February Cabin Fever!!

What do we do in Malad in the Wintertime?? Above: Isn't it obvious?!
Above: Hadlee and her new do, Heidi gave her a haircut. We liked the straggly mullet, but this is a little cuter!
Hadlee and Scottie twirling in the office chair. Hadlee loves the office, especially pulling off the sticky notes one at a time.
Hadlee's creativity is starting to show early. Here she is making a beautiful drawing on a her canvas, wait not a canvas, but all over our walls. (This is only a small portion of her drawings, which included 3 walls, 3 doors, a dishwasher, and the floor.)

Below: Ryan painted Hadlee's fingers and toes one evening. Somebody's got to make sure Hadlee is somewhat girly. We go on walks or runs everyday, and Hadlee loves to carry the leash.




Above: Hadlee likes her high chair, but not to sit in it. One of the few times Hadlee is actually playing with her own toys, and not Mom's office supplies.
What do we do in Malad, a frequent question I'm posed with. Well, here's a glimpse of how January and part of February have gone for us. We've been good to not go out of town too often. I've only been out of Malad once since Christmas. (I'm having shopping withdrawals!)

Ryan's sister, Wendi, moved to Utah in January, so we went down to help her move in. In less than 2 days, we slept over at Michelle's house, moved Wendi into her new apartment, spent 5 hours at IKEA, went on a horse-drawn sleigh ride in Ogden Valley, ate at a restaraunt, and watched Ryan's Dad skydive (well not really skydive, but more of flying with super strong fans, I don't know how to explain it) Needless to say, Ryan's famiy knows how to have fun in a short amount of time! His family came the following day to see our home before they left to Boise again.

Other than that, we've been really quiet. We go out to my parents a lot. Hadlee loves her Bumpa, and Grammy, and going outside to feed with Bumpa. They got a little jeep and gator, and Hadlee is already learning how to drive them. (she'll lock her knee on the gas pedal, and we let her fly!) Hadlee loves our dog, Scottie. She enjoys feeding him whatever she's eating, so he loves her and follows her everywhere she goes. Hadlee now says tinky (stinky) nose, eye, and other words but mostly jabbers a lot, it's still indistinguishable. She's been going to nursery, and doing awesome, at least we haven't had to go get her yet! She now only eats raisins, grapes, apples, and meat, but mostly raisins! She had the stomach flu or butt and gut flu, and it was pretty gross. But don't worry, she shared it with Ryan, me, and a lot of the other members in the family!

News with Ryan, he received a calling in church. He is primary teacher for 11 year olds, and does scouts for 11 year olds. So he's going to be fairly busy.

My sister Maryann wanted to do a running relay race, so Ryan and I are going to do that. It's 180 miles from Logan to Park City. There are 12 runners on a team, each runner runs 3 seperate times(3-8 mile stretches). It's in late June, and there will be 650 other teams. I'm ecstatic about this. I've been waiting for years for my family (especially Ryan and Maryann) to want to go running with me, and now (without me even pushing) they're going to do this. I'm the official organizer for our group, mainly because I have the least obligations. We'll see how it goes, and if everyone can get in shape for it. I'll keep you posted.

While I'm on the running train of thought.. a sweet website that will tell you how far you've ran, the elevation changes, etc. is www.mapmyrun.com. It takes a minute to understand, but I'm addicted to it now!

My big news is that I'm going to start working at the local nursing home tomorrow as a nurse, only prn (as needed) but will be doing 2 night shifts a week for a little bit. I'm pretty nervous, since I haven't done any real nursing since school, I've never worked nights and I haven't worked a full 8 hour shift in a long while. But the $$ is a good incentive, especially to finally pay off the rest of my school loans, and I need to use my nursing or lose it. The nursing home is a good starting point for me, hopefully I can eventually move over to the Hospital side. I just pray that I can get through these next few weeks, and hope they don't catch me snoozing in some patients bed!!

Oh, I forgot our new discovery, Downata Hot springs. It's 20 minutes away, it's a geothermally heated pool and hot tub, kid friendly(not like Lava's hot springs, where you see a lot more than you want to see, those who've been there know what I'm talkin' about nudge, nudge!!), and is open till 10pm on the weekends. We've gone twice in the last month with friends, and we think it's pretty sweet.

It's not that we haven't had much to do, it's just that I haven't been able to get out much, and the nights are long. I can't wait for spring. Here's some crazy pictures to show what we do in the long winter evenings!