Daddy's Week: November 2015

Daddy's Week 2015

I really struggle to make Ammon's "Daddy's Week" nearly as special as he makes "The Week of Love." But with practice and watching his example I think I get a little bit better every year in some way or another. This year my big improvement was actually having a theme to the week.

I came across this song by happenstance a while in advance:

As soon as I heard it I thought, "Yes, everyday IS a holiday with Ammon!" He truly bends over backwards all the time to make every single day a happy, special one for each of us. The man blows me away. 

So when Daddy's Week rolled around this past November, I sent Ammon off to work with his theme card and theme song to clue him in to the week ahead.

Halloween

Before he headed home that night, I set up a "Day One" playlist for him on his Spotify account. That way he could listen on his way home and he could guess as to what was awaiting him.

We had our own little Halloween celebration that night which just turned out perfectly! The girls and I spent ALL day decorating (unfortunately, the full effect of the streamers and balloons and black light can't be appreciated in the pictures...it was way cooler in real life) and preparing food and then that night we partied like it was October!

We ate our delicious Halloween food and watched Toy Story: That Time Forgot.

We then put the girls to bed and watched Jurassic World.

It was a great night and I can tell because Ammely thanked Heavenly Father for the Halloween Party every night for about a month afterwards. AND we still have a few black balloons being played with around the house.

Valentine's Day

The next day was Friday which Ammon has off of work but uses to do schoolwork. He had a mid-term that day so we started his day off with a little brain food and encouragement and then left the house so he could focus.

While we were out we got a few supplies so that the girls could have a Daddy-daughter date when we got home. Ammely made the cutest little flower card for him, gave him some potted flower plants and then asked him to be her date. It was adorable and I'm pretty sure melted his heart into a little puddle on the floor. He said yes (obviously) and they headed out to the back yard to have a garden date (one of their favorite things to do together) and they planted some seasonal flowers (Lynnden slept through their date unfortunately). 

Then that evening I headed out to get our babysitter (by the way, we just LOVE Maddi - Ammely asks for her ALL the time) and Ammon and I went to go have a traditional dinner date.

It was delicious. Ammon discovered one of his favorite hamburgers ever. And it was just wonderful to have a few hours alone. And it felt like it really could have been Valentine's Day. Plus, we impulsively decided to go window shopping at the mall and ran right into a See's Candies shop. 

We had never been there before but just happened to have a gift certificate from our wedding for a pound of candy (kind of amazing that I've been carrying it around for five years, eh?). The lady was so helpful and there was no one else there and they had samples and we just had the BEST time picking out a box of chocolates. Truly a fantastic Valentine's Day activity - and I didn't even plan it! So note to yourself - it's more fun to go get the chocolates together than it is to just grab a pre-made box for a gift all by your lonesome.

President's Day

This happened to be a weekend that Ammon had to work Saturday morning. I was a little ambitious and decided we could still do what I had planned anyways. So I spent the morning packing and planning and preparing Ammon another playlist to clue him in to the day's "theme." That was pretty tricky to do actually.

Poor guy came home exhausted and I made him get right back in the truck because today we were celebrating President's Day! Which meant we were heading up to Roosevelt Lake for a little fishing.

We arrived late afternoon, talked to some very friendly and helpful people at the Visitor's Center and then headed out to find a spot where we could hopefully catch something.

We spent maybe an hour fishing and enjoying ourselves lakeside and THEN... thanks be to all that is good in the universe...
AMMON CAUGHT ONE!

We were then able to take a very happy and satisfied Daddy back home because he was also a very tired and stressed Dadddy (he had another midterm to do that night. Poor guy.)

Easter

The next day was Sunday. Did you know there is a National Take a Drive day? Well, there is. And it happened to be Sunday. And I thought that would be a perfect, Sunday-appropriate holiday to celebrate. Buuuuuuut, I had my husband out and about non-stop for days and he was exhausted! I didn't think he'd want to drive around for a few hours like I had planned.

So I switched things up last minute and decided to bump up Easter. I set up a fun little treasure hunt that Ammon followed around when he got home from church which landed him a pretty sweet little Easter basket (I forgot to take pictures!). It was awesome.

Then I made a traditional Easter dinner. It was delicious if I do say so myself.

After dinner that evening we finished out the day by decorating some eggs - the girls did an awesome job!

Diwali

Since I had been planning on doing Easter on Monday evening, I did some last minute scrambling and learned about this AMAZING holiday called Diwali. It is seriously awesome. I recommend doing some investigating and celebrating yourself sometime.

Diwali is a Hindu holiday/festival that "spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness or good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair. Its celebration includes millions of lights shining on housetops, outside doors and windows, around temples and other buildings in the communities and countries where it is observed." 

In preparation for this holiday, people spend time DEEP cleaning, renovating, decorating. The women make BEAUTIFUL entry way decorations called "rangoli" and the men make sure there are plenty of lamps/candles/lights to fill their homes and communities. There is a day to celebrate the marital relationship between husband and wife and another day to celebrate the relationship between brothers and sisters.  Plus a million other things and traditions it seems and I wish we incorporated a lot of these traditions into our own lives somehow. Seriously, it kind of blew me away.

So that day the girls and I really cleaned the house and cleaned out/organized the closet underneath the stairs. It was truly terrifying under there and I knew it frustrated Ammon because he could never get to his weight bench in there. It was a BIG difference when we were done and he was SO happy when we showed him that night.

We also made our own Rangoli for Daddy.
Here are some examples of some traditional Rangoli.

And here is the masterpiece that we girls made! 

When Ammon got home that night we listened to some Bali music while we ate some Curry (so good!). 

Then we had a Family Home Evening where Daddy lit a bunch of candles around the room (per Diwali tradition), I taught the family about Diwali, and then we had a lesson about how we also believe in the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil  and hope over despair. 

We believe this because we know that Jesus is the light of the world and that because of him good will triumph in the end and we ALL have hope and have no need to stay in despair.

The lesson stuck with Ammely and she talked for ages about how "Jesus is the light" - so that is definitely a win in my book! It really ended up being one of my favorite days/nights we had this whole Daddy's Week! 

Christmas

Tuesday was the holiday we had all been waiting for (it always is) - Christmas! Poor Ammely had a dentist appointment that morning though to get a few cavities filled. Mama was SO kind and came all the way out to our house to watch Lynnden for me that morning because I wasn't allowed to take any other kids with me. She even brought yummy muffins for all of us to have for breakfast!

I got Ammely cozied in on the couch and let them watch shows while I got ready for the evening by putting up the Christmas tree.

I had dinner (breakfast) ready when Ammon got home - the smell of bacon always reminds Ammon of Christmas and for the first time ever I actually cooked the bacon well! Hooray for small victories in life!

So we enjoyed some Christmasy dinner next to the Christmas tree while listening to some Christmas Pandora.

And then I presented Ammon with his "Christmas gift" and that night's activity: "Christmas Cuddle Basket."

It had a blanket and some movie snacks and drinks and a new Christmas movie that I know Ammon has always liked but we didn't previously own:

We all cozied in on the couch and watched our new Christmas flick. It was the perfect way to start the REAL Christmas season - a comfortable, cozy night at home, just our family, with Christmas lights, Christmas food/snacks and a Christmas show.

New Year's

The last day of Daddy's Week came around quickly and was probably NOT Ammon's favorite day at that time - but I think he appreciated it later. 

Just a few days before, Ammon had mentioned to me how in the New Year he wanted to start waking up early in the mornings so he could have time to eat, read scriptures and work out before heading off to work.

Sooooooo...that's what I helped him accomplish that day! I woke him up bright dark and early and with a little persuasion got us both went downstairs to have personal scripture study and work out. He really did thank me later. Really! And it was a habit we stuck with for a quite an impressive while considering I was quite pregnant and we were headed into the real holiday season.

After he got off work we headed out to go get a *little* more prepared for the changes coming in our new year - having our third baby! We went to a car dealership to check out a Sequoia as that is the vehicle we'd really like to upgrade/up-size to with our growing family. 

From there we stopped off at Grandpa Hatch's to see family and help a little with Thanksgiving Day preparations. 

The End

And that's a wrap for another year! It was an awesome week of celebrating and I'm just so grateful for Ammon! ...For all the endless sacrificing and loving he does for our family every single day. I'm grateful to have a week set aside where we can show him how much we ALL appreciate him being the very BEST Daddy our kids could ever hope for. The world needs more good dads and we really hit the jackpot. We love him. Forever and longer.

Summer Vacation: July 2015

Boy oh boy. This is a long overdue post. But even though it was like nine months ago (same length as a pregnancy - coincidence? I think not)... we had so much fun I couldn't just forget about it or squeeze it into another post! And well, ...life...you know? Of course you do. But with no further delays, I present to you the great happenings of our 2015 vacation!

The trek to Colorado is a good 14 hour drive so we were looking forward to splitting that between two days instead of making it the longest, most  miserable day of our children's existence (one of the great perks of traveling camper style...just pull over and sleep when you're tired!). So we loaded up the truck and camper and headed out as soon as Ammon got off work.

We made the somewhat scary drive through the Arizona mountains, in the dark, in the rain, and landed in Grants, New Mexico a little after midnight where we unloaded the girls for our first night sleeping in "Ammely's house."

How did it go? Weeeellllllllllll, Ammely was just SO excited that she didn't sleep...until 5:00 in the morning. Instead she talked to us about dinosaurs and all other matters of nonsense, repeatedly watching us drift off to sleep so she could promptly wake us up again.

Thankfully, it was just a first night fluke. The rest of the trip the camper experience was a smashing success. See?

By late afternoon the next day we pulled into Grandma and Grandpa's house in Colorado. They wasted no time in showering us in love, food and beautiful Colorado weather (and my Dad even promptly put a stove in our camper!). Of course, the bulk of their time was spent showing the grandkids a good time. Grandparents live for that, or so I'm told.

Both of my girls really enjoyed motorcycle rides with Grandpa. Ammely was constantly begging Grandpa for another ride. We'd often go "Where's Ammely? Where's Dad?" Just to hear the motorcycle start up and watch them cruise around the property looking for "Robbie Rabbit."

(They would go looking for rabbits on the property - all of them named "Robbie Rabbit." Ammely still talks about this regularly. "And we went looking for Robbie Rabbit with grandpa. But Robbie Rabbit was too fast and too shy.")

A lot of the family made it out for Sunday dinner which was so nice. I miss ALL of these people and I'm so glad when we're all able to be together and catch up and reminisce about the good ol' days.

My FAVORITE part of this day though was when my Grandma Breakall gathered us around and shared with us their story of heeding the call to move out West when they were a young little family.

 It filled my heart with so much love and admiration to hear the tale of my granparents as a young family - a little scared, a little unprepared but doing what they had to do to follow the promptings of their hearts. I'm ETERNALLY grateful for their many choices and sacrifices to raise a good family and to do it out West. What a different world it would have been had they stayed back East with their families. I got the majority of Grandma's tales on video and I look forward to uploading them so I can listen to my history over and over again.

Do you see what I mean about Grandpa and Ammely sneaking away for motorcycle rides? Even with a house full of guests, Ammely could still get Grandpa on the motorcycle looking for Robbie Rabbit.

A few days in we all packed up and headed North again...adventuring from Colorado up to Wyoming. It was a trip of reminiscing for Ammon and me. We passed our old friend "Buford the Buffalo" (that is what we named him when we lived in Wyoming). - he sits up on the hill off the interstate on your way across the Wyoming/Colorado border.

It wasn't long after we crossed the border that we were promptly reminded of the true nature of Wyoming - terrifying driving conditions. Thankfully, it was summer and this was rain and not snow. But STILL. It was crazy. And scary. And yet, oddly familiar.

We finally made it over the pass and down into Laramie where we were able to stop and tour around for a couple of hours. It felt so good and so odd to be on campus again. It's weird how a place can become such a large part of you and then realize that YOU were such a small part of IT. Everything was there, carrying on as if we had never been there. So strange. 

We really wished we had more time to spend in Laramie. We look back on our time in Laramie with so much love and fondness. It was our first year - filled with so little in the way of money and stuff but filled with SO MUCH in the way of love and learning and coming together as a married couple all on our own. It was a precious time.

But we had to be going so we could get to our destination before dark. Mission accomplished.
The Miracle Mile, Wyoming. At Sunset.

And of course there was enough light and time for a motorcycle ride with Grandpa.

Our days at the Mile were just perfect - they were full and varied without being stressful or over-scheduled.

We sat next to the lake.

We caught frogs.

We hung out in the truck while the men-folk did some riverside fishing.

Of course, we got out to do some riverside fishing too!

And Grandpa helped Ammely catch her very first fishie!

We also spent time just enjoying the river without worrying about catching a fish.

We went for motorcycle rides.

Lots of them.

People have been etching their names and the date into this pole next to the dam for years. We can even find my Dad's name up there from when he was a little boy (and many other trips through the years). My name is up there many times. Mine and Ammon's names are there from our first trip up a few years ago. It's tradition!

This pipe is in the mountain and fresh, clean water just consistently runs out of it. Ammely was thrilled to have Grandpa take her to get a drink out of "the pipe."

Jared and Ammon took a couple bikes out for a couple hours and had their own adventures. 

I don't have any pictures but Dad took me out for a ride that lasted for hours. It was one of the highlights of my trip to have so much time with just me and my Daddy. To listen to his testimony. To feel of his love for this Earth and it's Creator and this particular place. To watch the birds fly and ride alongside a running antelope. To hear about his many years of adventuring along every spot of that river and those lakes. To just be his little girl again for a little while. I love my Dad!

We enjoyed the luxuries of Jeremy's "house" and Uncle Jeff's "house."

This is my cousin Jeremy and his wife Kara's place up at the Mile. It really is beautiful. Kara has so many talents and making things beautiful is definitely one of them. Ammely was always happy to watch a show in their place in the evening.

We went for walks around the camp.

The boys went lake fishing on Jeremy's boat.

We enjoyed the cool shade, the view and the local wildlife.

We ate like kings. 

I don't have pictures of any of the prepared food, but here are the boys preparing the food. 

We hit up the local tourist attractions - on Pioneer Day! That was not planned but totally awesome.

We got some coolant on our way back to camp from the sites.

We had a campfire down by the river!

So, obviously, we had roasted marshmallows.

All this came to an end quickly though and before we knew it it was time to say goodbye. We said farewell to the river.

We took one last cruise around the camp.

And then we said goodbye to Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jared and waved goodbye to the camp on the hill.

We stopped along the way out to say goodbye to one of the lakes too.

From there we were on another two-day journey home!
Even though we left behind some family we still had a few more adventures awaiting us.

With a little bit of arm-twisting, I convinced Ammon to stop at a place called Rifle Falls in the Colorado mountains on our way home. It was only like a ten minute detour.

We were SO glad we did that. Seriously. It was amazing. And breathtaking. And so much fun. SEE?

It's like a two-minute walk to the base of the falls, but then you can take a little longer hike around and up to the top of the falls. Which we did. And again, were SO glad that we did. Look at all the fun things along the way!

Such different vegetation than back in our desert home!

There were these cool little caves along the way.

The view from the top.

We hadn't come prepared to get in the water at the base of the falls but we were still anxious to cool off a little. So we did.

Yup...we give Rifle Falls a big thumbs up.

The next day we could tell we were getting closer to home...

But we still weren't quite ready to call it quits on the whole "vacation" thing. So took another small detour and checked out Canyon de Chelly. It really was beautiful. Again, we were glad we took the extra hour or two and made the stop.

It was just the stop we needed to make our vacation feel complete.

I can't believe that all happened nine months ago! It really still feels like we just got home but that is probably just because it was such a fantastic trip. And now maybe you can see why I couldn't just sweep this under the rug! I love my family. I love this Earth. I love making memories with the people I love. I'm so grateful for the ease with which we can document our lives these days.