Halloween Festivities

It was another busy week at the Payne house. Derek and I both had a great fall break. It was nice to not have to go to school and to be able to catch up on some serious cleaning and homework that we were very behind on. The week went by really quickly. We both kept busy with work and school and then on Friday night we had our annual ward Halloween party. About 2 hours before the party started Derek and I were scrambling to try and figure out what we should dress up as. We called up Mark and Krista and were able to borrow some of Marks scrubs for Derek to be a doctor and I already had my scrubs (we are allowed to wear scrubs to my school occasionally when we know we will be getting dirty). So we went as a Doctor and  a Nurse. We had a lot of fun at the ward activity. There was dinner, piniata, costume contest, games, pumpkin carving, etc. Here are a few quick snap shots of us on our way to the party.

The next night we had another party to go to as well. We had a big game night with a bunch of our friends. There were about 5 different couples there and we had a TON of Halloween treats and games that we played there. We all had some really really good laughs. We just aren't used to all this partying and we are both a little worn out. :) We had a lot of fun at both get-togethers and are ready for another week. We might even get a few trick or treaters coming to our apartment. Happy Halloween everyone!

Beating the Odds over and over again

Thursday after Derek got done with work we headed up to Salt Lake City. We spent the night at my Uncle John and Aunt Jean's condo. They live literally across the street from the conference center. They have an amazing view from their place and we love staying with them. It makes it really easy for us when we have early morning doctors appointments because they live very close to Primary Children's Hospital. Here is a few snap shots of the view from their place. Notice the temple, church office buildings, other tall buildings, the roof of the conference center, and in the bottom picture is the state capitol.

Friday morning we had Derek's regular cancer check up...except this one was kind of a big deal...it was his 2 year mark. The doctors always have told him that they needed to check him every 3 months for the first 2 years after remission (which we have been doing). The percentage of his kind of cancer is much more likely to come back in the first 2 years than any other time which is why they keep a really close eye on it til that point and then the percentage drops drastically after that. Well they said Derek was healthier than ever and had once again beaten the odds. We were so excited. Now we only have to go every 6 months for his check ups and it will slowly fade out after that. Derek is doing great. He feels better than he has in a long time and he is happy where he is at. The doctor gave us the 2 thumbs up that he is looking great and doing great. Yay...for a clean bill of health! That's my Derek...beating the odds over and over again. We are so blessed.

Shoe Horns vs. Pill Boxes

I bet you are all wondering why such an odd title of a post "Shoe Horns vs. Pill Boxes." I will explain.

Shoe Horn:

This morning as Derek was getting dressed he was sitting down on the bed (imagine a Mr. Rogers position) putting his shoes on one by one when he started struggling with one of his shoes. After struggling and finally getting his shoe on his foot he said to me, "Do you know a great gift you could get me that would be cheap?...A shoe horn." My response to this was... well I just started laughing. I truly thought he was joking. I didn't mean it in a mean way. I have never heard of anyone actually using a shoe horn except possibly a few men over the age of 80. I don't think any of the males in my family even own a shoe horn, or ever have or will. I've never seen anyone use them and to me they seem pretty useless. Maybe I am just a little naive when it comes to shoe horns, but they just don't seem to be that useful of an item for me. Derek went on to debate that he would use a shoe horn every morning (I'm not sure of that) and that it would probably save him 15 seconds a day which over a year (he really did do the calculation) would save him an hour and a half. I told him that if he could find anyone our age that actually used a shoe horn and found someone else that told Derek that would be a smart purchase and useful to him than I would be happy to buy him one. I am happy to buy him one anyway, but more of a joke from me. Apparently a simple shoe horn is what makes my husband happy. Thoughts on this from anyone?

Now onto the Pill Box...

Pill Box:

To start off the story here is a little background: Derek and I take a huge handful of vitamins every morning. Our vitamins consists of  Vitamin C, Vitamin D, selenium, acidophilus pill, cranberry pills, bone supplements  a multi-vitamin pill, and 4 balance of nature pills. Those are our basic everyday pills. Sometimes we even have additional pills. It takes me about 1 minute (or more...but lets just say 1 minute for easy math) to separate these pills every morning between Derek and I to make sure we get all the different pills. I also did some calculation and that adds up to 365 minutes a year or roughly 6 hours a year. As I was at the pharmacy the other day waiting for a very long time for my prescription to be ready I started wandering the store. I came across a pill box divider. As pictured above, they have the big S M T W T F S on it and you separate all your pills into everyday so you can keep track of all your pills and on what days you should take what pills. Well, I thought it was brilliant to make this purchase saving me 6 hours a year dividing these up at the beginning of every week so that each morning when we are usually in a rush we can just grab our pre-sorted pills and move on with life...easy. Excited about my pill box purchase, I come home to show Derek and what does he do? He laughs at me. He says only old crazy people that have a crazy amount of pills own these. At least mine is a useful thing that saves us time and struggle each morning. Is it so bad to try and be organized like this? Thoughts on this from anyone?

Now, I do admit. No matter how you go about this, we kind of do sound like old people. Derek with his shoe horns and me with my pill boxes. But now I would like to open this up to our readers out there. What one do you think is more practical? We are taking a poll.

A Quick Snapshot of This Week

I'm a little late on updating the blog and because lack of time its just going to be real quick. We were able to go to the Les Miserables musical at the Shakespeare Festival this last week. We have been singing songs from it all week. It was really amazing, I've always been a major fan of the Les Mis music but it was a lot of fun to go to.

We also had the opportunity to listen to conference this weekend which I'm sure all of you were also able to do. We really enjoyed all the talks. Derek's favorite talk was at the priesthood session by Neil L Anderson. My favorite talk was in the Sunday morning session by Jefferey R Holland. All the talks were great and we were excited to hear all the fun announcements and changes for the church.

We were able to spend some good quality time with both our families as well. We went back and forth in between houses watching with my parents and my sister and her family and Derek's parents and his brother and his family. On Saturday night when the guys were at the priesthood session the Paynes and the Keates all joined forces, got together and the girls made cards and had treats while the kids played and watched movies. Krista's family was nice enough to invite us over for crepes for breakfast on Sunday morning. Yummy! It was a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures that the Paynes took at our time over at their house.

All listening to conference. 

Noah and Grandpa Payne picking Carrots from the garden.

Hannah and I fell asleep during the afternoon session. Woops. It was a good nap though. Hannah sure likes to cuddle up to us. We love it!

It was a great weekend and we were grateful for all the time we were able to spend with our families and listen to all the great talks from the leaders of our church.