Sunday, August 22, 2010

Bear Lake

Shane's extended family decided to have a reunion at Bear Lake over the 24th of July weekend...which worked out quite nicely for us as my family was also going to be at Bear Lake, just a few miles down the road, at the same time!! So we bought our plane tickets (round trip for me, one-way for Shane who rode home with the men on Sunday night) and worked out the plan: we'd stay with my family but spend the days at Shane's family reunion. It worked out quite nicely... Here's a brief (actually not-so-brief) review of our vacation:

We rode up to Bear Lake with my parents. Dylan slept pretty much the whole way from Salt Lake to Evanston, then he ate some lunch and spent the rest of the drive like this. It started with the tag (who knows why kids love tags so much) and then ended up being as much of the blanket as he could fit into his mouth:


We got to Bear Lake a day and a half before the reunion started, so we spent a lot of time out boating with my family. Dylan LOVED the boat. During his first excursion, he was so relaxed I kept checking to make sure he was still breathing! He wasn't as much a fan of his life vest since it made him sit up very tall.







Shane learned and I remembered how to wakeboard. It was a nice reminder of how out of shape I am!! (And, of course, we were both overshadowed by the skills of my dad and brother)



Sadly, we took very few pictures at the actual family reunion... Below are the only ones we took (the only others I have are varied angles/shots of the same situations)...along with one I stole from Amy's post about the weekend. I guess we were too busy having fun. Everyone made it to the reunion except for 2 cousins. We had lots of good food, games, and an entertaining variety show.

{Dylan with this great-grandma and great-grandpa Hatch}

{On the beach--Dylan LOVED playing in the water even though it was cold!}


{The youngest grandkid and all of the great-grankids got matching pajamas in honor of the Red Moose Lodge}

The night of the 24th, we set off some fireworks with my family and Jared and Jessie's neighbors who came up to visit. The kids had a great time with the sparklers! (A special thanks goes out to Jessie who willingly stayed in the condo with the babies so I could go enjoy the fireworks with Shane.)



After the reunion, I rode back to Salt Lake with my parents to spend an extra day with them. We stopped in Evanston for some lunch and entertained Dylan with a straw and a spork while we were there. He didn't want to give them up when we put him in the car, so...


In Salt Lake, Dylan relished in the fact that he could play outside, during the day time, and not be dripping with sweat!! He loved playing in the grass (something he hasn't really had a chance to do) and with the fun new toys at Grammie's house.




And now, I've saved the best for last... Dylan loved playing with his cousins. This is the first time he's been with them where he could really interact (smile, reach/grab, etc.) so it was fun seeing him with them. Vera was so good with him. She'd give him toys, read to him, talk to him, and try and make him laugh. Reuben was good too, but seemed to be more concerned about keeping the toys he wanted.



Throughout the trip, we tried to get a good picture of the three of them together... You'd think it would be easy to get a good picture of a 4-year-old, a 15-month-old, and an 8-month-old, right? Let's just say it was quite comical... Here's a few of the better ones:

{Click for larger}

Up next: our San Diego weekend adventure!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Fourth of July and a visit from Grammie!

Fourth of July weekend brought a visit from Grammie Jen....


And a pool party at Uncle Tom's house. Dylan absolutely LOVED the pool! He played for 30 minutes before lunch and then for over an hour after his nap. It was a nice and refreshing break from the July heat.



Thanks to Aunt Amy, Dylan was very patriotic for church on the Fourth...


And we even let him stay up to see the fireworks! He was quite mesmerized by them. (I can't remember why he has no clothes on...)


On Monday, Shane decided we'd take a tour of two old Spanish missions in southern Arizona: San Xavier del Bac and Tumacacori. I really like old, authentic buildings, so this was a fun adventure...if only the weather had cooperated! Poor Dylan was a trooper and didn't complain despite the heat and his too-small sun hat.

{Click for larger}

Because Dylan loved swimming so much, Grammie Jen bought Dylan a new pool and toys for the backyard. For his inaugural swim, Shane filled the pool all the way up to the max fill line, which caused Dylan's buoyant legs and bum to float...so he spent a lot of his time lounging against the side.



Grammie and I also went on a few shopping trips. Naturally, Dylan had to try on a few things during these excursions:




Other than that, Dylan was just his cute little self for the first half of July:






Up next...the Bear Lake family reunion!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The Hatchery...and Happy Anniversary!

As you can see, I got a little sidetracked during my blog catch-up. I wanted to experiment with the new Template Designer (which is awesome by the way), and ended up changing our whole blog...and renaming it to 'The Hatchery,' which is quite fitting considering Thursday was our 5-year anniversary...

I'll try to keep this short... Shane and I met at Liberty Square at BYU (I know...so cliche), and no matter what Shane says, he completely ignored me when we first met. Granted, he had a girlfriend at the time, but I tried my hardest just to get him to talk to me. After a couple months of Sunday game nights, Mario Kart tournaments, a break-up (for Shane), and lots of hanging out in the apartment across the hall so Shane would notice me, we ended up playing a game of mud football one rainy night in October:


After a quick team huddle, Shane wanted to make a deal: if we won I had to take him out to ice cream; if we lost he had to take us out to ice cream... I didn't see a problem either way and quickly agreed. I don't remember who won or lost actually, but after the game we set a day to meet in the Wilk for ice cream.

That week, my wonderful roommate Joleen was in Shane's apartment talking with him and Brandon, his roommate. They seemed to be beating around the bush of me and Shane (or at least the possibility of a 'Jessica and Shane'), but I was just getting out of a semi-relationship with Shane's neighbor. Somehow they all decided talking in code would be much better than just discussing everything outright, so Joleen and Brandon started a theoretical discussion about investments: Joleen had a client who was deciding between two potential investments--Thomas Water Co. (the semi-relationship was with someone whose last name was Thomas) or the Hatchery (if you don't understand how this relates to Shane, you don't know us at all...). Brandon wanted to know how much Joleen's "client" was interested in investing into each company. In the end, Joleen and Brandon communicated to each other that both Shane and I were interested in dating each other, but it took a long time...

Meanwhile, I was in class... Joleen had texted me and told me she had told Brandon how I felt about Shane. As soon as I received the text, I got a call from Shane. He told me that he couldn't meet for ice cream and he didn't think we should reschedule...and then just sat there on the phone. My heart dropped--apparently he knew how I felt and wanted nothing to do with me. After what felt like an hour on the phone (but probably only 10 seconds), he said he thought dinner and a movie that weekend was a much better option!

After that phone call, we were together pretty much nonstop... Our first date was to see The Grudge (it was Halloween weekend), our second date was to a BYU volleyball game the next night, and the rest is history...

{Picture from our second date. The sunglasses are part of Shane's costume}

I know this isn't your typical, cheesy, wedding-picture-filled anniversary post... At dinner last night, we were talking about the first day we met, which led us down memory lane for a while. It got me thinking about those times, when everything was new, exciting, and stressful (yes, stressful). It's interesting to see how far we've come from that and know that even though things have changed, we've grown closer and love each other more than ever! Here's to the next 5 years!

(Side note: When I first set up this blog I wanted to name it The Hatchery due to this story, but I thought that a name like that suggested one of the following: (1) we had lots and lots of kids or (2) we were trying to announce we were going to have a baby. Since neither was true, I decided to stick with 'Shane and Jessica'. Now that we have Dylan with us, I decided it was time for a change...)

Catching Up: June

We have lots to catch up on, so here's an overview of the month of June:

First, Shane went on a 50-mile hike with his Scouts. They went to Paria Canyon, a slot canyon in Utah/Arizona. They had a great time and wouldn't stop talking about it when they came back.


Then, Megan came into town to visit. Dylan was so excited to see her, he even posed for all of her pictures. Sadly, we had to leave for our family campout so we didn't get to see too much of her, but we're glad she came to stay with us. She took lots of pictures, which was good because I don't think I took any during this time.


Then we had the annual Hatch Family Campout, where we celebrated by 25th birthday! I had to go to Dallas for training for a week, but I got to meet up with my aunts and cousin for dinner one night and I spent a whole night with Emma and her new little Bennett.

Then, to make room for more of this:


We did this...


...and it was gone within 10 minutes!!


The rest of the month, Dylan was just a cute boy....







Thursday, August 12, 2010

To my father...

{Image from http://www.thedadproject.com/}


Enough said.



For those of you who aren't my father, here's a little background... For as long as I can remember, my dad would serenade me with "Hippo birdie two ewe" in place of the standard birthday song. Even when I was away from home, I'd get the full birthday song spelled out in animals (complete with "Hippo birdie deer ewe"). So Dad, since I didn't text you a hippo birdie song, I hope this picture will suffice.

Happy birthday Daddy-o!

(Side note: I had to go all the way back to 2007 for a decent picture of us together...)

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Blog slacker

Sorry folks... I've been quite a blog slacker lately. Life's been kind of crazy with lots of work travel for me and Shane in June, lots of visitors and fun travel in July, and lots of work for me. But I do have lots of posts planned. Sadly, we left our camera in San Diego this weekend (during one of our fun travels) and are waiting for it to be mailed to us...so most of the posts will have to wait as most of the related pictures are on the camera (and, really, who wants a blog post without pictures??).


So for now, just be content to know that I haven't forgotten about the blog...and here's a little sneak preview of things to come:

Funny faces

A growing boy (he's alreayd 8 months old!)
Fun at Bear Lake Family reunion Exploring new toys (a.k.a. awesome parenting) Exploring outdoors (where it's not 100+ degrees) Fun at Grammie's house

So stay tuned and don't give up on me yet...