Tennessee Bound

We never go places in America, so when our good friends Michael and Erin decided to get hitched in Tennessee, we started making plans to go! They were both j-men in North Africa with us and we got to know them each really well. So, when they began dating, we were so excited for them! Anyways, here are some pictures of the first day, which involved the 11 hour drive and a fun bachelorette party for Erin! It was so fun to see all of our friends again. More pictures to come!!

What Blake Was Doing

You may have noticed that Blake was in none of our pictures from the race. He's not really into group running, or running at all. He has a really high metabolism! So, he became our race photographer. But

from the gun until we got to the finish was about 40 minutes (it took us 10 minutes to get to the front!) so he had to do something to pass the time. Well, he took his camera and went to the river where he found these statues and made good use of his spare time!

Racing For The Cure

A few weeks ago, Oklahoma City had the big Race For The Cure to benefit breast cancer research. My work had a team participating, so my family decided to join up. We had a blast! We got to run/walk a 5K and it was just so much fun to do something as a family. Kudos to Katie coming in first and to Mom and Dad for walking half of what they do on a normal day! Check out some of th

e sights and sounds:

By the way, how beautiful is my Mom

Reunited!

The Paynes are home! On Tuesday we took the day off and drove to Yukon to meet them at Gary's parents' home. The reunion's were sweet! I honestly didn't expect Emmy to be so excited to see us. I arrived first (we had to drive separately) and was so surprised to see Emmy so excited. And the other shock is how big Logyn is! Wow! She's walking around. And then when Uncle Blake showed up, it was so sweet to see her running across the yard yelling "Uncle Blake! Uncle Blake!" He is so excited to see those girls. And little Logyn was going "Bake, Bake!" I don't think she knows who he is, but Emmy was yelling it so she was too!
We loaded up the vehicles and drove over to the house they will be staying in. After a great lunch at Chili's we went back to their house and cleaned and unpacked. After 5 months, it was so nice to be together again!

A Very Botched Birthday (Cake)

I usually use this online forum to make fun of Blake, but since it's his birthday week, I'll make fun of myself. Blake's 26th birthday was a week ago and it was a very busy week, so other than going out to eat, we didn't get a chance to celebrate until Friday. So Thursday night, I set out to make a cake for him since some friends were coming over. So, I made the cake (which tastes really good by the way) and I bought a little bag of icing they sell at Walmart. My plan was to write "Happy Birthday" in blue icing. Well, I started on the "H" and messed up. The icing wouldn't come off, so my next thought was to spread the blue icing over the cake. Well, turns out, there was not enough icing (see in the picture!). I only made about a third of the cake blue. Blake laughed really hard at me. I got really mad at myself, but if Blake can get a good laugh out of the deal, I'm okay with it. =) At leasted it tasted good.

The candles on the cake are in honor of his inner age. I always tell him that he acts like an old man!

Moroccan Tea Party

We have been back four and a half months, but we still miss some things about Morocco. Mostly, it's people. But recently we had the opportunity to have some college students over to our place. They were all in Morocco over the summer and even though we had never met, it was great to sit and talk about similar places and people. It was so neat to hear how God worked over there. It was so great to hear about women that I had shared with that the girls had also gotten to share with. Anyways, it was my first time making couscous and tea by myself. I think I did a pretty good job for a rookie! We had a blast and are looking forward to our next tea party! Oh, and I was telling a story in the picture of Chen Chu pouring the tea. I wasn't telling her what to do, I promise! Although, that would be something I would do....

Memory Lane

Today is our good friend Kate's birthday. Last year at this time we were sitting around a small town in Africa and were very, very bored. We decided to come up with a video fo her birthday and this is what resulted. It's always fun to look back at good times and this was certainly a good laugh!