Ready or not WE ARE DOING THIS!!!!! Posting I mean.

I, Lauren, hereby swear to write at least one newsletter post every month for my remaining life to document the events of the Adamz family for posterity and historical record. STARTING NOW!

I have had a life long, constantly nagging, heart rending problem. I am a terrible journalist. Which is hilarious because I am one of the most nostalgic people you could  possibly meet! I want to remember everything and anything that could possibly be meaningful, and I have a terribly hard time letting go of things that could remind of me said meaningful things. Therefor, when I do write in my journal, every entry is a novel. What if I forget where that date was or that sweet thing he said, or heaven forbid what we ate there! Since I regurgitate absurd amounts of info writing in my journal was very laborious and therefor procrastinated and therefor never completed...for months and years on end. Many would say "C'este la vie" but not me. I am haunted, tortured even, by the unrecorded memories, events and milestones undocumented. And I tell you it ends now! My mother is a currently holds the record for best newsletter keeping ever, and she has always encouraged us to continue with our children. To that I hold!

March Draft

Hello Hello Hello folks!

The Adamz family currently located in Round Rock, Texas (a cute tiny town near Austin) is doing fantastic. As far as this newsletter goes noone knows that we have...had a baby, Zach has graduated, we moved to Texas for his PhD, we live in a house that belongs to Zach's parents (heaven sent!) that we absolutely adore with great friends, neighbors and a great ward, and the aforementioned baby is now a one year old. WHAAAAAATT you say?? Yes indeed. As Raoul Silva would say, "Mommy was very bad."  At writing. 

This month has been so much fun so far! The first few days of March Franklin and I flew out to Utah for Annie's Wedding! Mrs. Prescott she was to become. She found a nice guy named Keenan, they seem to be blissfully in love, my goodness they glow! More about that Later. Julie gave us some buddy passes so Franklin and I could make it out but Zach was trapped in school :( which broke all our hearts! We'll get him out there soon. We had so much fun! Franklin loved seeing the family again, he adores Lottie and Ollie. He followed them around constantly saying "dog" or "puppy, puppy, puppy," in this darling high questioning voice...so cute! He would play with them and snuggle his face on them, we need a dog! No we don't. It was fun to see him play with Grandma and Grandpa, and the Uncle Pynes too. He seems to have a way of weaseling into hearts of family and strangers alike (which is great for getting help on a plane!), 

I got some free time with all the free babysitters around (Pirate Princess at the Hale Theatre with Dad, Granny, Leslie and Jon, and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies with Mom, which I loved). We had a blast visiting with Kelsey and her darling daughter Emerald, we signed kids' betrothal papers. :)  We managed a quick lunch with Kim, Adam and the boys when they lent us their car seat, (Thank You!) and a dinner with Caleb, Vanessa and Liam (who also showed up at the airport with a car seat. We have the best friends EVER.) which was so great. The only people we didn't get to see was the other Utah Adamzs!!!! I was hoping to spend some time with Glenn and Shannon and their pack of boys, especially to get excited for their little Princess that's set to arrive in June (I think). It was poor planning on my part,  I was planning on staying another week, and hoping to stay with them for a few days of it if they could, but flights didn't work out and we ended up going last minute the crack of dawn the morning after the wedding. :( We were so bummed! Next time we'll get to see them and their little darling. 

Speaking of the wedding! It was awesome. We left Franklin with Dad and the boys and Grandma Dexter to have a girls' night with Annie in Logan. It was my first night away from Franklin, soooooo strange but so fun! I was nervous but he was in great hands. We went shopping for makeup and cute outfits (wink wink), got the best Indian food ever in a place by a gas station, hot tubbed and did Annie's nails before crashing. It was fun to have a Pyne girl slumber party (plus Julie). The next day was the BIG DAY! Annie was drop dead gorgeous in a lace gown and flowers in her hair. Keenan's side was Coral ours was Teal and did Franklin look cute! The Sealing was perfect and their luncheon was beautiful. Lots of aspen wood and pussy willow branches and candles...lovely and so Annie. I really liked getting to know Keenan better, we had only chatted a few times, and his family seems really nice too. Later back in Salt Lake we had a dinner with the fam (Brent and Lisha and the Browers and Grandma and us) it was so fun to catch up.

After our sudden and horrifyingly turbulent flight to Dallas (a nice guy next to me asked if I was clutching the tray tight enough, I realized I was white knuckled and clinging to Franklin) we were back! Zach met us there and holy cow was Franklin excited to see him. He had been asking for "Dada" often while we were gone and it was so fun to see the two pals reunite. (ADD PICTURES!) He is a daddy's boy. 

Zach was on spring break so we have had a wonderful week of playing, spring cleaning and gardening between his's studies. On Thursday we went to Sweet-berry Farm, a fun place about an hour west in Marble Falls. It's a lovely drive through a state park. We picked strawberries, pet the horses, fed the goats, has a homemade strawberry popsicle and grabbed some lunch at the Blue Bonnet cafe on our way out of town. A perfect day! 

This one is long to get the trip and the wedding in there, but we'll be more brief in the future I hope. Before I go though I have to blurb about how fun Franklin has been lately. I can't believe how fast he is growing up. He is almost walking, he half crawls, half leaps between objects and can stand for several seconds before he realizes it and collapses. Most of that is thanks to Dad for training him during the trip, walking back and forth with him. He talks a TON, he seems pretty early but picks up words like wild fire. He'll learn a new word, use it perfectly for a few days, and then once he's sure he has it he gets lazy and slurs them and focuses on the new set of words. He went from perfectly distinct "book, ball, balloon, blanket, bottle..." but now sometimes it's tricky to tell them apart if he's not pointing. Lazy bum. I'll have to do a comprehensive Franklin post :) Zach wants to read scriptures before bed so I better skedaddle. Love you all! ***To be edited and added to later***

  

September 18^th 2013

I suppose I could use my time wisely, and write a blog post!

Here I am at work, 5 minutes into my break and the internet goes down. -_- We don't have internet at home so that's when I get all my internety things done, so I was quite disappointed. I work here alone then the doc is not in the office for the day (don't tell anyone they might come get me) so I sat, I twiddled my thumbs for a bit, I drank some water, I was considering beating my head against the wall when I thought HEY I'm behind on our blog! So here we are :) Thanks to Zach keeping me entertained I had not slid down the path of boredom far enough to surpass being able to think at all, so here I am a-writing.

So, our summer was fantastic! We both worked full time so we were busy, but evenings were so nice to spend together! We played a lot, well we always play a lot but we played a ton! We spent lots of weekends up at Leslie and John's and always have a blast up there with them, we spent lots of fun evenings with friends, and we lazed about. It has been way to hot to do much outside here but we did through a few BBQs and such. Let's what are a few fun ones....

We tried our hand at our own grilled ribs! We did once in our own, and once for a large BBQ we hosted and they turned out great! Zach and I are quite the team when it comes to food :S which explains a lot that that's ok, we both have more to love, haha! Which brings me to our new gym membership. We love it! Ok well I love it Zach tolerates it but he is still really dedicated and it has been fun so far. It's gone down since school started back up but during the summer we went almost everyday and we're pretty much ripped :P or were before we went to Utah and started slacking. You should see Zach's guns (ohhhhh yeah, I like those) he's been kicking my but at about everything but we're really good at keeping each other motivated. Our personal trainer said he usually doesn't train couples, but that we're so fun working together he loves it! We have that effect on people :P hahahah ok enough of the lame we're awesome jokes. We really do have a great time though, Zach always gets me to do more than my lazy self wants to and we've been feeling better the more we go.

The fun weekends at Leslie and John's have been great! We usually spend a night or two and they always have fun things planned. Zach loves helping with the yard work (he really wants his own place I think) so he's always pruning their big trees or digging up something or other, and Leslie and I knit and chat until we feel guilty and get roped into helping. It's so nice how well Zach gets along with Danny and Uncle John, they have a good time talking and we're always laughing the time away with them. Last month we went up to Omaha to spend the evening at Winter Quarters church history sites stayed in a hotel and then went to the Zoo the next morning. SO FUN! They're such good company it's always a good time. Two weekends ago we celebrated Lisa, Zach and Ellie's birthdays together with a shrimp fest and cake, yum! We're going up this Friday for the Kansas City art festival, which was fantastic last year so we're pretty excited.

Last Saturday we went to see Insidious: Chapter 2 opening night with some friends. We had spend a late night watching the first one again before we went, so we were already pretty on edge. It was so fun and so SCARY! Good grief it was almost 2 hours of panic, it's exhausting! But it was especially fun in the theaters, with all the screams and the laughs the the holding of breath...makes it much more fun.

Zach is back in school, and already up to his eyeballs in home work, thesis work, regular work and applying for PHDs. That poor man is a trooper! Good grief he makes my eyes boggle. Psh all I do is work and some nights I'm like “eh...I think it's too hard to make dinner tonight” and he's like “Take a break babe! I only have a billion more pages to write until I'm done with school. I'm not so busy, I'll make dinner!” Ok, so I made the middle part up he never says that but with all he has to DOES still spoil me! Heart of gold my sweetheart :) giggle giggle! Two nights I a row though that I've made a GOOD dinner. Dinner gets on the table more than that, I promise, but lately it hasn't always been *cough cough* exactly a balanced meal. Pasta anyone? In short Zach is busy, and he's also the Best!

I'm working, we can skip the rest. Webster however is fat as ever (I think I say that every post) but he did get a little sick this week. He threw up about 8 times, poor thing! I felt so bad for him, to bad he's Zach's little pet or he might have appreciated my coos and soothes. Nope, he pretty much whines at me for food, then jumps in Zach's lap. -_- Grrrr, Catface, Grrr. The snake is about to shed, which means he is dry, stiff, almost white, almost blind, and not a happy camper. Hahahah poor thing! We knew he was hungry so we pried him our of his hid box for a rat but he protested. He does this thing where (while he used to let us pick him up easily) he's figured out that he can flex his body out, you know, in an O shape, into crevice of his hide box, and make it almost impossible to get him out. He's all loosey goosey... “Hi snake, want to come out!” Shooomp!...He's wedged around the border. Great. Hahahah, he's fun though, Zach especially LOVES him. If he takes as much care of our kids as that snake we set :) good to know. Our kids better look like snakes then.

Um...what's fun lately...we went for a lovely Sunday drive with the Trunnels this week to enjoy the finally cooling off weather. We took the nice country roads to Baldwin, and visited a Pre-Civil War Battlefiels/nature park. It was gorgeous! Such a nice walk.....until we came across the photo shoot of a almost naked lady frolicking through grasses in her skivvies. Haa! After making them as uncomfortable as we could they packed up their white umbrellas and chairs and got scarce. Thanks ladies for the nature show ladies :) good grief.

Well I only had a few minutes after work to finish this up. These are always way too long, yet I never put in everything I want to! I want to remember all the fun details of everything we do, but I don't keep up on posting. Oh dear, Lauren, perhaps you should fix that? I think I will!

Love you all, hope you are as happy and loving life as we are! Miss you and can't wait until we see you, which is soon for the Adamz parents, yay! :D See you soon!

My true calling! Planting some new decor for my office!

Brazilian Rainbow Boa

Just a couple quick pictures if our new boa. These are from online but he looks exactly like this, our pictures aren't uploaded yet. He's small for now, between 1 1/2 and 2 feet. 

But he will be huge eventually, between 5 and 7 feet. He's gorgeous! See the rainbow shimmer? :D Awesome.

We fed him last night, it was the coolest thing to watch him tackle that mouse (sad as it makes me) but it was frozen so that makes it a tad better. Name suggestions people, we need names! 

Spring slowly drizzling (roaring, storming, sleeting) In

Hello hello! I forgot a lunch today so I thought I would take my break to post a quick howdy do and what we're up to. 

The last couple of weeks have been crazy! Zach is nearing the end of his semester, so he is up to his nose in papers, tests and stress. That guy sure takes after his father in that when he gets stressed, he goes all the way! He is in the middle of a 25 page paper, with me poking him with a stick to finish before Mom and Dad come to visit (helpful I know, haha) so to say he's a little nervous would be a understatement. He's doing great though! His plans and research for his thesis are going great, his ideas are awesome, his new adviser is awesome, and the classes he has been taking seem awesome when he talks about them. He is currently working out the kinks of going to a conference in Vancouver, Canada at the University of British Columbia. Sweet! It's a small conference, but all the big names in his field will be there, so he's dying to go and get his own name out there. It would be an incredible chance to meet people and find potential research opportunities, so that's our goal! It is the end of June, he would be flying into Seattle and then taking a train or ferry to Canada. I'm trying to see if I can tag along as well, but that depends on if the school will pitch in on his fair or not. Cross your fingers! :D So he's pretty excited about getting the ball rolling, despite the nerves. Keep in him your prayers, he could use some comfort and confidence in the next few weeks. He's awesome! But you know I'm the wife so it doesn't count when I tell him that. Hahah.

I have been insanely busy but having a good time at work. I recently got a promotion (which means a raise!) and have just started my first few weeks running our Baldwin office about 20 minutes away from Lawrence. It's been great! It's a little chaotic, being our satellite it's new and a little less looked after, so getting things organized has been a hoot & a half, but it's finally smoothing out this week and I can breath a little. The first two weeks I pulled almost 15 hours of overtime, plus working every weekend (that's the downside of this deal) so it's been an adjustment but a fun one. I am also doing a huge plant/landscaping project for the Lawrence office (Eeeek! Yay!) so it's been a lot to keep up on but so fun to use my planty skills. Still a plant petter, as my friends used to call me when we went for walks... "Oh look a daffodil *pet pet* it's so Cuuute!" That's me, so this is exciting. :D

We still love it here :D the town is great, our ward and friends are fantastic, we still kinda like each other a little ;) and Webster is as fat as ever. So things are good! It is what these people call spring here....I call it drowning. 75 and sunny one day, and then it's below freezing and sleeting this awful grainy hail/styrofoam mix the next! It is green and bloomy gorgeous, which makes my commute to work Lovely! The huge storms have been weekly so we've been getting good use from the storm radio Mom gave us (Thanks Ma!) but we like storms so it's been pretty fun. 

Oh oh, new addition to the family! Nope, not that kind yet. We just got a beautiful Brazilian Rainbow Boa. The awesome pet store next door to our house (next door, that's a Adamz Zoo just waiting to happen) is one of our frequent dates, so we have looked some pets just for fun for ages. Then the other day, mid paper doom, Zachary says "We are going over there and getting a snake!" With wide eyes I said "Yes sir!" and here we are :D he's awesome! Look up Brazilian Rainbow Boas, he is a bright orange with brown spots, and their skin has an iridescence caused by tiny prisms in their scales, so he has a purple and rainbow glow to him, super neat! Webster just sits and stairs at him, haha with an occasional glass pawing. He's scared if him when he's out of the cage though, you should see Webster leap away from that snake. Sissy. We have to feed him mice (yeeesh!) but we'll cross that road in a few days when he needs to be fed again, thank goodness the pet store took care of the first round for us. Picture later, if I was home I'd post one. Btw...any name ideas? 

We love and miss everyone! Congratulations to Caitlin and Grant, as well as our friends Vanessa and Caleb for their new Babies! They are darling! :D We send our love, hope everyone is well (so much for this being short) and talk to you later. 

Oh Mom, Dad....see you this THURSDAY!!! Aaaaha! :D

Happy happy Valentines Day!

You know you have the perfect husband when he is so excited for the surprise he was waiting for you he can hardly stand it! So he tells you over and over how much you will love it, acts out what your exact reaction will be because he knows you to a T, and ends up being spot on no matter how hard I try to hold it in! Zachary is perfect! That is all I have to say. :) haha ok just kidding I want to tell it all!

So! We started a tradition of me spoiling Zachary Valentines Eve, and then Valentines is all his to play with. We'll see how that works out once we have kids :S but for now it's really fun. I surprised him with one of his favorite meals and some treats with a big tasty twist. A lobster tale! Steamed in our rice cooker, haha. He loved it and I was delighted that he liked it so much. His card was cute to if I may say so, haha. I had to get him two though! I have decided that my Father-in-law had the right idea when he gives his honey more than one card. I could not choose! So he got a bit of a spicy one that night then I had a sweeter fun one for Valentines Day. We had a lovely romantic evening.

For Valentines Day Zachary had some big plans that he was really excited about. I got off of work a little early and he picked me up all spiffed up and handsome (sigh) and took me downtown to a place called Tellers. Awesome! It's a really old bank converted into a fancy restaurant and it was amazing! There was a server with a waxed handle bar mustache big teeth and suspenders! It was like a black and white movie :D so fun. Our food was great and the experience was a blast, neither of us had been to a fancy place like that before, it was kinda fun, though half of our forks and such were still clean at the end, hahaha oh well.

He teased and taunted about my surprises the whole evening. "When you see it you are going to do this!" (some ridiculous excited face and girly gasp) "I will not!" Then he shows me and what do you know, it was like watching a replay. He was laughing so hard he was rolling. "You're going to do it again in a minute too" which I denied now that I was prepared and tried to hold it in....nope, next surprise got the same reaction. Boy does that man know me or what??

 Zach gave me some chocolates by Christopher Elbow, an artisan chocolate guy in Kansas City. They are gorgeous! Oh my goodness every one is lovely and delicious and it was about impossible to eat them! The fall leafy one was whisky walnut, and the purple swirly one was lavender caramel, those were our favorites though we loved them all! Yeah, I shared, though it was against Zach's will, it's more fun that way! I got a few goodies like the German hippos I like as well, what a spoiler! Other with the darling card which had me giggling and tearing up (that guy can write!) he also got me Skyfall, which I loved in theaters. A snugly night at home with luxurious treats, perfect. :)

That was our Valentines Day :) I adored every minute and the evening reminded me of how truly awesome Zachary is. I chose wisely. Haha! We enjoyed our time together and enjoyed realizing how well we fit together and compliment each other. We have a lot of love in our life and we plan to keep it that way. More pictures later, love you all!

Hello Hello everyone!

We are here playing house in my Aunt and Uncle Andersen's place while they are in Utah. We're pretending not to be Greeeeen with envy! So I figure that while I have a day or two of internet bliss I should update this poor neglected blog!

We have now been living here in Lawrence Kansas for about 6 months and can't believe it! Half a year? Weirdness! It feels like we just moved away and we still miss everyone like crazy (In Utah and everyone else scattered across the globe) yet we are all settled and it feels like home. We absolutely love our apartment. It is open and lovely, we keep it pretty spic and span cuz after the chaos of work and class, we like to keep it our little oasis. Just don't look at the laundry pile in my room. :S Sorry Aunt Leslie, we brought a basket....or two. Haha! The best thing about our place it the Green! It is a jungle people, a jungle. We were delighted when we incured minimal casualties from the move out hear, and the humidity and sunlight have made the survivors go hog wild. We just did a great divide of some of our more crowded pots and we're swimming in green stuff. We breath pure O2 in that place, it's good for the studious brain of Zachary Adamz.

We love our cute town as well. It is hilly and green and darling, not nearly as flat and spooky as expected. Lots of fun and cute local places, and the down town strip called "Mass. St" is a blast! We have made lots of friends, both single and couples(most from our student ward) and rarely go a day or two without a hang out session or a get together somewhere. Be it be a cooking nights, game nights or we exhausted who's having the best dinner for us to mooch on night, we trade. :) We have a group that we rotate FHEs hosting with, Thursday is Gals/Guys nights and we pretty much party all the time! I can't believe how lucky we've been in the friends we've made, we love them so much and truly are blessed with the wonderful people we are surrounded by.

Zachary is doing great with his school work! He studies constantly, has soooo many awesome ideas I just bubble over with pride sometimes and his professors love him! He is really enjoying school more than he used to now that he can work on what he likes most and has so many big plans for his thesis, paper, books and beyond. Good luck sweet cheeks! He's a busy beaver and never does anything halfway. We just splurged with some Christmas money to get him an Awesome desk for his study, he's happy to finally have a good spot to work. This semester took off with a whirlwind and he's already up to his eyeballs with papers presentations and one opportunity to write a chapter for a book (yay!) but he gives it his all and does splendidly! He is also has a job at the KY Map Library (perfect) which can get a little dull and dusty but he gets a lot of study time and has fun going through thousands and thousands of map. I often get a random text with one ridiculously named city or an another. "We HAVE to go there!" it's a lot of fun and he's really doing great. He has a lot of fun with the guys in the ward as well, he finally has someone other than me to play crazy games with! A relief for us both :) He is amazing at helping around the house when I fall behind with how busy I get with work (a lot of over time and out of work events lately) and is the sweetest husband I could possibly hope for! He constantly makes my day with little here and there surprises and sweet nothings that I still just beam with how awesome he is. I'm so happy that it makes me tear up to think of how lucky I am to have him and how much he blesses by life. We're as in love as ever :), which is good since we're not yet 2 years into this long hall haha, and play and laugh and sing our way through all the tough stuff as well as the grand. He was just called last week as Sunday school president and is a fantastic teacher. We love our ward by the way! In short, he's doing well and I love that man to bits. Ok gush over I promise! Sorry guys, it's for me to read 50 years from now.

I am absolutely loving my job! I work at a pretty big optical clinic that is the place to go in Lawrence. All the doctors are fantastic, the teams are fantastic, the manager is tough but fair and an absolute blast! The goal of the business to to be exceed excellence in quality and customer service of course, but most of all to make the work place somewhere we want to be. If we're going to spend the majority of our waking hours there, our bosses want us to be happy because that will transfer to our customers. And boy to they keep us happy! We have an absolute blast, we all have a great connection with each other and can work together well, but we keep the serious professionalism that makes our business thrive. And we are so busy it makes our heads spin! That's how we like it. I worked customer service for 6 months and I am now training as an optician like Mom. After a few months of that I will train as a doctors technician/assistant and then I will be fully trained to work at their new location in Baldwin City. I've been sent to one conference in Wichita (a group of us went for 2 days and it was a blast) and I have another next weekend for 3 days. They really believe in having a staff that is well educated and they really invest a lot in developing professional and functional employees. Do they know how to do it right or WHAT? Anyway, there are no plants involved so it is not permanent by any means but it's one of the best jobs I've ever had. It's also the hardest by a long shot, and sometimes I go absolutely crazy it's so busy and complicated but we make work like home and we love it.

The cat is fat. Our dear King Tootinkattin has become a true house cat. He is fluffy and lies around all day, usually flat on his back with his legs in the air. Hahah we love it! He has always loved water so he hangs out in the bathroom and whines at the door when you are in there with out him, but his esteem lessened a little a few weeks ago. He usually sits on the edge of the tub while I take a bath and dips his tail in. This time he leaned too far over and fell in! He was flailing and scrambling and I was laughing so hard I couldn't help him so by the end he was soaked to the bone and I was covered in scratched form is panic and Zach was stunned holding a dripping Webster in a towel unsure of what to do next! Hahaha he's avoided the tub for a while. Anywho he is spoiled by every one who drops by and they all love him.

Ok trying to catch up is making this way to long of a post but really quickly here is a list of special evens of late! We saw The Hobbit, Skyfall and  Les Miserables, the latter two of which were amazing!! Zachary also liked Lincoln which he saw with a friend. Zach finished his first semester and enjoyed his first ever spring break (Darn BYU) but still kept busy. We've spent a lot of time with the Andersen's having a blast with all the fun we get into. Lisa, Matt and Ellie come down too (They are here now sitting on the couch! Here looking for a house, yay!!!!) so being close to family has been great as well.

Ok ok, Zach needs the computer so I gotta run, but we love and miss you all and you are all in our prayer. See ya!