try it out. Man, it is beautiful up there. I have not photoshopped those pictures yet but when I do I will either put the photos on here or Facebook. We then drove to a Ross and decided to get out to see if we could find any gems to add to our house. That is one of our favorite things to do. We then went back to the hotel again to get ready for the show and change out of our sweaty clothes.
We showed up to Tuacahn about 45 or so minutes early. It was jam packed with people. We both love sitting and people watching. There were a bunch of little girls dressed up in their princess costumes. We cannot wait for the day when we have a child/children to take to things like this and see their faces light up with excitement. We got to our seats and we really liked them. There is not a bad seat in the house because the stage is so large. The show was incredible. I kept looking over at Shaileen during the show and she was either smiling with huge eyes or was singing along with the songs. I wonder what the poor guy next to Shaileen was thinking. During the show I kept wondering how they were going to be able to do certain things like the tiger that shows up out of the desert.
They did a great job with the show. The only bad thing with the show is Shaileen loved it so much that she is going to want to go all of the time now. I can't blame her though and want to go just as much. We really just need to talk my parents into buying a second home down there so we don't have to pay for a hotel.
We woke up early Sunday morning to have breakfast and Shaileen really wanted to swim. We swam and sat in the hottub for about 1-2 hours. We even got in the broken sauna for about 5 minutes. The weather was perfect. It was nice that the pool actually had a deep end. It seems like that doesnt happen often at hotel pools. We then got out and went back and got in the shower to get ready to go home.
We pulled out of the parking lot to leave about about 3 minutes later Shaileen looks at me and says, "Oh my gosh, I forgot my wedding ring." We turned around and I dropped her off to run in and grab it and thankfully it was still there.
The drive home was great. We jammed out to music and looked at the beautiful scenery. During the ride home I got to thinking of how truely blessed I am in my life. I have the best wife I could ever ask for. She is an incredibly strong, loving, beautiful, funny person that I get to spend literally every waking second with. I would not have it any other way. I thought about the fact that we spend so much time together and currently even work together. There are not many couples that get that opportunity or a lot that would even want it.
I may regreat putting this video out there but you can see how much fun when we are together!
Happy freaking birthday Shaileen! Hope you have the best day ever. I love you so much I found Jack Black and had him sing you Happy Birthday!
I Love You! Hope you have the bestest birthday ever...
We had a great time this past weekend traveling down to Richfield and St George. The reason we traveled down there is Shaileen's cousin had finalized their adoption last weekend so they were taking little Zoe through the St George temple to be sealed to them. What a cool experience it was to see the sealing. They were all very excited with huge smiles on their faces. It meant even a little extra to us because we as I am sure you know are trying to adopt too. We also had a great time spending time with Shaileen's grandmother and cousins. It overall was a great weekend. I even put together this little video of it! Check it out!
