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!

August 12, 2008

Getting There...

...One day at a time.
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Friday we received our 2nd of 3 shipments of our personal belongings. This one wasn't too large; I had most of it disseminated and put away before Jim got home from work.
We worked on it until movie time (we had decided what isn't done will just have to wait until we return).
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The weekend flew by.
Friday night is ALWAYS family movie night. Lots of movies, pizza, popcorn and soda.
Saturday we took the boys to the local Diablos baseball game; ate hot dogs, popcorn, soda, and waited for one of those foul balls to come our way.
We spent time a lot of time together this weekend - our last one together for several weeks.
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Monday arrived much quicker than expected. I still have a good sized 'to-do' list in front of me. No worries, it will all come together. I sorted what is left 'to do' by days and then sorted those by priority. Easy enough!
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Christian & Carson begin school on Wednesday - yes, already!
I have their uniforms ready but, we are lacking shoes and haircuts.
Patrick registered for his classes today; he will need to return tomorrow to finish up his enrollment.
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I am armed with my list for tomorrow. Ready to rise early and get started.
It's the last day the boys have at home so I want to make sure we have plenty of time for fun!
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Check back soon - most likely one last posting before we leave.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are thinking of you everyday and wishing you a wonderful journey. I know that we have been terrible about writing lately, getting settled ourselves has been a killer on this move. But we can not wait to hear more and we will be with you every step of the way. God bless, good luck and enjoy it even though being away from everybody will be hard.

... said...

Thank you Rita. We know moving is a busy time and you are trying to get settled. Thank you walking with us through this journey. Just knowing your out there makes a difference. Keep praying and posting.

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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