You're probably familiar with the awesomeness that is "The Week of Love" in our home - the week between my birthday and Valentine's Day when Ammon does something sweet for me/us every day. However, I'm not sure if I've mentioned Ammon's week before...every day during the week leading up to Thanksgiving we do something special for him. I hope to get the girls involved a lot more as they get older and more capable - but for now it's just me coming up with ways to show him that we love him and are "thankful for Daddy." I'm not nearly so good at this as he is, but we usually make at least a couple of good memories.
This year, we started off with a "truck" night. The evening began with some "window shopping" for campers. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun. We had a great sales guy who was very informative and helpful but super low pressure. It was wonderful! Maybe one day we'll have a camper...and a truck that could actually hold a camper. We've added it to our list of dreams.
We ended the trucky evening by hunting down a sweet food truck. Burgers Amore was serving at a fall festival night at an elementary school in Chandler...so we crashed the school's party and ate the delicious food. If you ever have an opportunity to do the same, I highly recommend it.Yum!
Following our truck night we took to a day in the car and headed north. This particular Saturday was dedicated to continuing our hunt for a small town to live in some day. We headed first to Mayer. After a quick drive through the town (It's small! Remember?) we parked so we could check out the most important place in town - the library.
And what a library it was.
Can you say friendly? Everybody was SO nice! Smiles and helpful information all around. PLUS, the library had way more than good reads. It was maybe the most enticing library for children I have ever seen. Not only was their children's area adorable...
...but it was totally stocked with animals!
We saw and met their rabbit.
...AND their turtles AND their fish...
...AND their snakes!
PLUS, they had toys and coloring pages and totally rockin' legos.
Amazing. We left the library very happy, envisioning many a reading programs and story times in our future.
From there we checked out a few local properties for sale. Check out the view from this lovely home on the hill!
We also stopped and checked out Dewey-Humboldt. Again, very friendly people. We chatted with the owner of the gift shop for a good hour and then went outside to enjoy the weather and the playground equipment.
From there we continued north to Prescott. We finally got to see the gorgeous courthouse (very Back-to-the-Futureesque). Prescott was just setting out their Christmas decorations while we were there. Our Christmas loving two-year-old was not upset about that. The whole downtown was beautiful and it was so much fun to be there.
For lunch we took the opportunity to enjoy one of Prescott's fine, local establishments: Murphy's. It was delightful. The atmosphere was great, the place had lots of history and the food was good too!
By then we'd had a very full day and were worn out so we headed to our hotel to hole up for the evening. Of course, we just had to take advantage of the heated, indoor pool. What kind of parents would we be if we didn't?
Ammely LOVED the swimming. Probably because Daddy is just so much fun.
The rest of the evening was spent watching hotel television, eating pizza and getting some sleep. Maybe not as much sleep as we would have liked though. I woke us all up while it was still dark outside, bundled us up in our pajamas and herded us out to the car.
Why you ask? Because Prescott is quite beautiful and home to several beautiful lakes. I wanted to take advantage of that so I made us drive to the nearest one (Watson Lake) so that we could watch the sunrise together. We got there and were very blessed to see just how beautiful it was. See?
The cold won out quickly though and we decided that we had seen what we needed to see- we were ready to head back to our warm showers and free hot breakfast. But just as we were leaving, it actually happened.
The sun rose.
It. Was. Beautiful.
We enjoyed our showers and breakfast (surprisingly good for a hotel breakfast), caught a local sacrament meeting and then enjoyed the ride back home to the valley. Once back in our homeland we had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Lords (SO good! Pre-Thanksgiving dinner with some family that wouldn't be around on Thanksgiving). We made sure to leave in time to be able to watch the sun set too. We were lucky to have a beautiful sunrise AND a beautiful sunset - even in two different parts of the state!
On Monday evening, we spent our Family Home Evening at Grandma and Grandpa Hatch's house. I was silly and forgot to take pictures, but as always we were so glad to be in their home - to feel of their spirit and their love and to hear their stories. So much love and admiration we have for our grandparents!
Tuesday evening we had a night unplugged thanks to the generosity of Belle and Kent. They lent us their fire pit and so we were able to have a night in the backyard.
We girls got the "fire" ready and eagerly waited for Daddy to get home from work and join in.
He finally got home and fixed my "fire." Aren't Dads amazing? He turned my measly little sparks into a full-fledged man fire!
And then we could cook some delicious hot dogs!
And we could indulge in some marshmallow roasting/s'mores assembling.
It was a fun night of good food and conversation and we are SO grateful that Belle and Kent made it possible with their awesome fire pit!
Wednesday we had a day hike. This activity was chosen in an effort to offset all of the delicious food we had during the week and all of the delicious food we were bound to eat the following day (Thanksgiving!). I'm not sure how many calories we burned going at a toddler's pace though.
Of course, Ammon probably burned quite a few more calories since he was carrying the baby.
...or BOTH babies...
In my own defense, I carried the water! And the camera! That's about equal, right? ;)
It was a good, full week by my judgement. It's wonderful to take the time to focus on each other and making memories and building our family. And it's so EASY when you're married to such a sweet, wonderful man. We sure are glad he is ours forever because we'd be utterly LOST without him.
This year, we started off with a "truck" night. The evening began with some "window shopping" for campers. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun. We had a great sales guy who was very informative and helpful but super low pressure. It was wonderful! Maybe one day we'll have a camper...and a truck that could actually hold a camper. We've added it to our list of dreams.
 |
| Thumbs Up! |
We ended the trucky evening by hunting down a sweet food truck. Burgers Amore was serving at a fall festival night at an elementary school in Chandler...so we crashed the school's party and ate the delicious food. If you ever have an opportunity to do the same, I highly recommend it.Yum!
Following our truck night we took to a day in the car and headed north. This particular Saturday was dedicated to continuing our hunt for a small town to live in some day. We headed first to Mayer. After a quick drive through the town (It's small! Remember?) we parked so we could check out the most important place in town - the library.
And what a library it was.
Can you say friendly? Everybody was SO nice! Smiles and helpful information all around. PLUS, the library had way more than good reads. It was maybe the most enticing library for children I have ever seen. Not only was their children's area adorable...
...but it was totally stocked with animals!
We saw and met their rabbit.
PLUS, they had toys and coloring pages and totally rockin' legos.
Amazing. We left the library very happy, envisioning many a reading programs and story times in our future.
From there we checked out a few local properties for sale. Check out the view from this lovely home on the hill!
We also stopped and checked out Dewey-Humboldt. Again, very friendly people. We chatted with the owner of the gift shop for a good hour and then went outside to enjoy the weather and the playground equipment.
From there we continued north to Prescott. We finally got to see the gorgeous courthouse (very Back-to-the-Futureesque). Prescott was just setting out their Christmas decorations while we were there. Our Christmas loving two-year-old was not upset about that. The whole downtown was beautiful and it was so much fun to be there.
For lunch we took the opportunity to enjoy one of Prescott's fine, local establishments: Murphy's. It was delightful. The atmosphere was great, the place had lots of history and the food was good too!
By then we'd had a very full day and were worn out so we headed to our hotel to hole up for the evening. Of course, we just had to take advantage of the heated, indoor pool. What kind of parents would we be if we didn't?
 |
| This is her "would you people hurry up and take me to the pool to go swimming?!" look. Do you remember how SLOW adults were when getting to the pool when you were a kid? |
The rest of the evening was spent watching hotel television, eating pizza and getting some sleep. Maybe not as much sleep as we would have liked though. I woke us all up while it was still dark outside, bundled us up in our pajamas and herded us out to the car.
Why you ask? Because Prescott is quite beautiful and home to several beautiful lakes. I wanted to take advantage of that so I made us drive to the nearest one (Watson Lake) so that we could watch the sunrise together. We got there and were very blessed to see just how beautiful it was. See?
We waited and waited for the sun to actually rise...passed the time with a few pictures.
The cold won out quickly though and we decided that we had seen what we needed to see- we were ready to head back to our warm showers and free hot breakfast. But just as we were leaving, it actually happened.
The sun rose.
It. Was. Beautiful.
So glad we were there to see it happen. Isn't it amazing how every sunrise is different but still breathtaking? And we can have a breathtaking moment every single day. I need to take the time to watch more sunrises. That's a resolution of mine.
We weren't ready to be done with it when we got back so we stepped out onto the patio to check out the view from our room. Pretty good too, but not quite the right direction.
We enjoyed our showers and breakfast (surprisingly good for a hotel breakfast), caught a local sacrament meeting and then enjoyed the ride back home to the valley. Once back in our homeland we had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Lords (SO good! Pre-Thanksgiving dinner with some family that wouldn't be around on Thanksgiving). We made sure to leave in time to be able to watch the sun set too. We were lucky to have a beautiful sunrise AND a beautiful sunset - even in two different parts of the state!
On Monday evening, we spent our Family Home Evening at Grandma and Grandpa Hatch's house. I was silly and forgot to take pictures, but as always we were so glad to be in their home - to feel of their spirit and their love and to hear their stories. So much love and admiration we have for our grandparents!
Tuesday evening we had a night unplugged thanks to the generosity of Belle and Kent. They lent us their fire pit and so we were able to have a night in the backyard.
We girls got the "fire" ready and eagerly waited for Daddy to get home from work and join in.
He finally got home and fixed my "fire." Aren't Dads amazing? He turned my measly little sparks into a full-fledged man fire!
And then we could cook some delicious hot dogs!
And we could indulge in some marshmallow roasting/s'mores assembling.
Wednesday we had a day hike. This activity was chosen in an effort to offset all of the delicious food we had during the week and all of the delicious food we were bound to eat the following day (Thanksgiving!). I'm not sure how many calories we burned going at a toddler's pace though.
Of course, Ammon probably burned quite a few more calories since he was carrying the baby.
...or BOTH babies...
In my own defense, I carried the water! And the camera! That's about equal, right? ;)
It was a good, full week by my judgement. It's wonderful to take the time to focus on each other and making memories and building our family. And it's so EASY when you're married to such a sweet, wonderful man. We sure are glad he is ours forever because we'd be utterly LOST without him.
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