Spring means Hiking Season!!!!!

We decided it is important to be a tourist in your home town/state so we bought an annual pass to all the national parks. It's so amazing that there are so many different types of landscapes in Utah. As Grandpa Hebdon's favorite song goes- "Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made... How great Thou Art"

First up was Arches, we played the Arch finding game- competitively of course but after the 50th "no I said Arch first" argument we decided a mutual let's see how many Arches we can find would be better. The magic number was 25, 4 of which we found on the primitive trail and not marked. We got lost for about 10 minutes trying to find the trail again which could have been very scary. 

March 2013- Welcomes Spring

We love the taste of spring. Most of March Brad has been recovering from Endoscopic surgery and we are hoping he will soon be back to normal after months of sinus infections. But that didn't stop us from our usual traditions. We both filled out March Madness brackets and two of Mary's teams made it to the final four! Brad's teams didn't do so great. We celebrated our Irish ancestry with the St. Patricks day festival where we enjoyed Irish Lamb Stew, Corn Beef & Cabbage, and Apple Beers. The music and weather was perfect.

Mom celebrated her 63rd birthday and we had a surprise party for her with Name That Tune as our entertainment. Dad's Team won- though because it turns out Brad is a "ringer"

Then Erica and I celebrated a week off from school with a trip to St. George. We stayed with Marce (the best b&b) and hiked zions, and biked near Santa Clara up to some petroglyphs, and then had a day at the "beach". Erica and I always have the best stories after spring break. Some of the highlights- taking the bus all over zions- whoops. Regular stops for a diet coke and fig newtons??? Me:"How do you have all that liquid in you!!!", Marce makes the best meatballs and randomly has a lifetime supply of tampons. Gentleman Deserve Dessert "I think my 6 ft 2, 200 lb husband is afraid of me"  Erica + Mary+ Biking Foreign trail= LOST- uh how do we get back to our car Random lady: "take a right onto the highway and bike to china" Finding the Biggest Loser Ranch while biking back to Santa Clara, "So..are we in Santa Clara California or Utah" "Take a minute and think of the map" "Oh..."  

 And the highlight of the month was- Angie sending me this pic of Dixie. Her auntie does love her very very much.

February 2013- Thirty, Flirty & Thriving

It's so fun to have a birthday month, everything is a little brighter in the middle of winter to celebrate your birthday! This year we had many parties to celebrate, and enjoyed a few dinners out, and celebrated once again at Keys on Main. When I was getting my nails done the girl asked when I graduated and when I told her 2001 she was aghast and said she for sure thought I was her age- 24. That made my day and hers due to her great tip. So my theme for this next year of my life is Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving. I have accomplished quite a bit in my 20s and have had already amazing adventures and experiences in my young life. I am excited for a new decade to celebrate life and the new opportunities and adventures that await.

January - baby it's cold outside

This month we have tried to stay warm and not get sick like most of our fellow Utahns.It has been fun though to see all the snow in the valley (12 inches in one snow storm). Brad especially likes the icecicles. Fortunately the flu has stayed away but unfortunately we discovered Brad has been having a severe sinus infection since September! He is on his 4th round of heavy antibiotics so hopefully it will go away soon. Despite the chronic congestion, bad air, the snow, and extra cold temperatures we have been out enjoying U of U basketball games and gymnastic meets, hockey games, dinner with friends, and game nights. The Super Bowl was especially fun this year because the power went out during the game and Forrest would mimic my cheers or boos. Brad of course could not forget to make his Super Bowl guacamole and Jon treated us with some homemade scones (oh the joys of have family that enjoy making treats!) The most memorable January event though was... going the the Sundance Film Festival with friends. We saw a huge crowd around a restaurant where Katherine Heigle and Kathy Ireland were spotted. We had lunch at Flanagans Irish Pub and the food and dessert were delicious. In our favorite bookstore with the cats behind the Chocolate Factory we found the cats were replaced with 2 new kittens. I almost bought Austenland for me and Angie to see what the hype is all about (the movie was sold out before the festival started) but decided to wait for it at the library. I started teaching my second class at University of Phoenix and am now considered an official instructor/facilitator and Brad's students again seem to really like him. This will be a fun semester.

December 2012

Christmas was lovely! We hosted a few gatherings and attended many parties. It seems the thing we enjoyed most were the music and lights, maybe just the warm feeling of it all. Christmas (we celebrate all through December) brings a special warmth to the winter. It's fun to walk in the snow and shops and look at lights and be with friends and family. We feel so blessed to have all that we do. We especially enjoyed renewing the old tradition of the ZCMI candy windows, shopping for our special Christmas ornament at City Creek, and finding the Hindi paper lantern at temple square. New Years was unexpectedly quiet for us though, poor Brad was sick and we watched a marathon of movies and I made him Ryan's famous Manhattan clam chowder. Welcome 2013!