About Our Family

El Paso, Texas, United States
We are James, Lisa, Patrick, Christian, Carson, and Ella Payne a military family serving our country via service in the U.S. Army. Jim and I have been married for 18 years and have 3 wonderful home grown sons -Patrick, Christian and Carson. We recently adopted our beautiful daughter Ella Grace Ana from Donets'k, Ukraine in September. Jim and I began our Army life together at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas and every assignment thus far has extended unique opportunities and challenges for our family to grow and learn; to become a stronger, committed, and a prepared Army family. Having recently lived abroad for six amazing years, we cannot express how thankful we are for the opportunity to have represented our great country and to discover the cultures and customs of other countries; to become close to the people and learn from them; to open our hearts and minds to the unfamiliar languages and way of life in other countries. Having now moved back to the United States, we are looking forward to discovering what new adventures await our family. Rest assured, wherever the Army sends us we will continue to serve you and our country proudly. Army life, we wouldn’t trade it!

May 8, 2008

Packed!

Day one began at 0730. The movers wanted to be here at 0700 but I negotiated for 0730 as the boys are preparing for school.

So our moving day began with coffee & blueberry pancakes. Then, it was off to packing! They packed until 1330 or lunch time. For lunch, we had bocadillas with cheese, chips, and a variety of drinks to include cerveza (beer). Then, more packing followed by more packing!

Finally, we are finished packing at 1930.

The moving team will arrive again tomorrow morning (0730) to a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, biscuits, coffee & juice. Gotta feed 'em good - they are taking care of our stuff!

Tomorrow the team will move everything into crates....I wonder how many? Check back tomorrow for the final count!

2 comments:

Michelle said...

I may just become a packer!!!

So when do you land in America and do you already have a house or will be you be staying with family temporarily? How long does it take to get your stuff?

... said...

Hi Michelle,

We will hopefully travel through Atlanta; stop off to see my family (5 hours north) for a few days and then travel back to Atlanta and fly to Texas. We own a house in Texas - but we will not occupy it. We have military "quarters" waiting for us; but we are anticipating being in temporary lodging for about 2 weeks. Our "belongings" will arrive NLT July 10th ~ usually they are at location prior to the max date established by the moving corp.

This is our "spot" we began at the beginning of our journey in May 2007, to adopt a child from Ukraine. In August 2008, we traveled to Ukraine to bring our daughter/sister Ella Grace Ana home; and on September 12, 2008 we did just that.

While our journey to bring her home is complete, our journey together is just beginning. We will continue to keep our spot here, posting as frequently as we can; and keeping you updated on our next journey in life...maybe a second adoption is in our future.

Please join us by following us by clicking on the "Follow" link to the left and posting your notes at the bottom of any post we have made.

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