Spring Break in Utah

We lucked out that both of our Spring Breaks (mine at the elementary school and Brody's at CSU) landed on the same week: March 18-22. Actually I think they do it on purpose, assuming that a lot of people who work at CSU probably have kids (or spouses) in the school district. Smart thinking people! So we took this opportunity and headed to Utah to see our families.  Even though we were just there 2 1/2 months ago for Christmas, it's always good to see everyone and it helps that it's only a 7 hour drive.  Here's what our week looked like:

Friday: I worked for 3 hours in the morning, then we headed out around 1:00.  The drive went smooth (except for the part when Salomon threw up his sleeping pills -- so much for attempting to keep him calm during the car ride).

Saturday: We slept at Brody's mom's house the whole week and the first night we were there, Devyn and Dylan (our niece and nephew) came over for a sleepover.  It was so fun to hang out with them and enjoy their cuteness.

This is our cozy little room at Varsi's.  Brody drew those pictures hanging on the wall above the bed.  They are amazing!

That night we went to dinner at Beehive Grill with Varsi and Con, then came home and watched Wreck-It Ralph (what a cute movie!)


Sunday (St. Patty's Day):  This day was jam packed with family time! We went to church with my family in the morning, had a progressive-style lunch with my mom's side of the family, zipped up to Brittney's house to see Bergendi (Brody's sister) who was up from SLC for the day, then had dinner with my dad's side of the family.  It was a crazy day, but lots of fun!

Monday: The week days were a little more relaxed.  Since no one else was on spring break, they were all at school/work during the day.  But that's OK, we got to sleep in, exercise, lounge around, etc.  Monday evening we went with my family to the Salomon Center in Ogden to celebrate my brother Cam's birthday.  We had a lot of fun eating at The Pizza Factory, playing arcades, watching my brothers do iFly & rock climbing and doing some indoor surfing.

The picture on the bottom left is all of us on our phones at the same time -- you may think that we were bored and don't like each other but it was actually the opposite.  We were all happily engaged in a conversation and most of us were google-ing the topic we were talking about in order to add more to the conversation.

This iFly thing was pretty darn cool.  Only my brothers did it, because it's a little pricey, but they said it was awesome.  Basically what happens is you get in a tube and they blast some air with such strong force that it makes you float.

I got the worst whip lash from this activity.  Every time you fall, the water shoots you up and away.  It was still fun though.

Tuesday: Went bowling in the evening with my family and the Bundy's.  To my great surprise I beat everybody (there were 9 of us)!!! That never happens!  I think it was a fluke.

Wednesday:  Went to a park during the day with the Bundy's and we brought Salomon along since Lydia kept asking about him.  Turns out she's a little afraid of him... ha ha.  It was such a nice day!  We spent the evening with Varsi and Con.

Thursday:  Went with my brother (and other family members) through the temple for his first time!  He's leaving on his mission May 22 to Everett, Washington.  It was a neat experience!

The sunset was very pretty when we came out

Friday:  Went to Brittney's for dinner and to play games with Devyn and Dylan, then back to Varsi's for the rest of the night.

Saturday:  Took family pictures with my family (pictures to come later) and headed home!

for now, here's a "behind the scenes" picture

#mypal #notgoodinthecar #floatinghead

It was a great trip and I'm so glad we were able to go!!

Going Gray

Does anyone else out there feel like the blogging "fad" is slowly fading away?  I'm noticing that fewer and fewer friends and family members actually update their blog.  Probably because things like Facebook and Instagram are so much easier, which makes sense.  But personally, I like having a detailed description of things that are happening in my life and I have loved going back through and reading all my old blog posts.  So I'm just going to continue on, even if I'm one of the few who do.


All of us here in the Hatch household are going gray.  Check it out:

Brody
Brody has had multiple gray hairs ever since I've known him.  He used to dye his hair black, but hasn't done that for about 5 years.  I think the amount of gray hairs on his head have tripled over the last year due to stress from his PhD program.

Kylee
I found my first gray hair a few months ago and have seen two more since!  I kept one of them in, just for fun.

Salomon
Even Salomon is going gray.  The fur around his nose/mouth is turning white.  And we think that may be an age spot by his eye (or it could just be a mole, who knows)

this cupcake rubber duck that I got from a student at school has been his favorite toy lately.

We're all getting old over here!

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On a separate note, this week we're on SpRiNg BrEaK!!  We lucked out that both of our spring breaks (my job at the elementary school and Brody's program at CSU) lined up perfectly, so we decided we might as well take a road trip to Utah to see our families, and that's exactly what we did!

More details of this trip to come shortly (for any out there who are still even reading this blog...)

Snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park

Like I mentioned in my last post, our Saturday's during the winter are rather boring and uneventful but the last few Saturday's have been pretty fun.

Saturday Adventure #2 (March 2): Snowshoeing in RMNP
Our friends Jon & Carrie invited us over for a yummy breakfast Saturday morning and then drove us down to Rocky Mountain National Park to go snowshoeing as part of Jon's birthday celebration.  It was a lot of fun to hang out with them, get some fresh air and exercise and see the beauty of the mountains.  It was a perfect day for this activity, with a high of 46 degrees.  I'm glad we were able to go!

Taking a snack break

Carrie and me

We hiked to this frozen lake called Bear Lake

It was a very fun day!

Alpaca Extravaganza!!

Our normal Saturday during the wintertime looks a little bit like this:  Do some sort of work out, clean the whole house, clean the car OR Salomon (alternating weeks), do laundry, go grocery shopping, go to the bank/make returns/or do any other errands that have come up during the week.  Then at night we usually get together with our friends but since it's cold & dark outside and none of us are super wealthy, we sometimes have a hard time coming up with interesting things to do (at least in the winter).

The past two Saturday's however, have been out of the ordinary and a lot of fun.  For now, I'll focus on the first adventure.

Saturday Adventure #1: Alpaca Extravaganza!!
We headed down to Longmont with our friends Stan & Chelsea and Casey (Nicole was out of town but we missed her lots!) to check out this fun event (yes it was actually called Alpaca Extravaganza) that Stan and Chelsea found out about and knew that I would enjoy (they know me all too well!)  And lucky for me, everyone else had a fun time too!

I found out that Alpaca's and Llama's are different in the following ways:  Alpaca's are smaller and are used for their fur (it sells for quite a bit of money).  Llamas are a little bigger, not as fluffy and are used as guard animals for Alpaca's.  Who knew!  Most of the Alpaca's were pretty funny looking and we enjoyed talking to all the Alpaca ranchers and learning more about these fascinating creatures.

After the Alpaca adventure we went to CPK for dinner and then McDonald's for dessert (McFlurrie's). It was there that Brody was issued the challenge to eat 40 chicken nuggets in one sitting (remember, this was AFTER we just got done eating dinner).  He always likes being challenged (or "dared" as I call it), so he did it.

This is how he started: (hopeful, daring, excited)

And this is how he ended up (disgusted, stuffed to the brim, on the verge of up-chucking... you get it)  That last chicken nugget was the hardest to get down.

It was pretty entertaining to watch and overall it was a very fun day.  Much better than the typical winter Saturday.

Up next -- Saturday Adventure #2: Snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park

Fun times with Salomon

Salomon is such a funny dog and we just like having him around.  Here are some of the fun/interesting things he does:

Lays his head on things
Very frequently, he lays his head right on our lap, or on the edge of the bed or the couch (wherever it is we happen to be).  We're pretty sure he does it to get attention because he won't move until we pet him or just push him away.  We usually always end up petting him though, because we're pushovers.

Fetch
He LOVES playing fetch and would probably play until he dropped dead from exhaustion.  We try and take him to the field at least once a week to run around (but in the winter it's a bit tough).  There were a few Sunday's in January though, that were particularly nice (for winter time).  The temp was around 45 - 55 those days.  We took advantage and got outside a few times.

Ready....

Set....

GO!

And he always brings it right back - what a good dog

Dog Poncho

We found this old blanket of Sal's that he had chewed a hole in when he was a puppy.  The hole was the perfect size for his head to fit through, so we put it on him like a poncho.  It was pretty funny.

Doggy Friends
We watched our friends dog (Foxy) for a week while they were out of town and it was pretty funny watching the two dogs interact. They were almost always together, every time we turned around, they would both just be starting back at us.  Foxy tried SO hard to get Sal to play, but he just wasn't interested.  We're pretty sure he's anti-social (only with other dogs though, not people).

One evening, we went to our friend's house for some yummy dessert, and we decided to bring along our dogs and make it a doggy play date as well. Their sizes are small, medium and large and they range in age from 7 months to 5 1/2 years. It was pretty funny to watch them interact.  Salomon of course, didn't want anything to do with the other dogs, so he busied himself with other things. We got them to sit still for a picture by bribing them with treats.  Dogs are funny animals.

Bringing back memories
Back when we lived in Utah, we had a doggy door for Sal, and every time we came home, he would stick his head out of the doggy door to welcome us back.  Now that we have a backyard, we just let him go out whenever he wants and let him back in when he's done.  We know he's done because he'll just be sitting by the door with his head slightly poking up.  It brings back memories of the doggy door.

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In case you missed part 1 and 2 of the "fun times with..." series, you can find those here:

Fun times with Friends

Fun times with Brody