Eldon Mauray Payne

My grandpa passed away on Sunday, May 20th. He was almost 81 years old. My uncle made this site and I invite all of you to visit it when you get a chance. http://www.designsharp.com/mauray/

Here is most of my family. I say "most" because it is missing 14 people, but with a family that size, "most" is pretty darn good.

Elder Mason

This is my darling baby brother, Mason. He left on a mission about a month ago and I miss him. he will be serving the the Canada, Montreal, French Speaking Mission (after he is finished at the MTC). So enjoy a few pics of this adorable stud muffin. I miss him lots.

Weird Dreams

Lately I have been having some pretty strange dreams. I don't know if it is stress or what, but here are some of the strangest:

In one of my dreams my mom and I were driving to Canada in a snowstorm. we stopped at my ex boyfriend's house and he tried to hold my hand. I got really mad at him and told him that I was going to marry zak. My mom got in our car and started to drive away, but it was in really busy traffic so it was going really slowly and I jumped out to go and do something, but when I got back to the car all of the traffic including my car was gone. Then a strange guy came and said he knew where I could find my car and He took me to a receptionist's desk where they took me prisoner. Then I woke up.

In another dream, I was in my apartment and zak was with me. Then zak turned into a mean guy that I knew in high school and wouldn't let me leave my apartment.

Another night I dreamed that Zak and I were married and were living in a condo but half of the building of condos was part of the mental hospital. The hallways were blocked off with doors so the patients couldn't get out of their section of the building. One night, someone opened all of the doors so the patients could come out and eat any babies or kids in the building. Zak disappeared and left me to find away out of the building by myself. Then I woke up.

In my latest dream, I was with my family at a Sea World show and we were chosen to do a suicide demonstration for the crowd. First I put my family in a cereal box and then I got in with them and the sea world people threw us in the pool. A giant bronze cougar was swimming around chasing our cereal box trying to eat us. Half way through the show we decided that we didn't want to die anymore, so a giant Coca Cola polar bear came and saved us. The I woke up.

AM I A PSYCHO?! Proly. Can't I have normal happy dreams?

PS only 81 days!

Being Engaged

Soo guess what.... I'm engaged! It became official at 9:51pm on Saturday, December 23, 2006. (Zak's watched stopped) We went on a nice date in Park City where we went ice skating (just like our first date) and out to dinner. After dinner we drove up around Deer Valley and got to a place in the road where you could look out over Park City. We danced in the street to some good old Ben Folds, and the next thing I knew, I was holding 2 dozen red roses and he was down on one knee.

When I got home to tell my family they were all sitting on one couch watching Father of the Bride at the part when Annie tells her family that she is engaged. (Haha very funny family.) They, apparently knew what Zak had been planning.

Wedding plans have been ok so far, with a few... kinks, but everything will come together. We have the Bountiful Temple at 10:00am, and our reception will be at Market Street Grill at Cottonwood. Its fun because the manager at Cottonwood let me have input on what color of flowers will be planted on the patio and one of the chefs is excited to cater for it and has said that he will do pretty much anything we ask for.

Thanks for all of your help and support so far! It is much appreciated. Only 106 more days!

Barf: Good day and Bad day

I just spent all day on Sunday worshipping the porcelain bowl. I lost 10 pounds in one day (in fluids of course, but STILL!) Death seemed like a really good option. I HATE being sick!! The end.

Anyway... I'm getting better and getting ready for finals. Thats about all the news from me for now. The football game was SO GREAT! That was fun. And trying to sing the Messiah was cool too. I will have to practice so I actually know it next time.

Here's Johny...!!!!!

Trick or Treat?

So, Zak told me today that he has been trick-or-treating every year of his life so far. That's a lot of years and a lot of candy. It made me think about my own short Trick-or-Treating career. I was not allowed to go beg for candy when I turned 13, and it was a fight to go when I was twelve years old. I was invited to stay home and hand out candy to all of my friends. (woe is me)

I would hide behind the door while my dad lectured all of the teenage guys that would come trick-or-treating without costumes. He would tell them to come back when they were "dressed properly." They usually came back about a minute later with some face paint and messy hair.

A few years later it wasn't so bad to skip the candy and go to parties. I had a friend that always had a great Halloween Party.

Now I am the ultimate of lame on Halloween. I am sitting at work blogging while the rest of the world is collecting and sorting candy. I crimped my hair so it is all poofy, and if anyone asks what I am supposed to be I tell them that I am Tiffany (the redheaded 80s rock star, "I think we're alone now...").

Vanilla

The chocolate episode ends on SUNDAY! I am so excited, only two more days.

When Wendy's introduced the Vanilla Frosty, I felt betrayed. Why would they even consider inventing a frosty that was something other than chocolate?! To me, Frosty=Chocolate and is not to be followed by the question "What flavor?" Today I wanted a treat in between classes so I ran to Wendy's for a frosty thinking that I would cave in and try vanilla. Don't get me wrong, I really like vanilla ice cream, and the frosty was ok, but I couldn't hold back my disappointment.

(Yes this is really the most exciting thing that is going on in my life. I apologize for not having more interesting stories to share. I guess I did have a dream where I was hanging out with the football team and Mia got taken by The Others, but that's about it.)

Chocolate Fast

It is day 15 of my separation from my favorite substance on earth. Zak talked me into being chocolate free for one month. We are also not eating fast food and carbonation. I don't know if I am going to make it. Everywhere I go there is chocolate. The first day of class, my professer passed around a bag of snickers. I went home to Draper for dinner and there was a pan of warm brownies waiting for me. I went back to my apartment later that night and there was another pan of chewy, yummy brownies along with a plate of chocolate chip cookies (with the big milk chocolate chips). Last night at midnight, my roommate decided that she needed ice cream and that I needed to go with her. When we got there we had the choice between chocolate or strawberry. The textbook for my adult development class compared aging to different types of CHOCOLATE. I went to class today and I sat through 20 minutes of my professer talking about how chocolate can be good for you because it is high in antioxidents and how some people believe that eating chocolate can slow the aging process.

I have a problem. I know. But thinking that I can't eat chocolate makes me want it even more. I have been compensating by eating peanut butter and sugary candy that I didn't used to eat. I think the plan is backfiring.

Where's my Sports Page?

I work in the Student Athlete Academic Center at BYU. Every morning when I go in to work I go through the newspaper and clip articles about BYU sports. This morning the newspaper was there but not the sports section. I went wandering all over the office trying to find it. I finally found it in Jamal Willis's office. Jamal Willis is an academic advisor, and BYU's all time leading rusher, played for the San Francisco 49ers... he is a really cool guy. I never thought that I would end up fighting over the sports section of the newspaper with a record holding ex-pro football player.

The EFY Week of Crappiness

Idaho hates me. It really does and here's why. All of my five efy weeks were scheduled at BYU except for the middle one when I was supposed to work at BYU-Idaho. This is a fine plan, except this is how the week went:

Sunday, I am driving along, minding my own buisness and listening to my book on tape, when Officer Carlton (or something like that) pulls me over, gives me a ticket and tells me to drive slower. Grrr. Fine so that one was my fault, but still, it was not a good start to the week.

Monday, we meet the kids. Everything is fine. They are the 14-15 age group, and really shy. They are all still trying to act cool. Two guys join our group later on in the afternoon, and I realized after some of my girls pointed it out to me, that when they arrived, they were high. Yes like on drugs, at efy. Good.

Tuesday, my co-counselor tells me that some of the guys were complaining about someone smoking outside their window. He also tells me that he is concerned because one of his boys told him that he had been disfellowshipped.

While I am on lunch duty making sure that no efy kids escape the lunch area, two of my girls came to tell me that last night they had been talking to some of the guys in our group on the phone the night before and they were talking about how they where smoking cigars and cigarettes in their apartment (at efy!). They were also telling my girls about the different kinds of drugs that they use at home. Great. Only one of the boys was sent home.

That night at the dance, my co-counselor had some kind of... something. We weren't sure what it was, but she was shaking uncontrollably. She was so sick afterward that she ended up spending all day on wednesday in her apartment.

Wendesday, one of the guys told me about how he had just gotten a call from his dad telling him that his nephew had been born during the night with a hole in his heart and they didn't know if he was going to live. He ended up getting sick for most of the rest of the week.

My BC (the person in charge of me, and the one that I go to when I have various problems) got sick and spent the day in the hospital.

Wednesday night is games night and because one of my co-counselors was sick and the other was on duty, I was left with 32 kids in a massive crazy mess, until my co got off duty. Not my cup of tea.

Thursday was good. Good stuff happened and I felt like I was doing something worthwhile. Oh, one thing that happened was that a 14 year old had been drinking tequila out of an IBC Rootbeer bottle. I guess she was totally wasted and was scaring her little 14 year old roommates. Because of other various events she and her roommate needed to be separated, so the roommate came to hang out with us in the counselor apartment. (This is efy people.)

Friday started out good, but some of my girls had to check out early, and then their ride arrived late, so i didn't get to say good bye to the rest of my kids. That was a bummer. While waiting for their ride to come I realized that I had lost my car keys. I freaked out with this horrified feeling of being trapped in Rexburg forever. I thought that I had locked them in my trunk so I found a nice mechanic to help break into my car. No keys in the trunk. I eventually found them in my backpack. I love/hate when that happens.

To top it all off, I was walking up the hill to try to find some of my group, when I got hit with a waterballoon. I was so stressed and tired that I started bawling right there in the street. I felt like a little kid that was lost in Wal-Mart.

These wonderful adventures as well as the usual, sassy girls, kids with bad attitudes, battling lights out, and acting as the modesty police filled my time in Rexburg. Good stuff happened too, of course, but the bad stuff sometimes has a way of screaming in your face and leaving a bad taste in your mouth.

efy

I'm back! EFY was really fun. You can do crazy things as an efy counselor that you could never do anywhere else. I learned a ton about myself and other people. Each week definately had its ups and downs. One of the constant ups was that I always got girls that were good at lights out (more sleep for me!). One of the downs was eating food that tasted like my big toe dipped in ranch dressing. Here are some stories.

One week I had a girl from Saudi Arabia. When she would talk about her home she would say: "Back in Saudi we do it this way..." It was cute. She had grown up with some crazy stuff. She told me about one time when her house had been marked by terrorists because she was non-Arab and non-muslim.

The next week I had two sisters in my group. One of the girls was adopted from Haiti. They had 12 kids in their family and 4 were adopted.

Week three was my Rexburg week. I hope I never go to Idaho again.

My first week with the older group (16-18 years) was fun. I had some sassy girls that didn't want to be there, but I think they had a good time, and I got to be friends with them. That week we also had Miss Teen California in our group. She would walk around BYU campus in 4 inches of spike heels. Amazing.

My last week was fun because the group united really fast. We had an awesome group name- Thrash the Nations. On Friday we decided that we would celebrate everyone's birthday. We got a stereo going at lunch time and had a dance party that we called Club Thrash.

More pictures are posted on my efy blog, if you care to take a peek- tiffefy.blogspot.com

Alive

Yes I am still alive and I will be sure to blog my efy adventures. For now look at what my wonderful boyfriend sent me (with a special thanks to Zak, Jaime, Jessie, Teylor and Kobe).

Chalk Art

On Saturday, my friend Danielle and I participated in the Utah Fostercare Foundation's Chalk Art Festival. It was a part of the KSL Kids Fair at the Gateway. This was our third year doing it and I think it is our best one yet. It is a 6'x6' chalk drawing that took us almost 13 hours to complete. Towards the end of the day it was so hot that the pastels just kind of crumbled and almost melted onto the sidewalk. IT WAS SO HOT!

We chose to do Mickey Mouse this year because it is so much fun when all of the little kids (and lots of adults) walk past and get excited to see something that they recognize. It is neat to draw something that makes so many people happy. It was flattering to have people taking pictures of it. One person even asked us for our buisness card. To bad we didn't have one, drat! In the past, we have drawn Pinnochio, Cinderella, Van Gogh's Night Cafe, and a picture of a mountain lion.

Danielle and I have been chalking partners for four years. We started by doing Alta's Chalk the Walk. During our senior year, a lady from the Fostercare Foundation came to our high school and invited a bunch of people to participate in the Chalk Art Festival. And we had done it every summer for the past few years.

Random Thought

Man!! I miss recess. Recess was the greatest idea that anyone ever had. They should have recess in college, with a big playground in the middle of campus. It would be especially handy during finals week. Yeah, that's a professional idea.

I Love Flowers!

I love flowers. These were delivered to me at work. Talk about the perfect way to make a girl smile!

The Parents

I am so lucky to have such great parents! I like to think that they are doing a pretty great job of raising their family.

My dad's name is Eldon, and he works for Gastronomy Inc. in Salt Lake. He enjoys BYU football, 24, seafood, sailing, and coaching. This is where I get my red hair, but his has turned dark over the years.

My mom's name is Rosemary. She grew up in Bountiful and went to Woodscross High School. She likes hiking, laughing, scrapbooking, planning vacations, and collecting salt and pepper shakers. She is really good at working with people, especially little kids and youth.

The Kids

Today is a beautiful day because its Friday and I HAVE NO HOMEWORK AND NO CLASS!! Hooray, only work. Yes it is a beautiful day. With my golden time I decided to write a little bit about my family. They are great!





Heather is a babe. She just turned 15 and she loves to sing and play the piano. She will start going to Alta this fall. That is so crazy!! My baby sister is going to high school. Wow. She is excited to go on the 4th year backpacking trip with the Young Women in our stake this summer, she is one tough chick.




Mason is a stud. He is 18 and graduates in June. He will start at BYU this fall before he leaves on a mission this winter. He plays pitcher and is a left handed first baseman for his baseball team. He also sprinted for the Alta track team until he sprained his ankle this week in a baseball game. The poor guy has crutches and everything. Besides sports he is really good at computer animation, video production and photography. Basically, he does it all.



I was the crazy dancer of the family. Ballet and modern are my favorites, but I have also done jazz, and a little bit of hip hop, tap and ballroom. It has been great growing up with my brother and sister because we have each had our different strengths and talents. Their success is my success, and I know that they feel the same way about me.

Little Redheads

One of the employees at my work has been bringing his kids in with him for the past couple of weeks. When he is in meetings with my boss, I get to take care of them. They are soo cute!! Lauren is 6 and Jackson is 3 and they both have red hair. Because we all have the same hair color we started a club. One of the football players walked by with a surprised look on his face and asked if they were mine. Silly me, I thought he was talking about all of the toys that the kids had scattered around my desk, so I just smiled and nodded. It didn't even cross my mind that he was asking if they were my kids! Oh well are so cute that I don't really care.

One day we had a couple of minutes before they were going to go home and I showed them a picture of Zak that was on my computer. I told them that it was my boyfriend and Jackson looked at it critically. I asked him if he thought Zak looked like a nice guy and he said: "Yeah, but I have bigger muscles," and he flexed his three-year-old bicep for me. He was so adorable- I think you might have some competition Zak...

Heather's Birthday

My baby sister turned 15 yesterday. She is changing from a cute little girl into a gorgeous babe! For her birthday, she and her friend, Courtney got their hair and makeup done and were going to have their pictures taken together. But they couldn't get in to the photographer so Mason and I got to take the pictures. I think they turned out pretty well. I think the girls had fun being primped and posed, and definately had fun taking the pictures. We used my camera for the color photos and Mason's had black and white film. I am excited to see his prints, and he is excited to use these pictures for his portfolio.

Later that night we went out to dinner and seated at the table next to us was Elder Holland!! He heard the waiter singing Happy Birthday to Heather and as he was leaving he came over to wish her a happy birthday as well. It was really cool!

Creepy Homeless Guy at Glenwood!

Yikes! Scary story. There is a homeless guy that wanders the streets of Provo, but recently he has decided to haunt the halls of Glenwood. He likes to come and look out the window on my floor overlooking the pool. My roommate has talked to him a couple of times (bad idea) and asked him to leave. He just got really mad at her and would yell random threats until she would leave. People have seen him in the pool area late at night and hiding in the bushes around Glenwood. We have called the police to report him and talked to the Glenwood office, but nothing really seems to be being done about it.

Last night he was there again and he was carrying a table around with him. It is a small hallway type of table and it would disappear and reappear throughout the evening. Kinda creepy. At about 1:30 am my roommates heard someone pushing buttons on our key pad door lock thinger and they could see someone's feet under the door walking back and forth. They called the police who came to check things out. They said that he is suspected for some break ins around Provo.

I hope that this is the end of the scary story...