The Vacation in St. George

Last Thursday morning, the family headed to St. George. My parents went. My brother Travis, his wife Brooke, and their kids, John, Kate, and Mac went. My brother Eric, his wife Karen, and their son Cole went. Tim, Kyra, Rylan, and I also went after we dropped Kona off at the dog hotel. So, yep, there was a big caravan of Hansen's that drove from Logan to St. George on Thursday afternoon.

When we arrived, the kids all wanted to hit the pool, so we spent a couple of hours laying out in the sun and enjoying the 73 degree temperature. Dinner was at The Brick Oven. Oh and Tim and I had to hit the Eddie Bauer Outlet so that he could get some of his very most favorite t-shirts. The evening was spent back at the pool and relaxing. I should also mention that I found out that I'm going to be an auntie to a new baby boy, hopefully on my birthday!

Friday morning, we woke up and hit the delicious continental breakfast and then it was off to Snow Canyon State Park. The kids wanted to hike and climb on the rocks and that seemed like the perfect place. We headed to the sand dunes first.




After the sand dunes, we headed to the trail to see the "pioneer names". The names were written in axle grease, as early as 1881. It was pretty cool to see. I almost got to see John face plant on his way down from the pioneer names.


The kids, especially Rylan, wanted to climb on some more rocks, so we headed over to Pioneer Park, which was definitely the hit of the weekend. I think we spent a couple of hours there and all of the kids had a blast.






We spent the afternoon with my grandparents, swimming, and then ended up back at the hotel. Tim decided we were going to go for a drive out in the desert to shoot, so off we went again. Somehow, we ended up in Arizona on a dirt road and out of nowhere, a sign for the Little Black Mountain Petroglyph Site appeared so we headed that direction. Tim decided that this dirt road was the perfect place for Kyra's first driving lesson, so she changed seats with him and away we went. She did okay...but definitely needs alot of practice. We found the site and it was super cool.






The kids got bored after a little while, but I loved it. I thought it was really cool and definitely a hidden treasure.


I headed down the other trail and found this awesome picture. It looks like a timeline and I was totally amazed! I'm not a petroglyph expert, so I have no idea what it means, but it was super cool.


Oh and I finally got a picture of Tim and I!


On our way back to the car, I caught this cute moment...


Dinner that evening was at a Mexican restaurant and we ended up back at the pool. That night we all got a wakeup call at 2:30am when a very nice man's car alarm went off for 5 minutes. Tim didn't go back to sleep and needless to say the whole group was sleepy.

Saturday morning, we got up for breakfast, went swimming, and then loaded the cars up. The kids were definitely up for more time crawling around and up rocks, so we headed back up to Pioneer Park.






That's John, Kate, Rylan, and Travis up at the small arch. They climbed up to the top and ended up climbing around the entire ridge. They had a blast.


After lunch at Red Robin, we spent some time at a park and then we headed out to Larry and Nyla's condo for some basketball watching time. Dinner was with Eric and Karen at a pretty yummy Thai restaurant that included sushi. My cute nephew Cole decided that he loves sushi and worked on mastering the art of chopsticks!




After dinner, we grabbed some frozen custard at Nielson's Frozen Custard and headed back to watch Utah State beat Boise State to win the WAC. Sunday morning, we loaded up and then headed back to Logan. It was kind of a sad drive, since we were leaving the land of sunshine, but I'm pretty sure that we'll have to head back there soon. It was a fun trip and I'm looking forward to our next vacation!

Kona's First Training Run

This morning, when Tim woke up, he asked Kona if he would like to go running. Apparently, our workout today was going to be a run. Kona has never gone running with us before, so this was a new experience for all of us. Because he's a great dane, we have to be careful with how much impact he has on his joints, especially since he's still a puppy and still has alot of growing and developing to do. We've got approval from the vet for him to start running, but the weather has been sort of iffy and we didn't want a filthy, muddy dog. So, today was the day!

As you can tell from the picture, Kona was ready to go! We didn't take the camera on the run, so no "running" pics, but Kona had a great time. He did pretty well and stayed fairly close to me or Tim for most of the run. He did start pulling on the leash on the way home. I think he was ready for his breakfast. Oh, and while we were on our run, we saw 7 deer. There were 3 bucks and 4 does. They were gorgeous!

After the run, Kona had breakfast and then wandered around the house, watching us clean. He's opposed to the vacuum, unless we're vacuuming him off, so he usually just paces around in whatever room we're not cleaning in. After things quieted down, and he got vacuumed off, he crashed. You can tell how wiped out he is in this picture.

What's for Lunch?

I made fish tacos for lunch today and Tim said they looked so good, I should take a picture and put them on my blog. So here it is...



It was a super quick and easy lunch. I put the frozen tilapia in the oven for about 20 minutes and while it was cooking, I started the rice in the rice cooker. I added salt, pepper, and lime juice to the rice. I also poured a can of black beans into a pot and added lime juice, habanero pepper powder, and stirred it up and let it heat. I diced up the tomatoes and sliced the avocado and minced the fresh cilantro. When all of that was done, I started to heat up the corn tortillas on a griddle with a bit of olive oil. So, I plated it up, added some lime wedges, opened a jar of homemade salsa, and it was time to eat. Tim really enjoyed them and Kyra even liked them. I'm super full and I'm thinking that this will definitely be a repeat on our menu.

My Day Today

Today was a busy day. A super busy day. Kona woke me up at 6:45am to go outside and then the rat race began. I headed to the store to pick up the rest of the ingredients for the elk stew I was making. I also put gas in my car. When I got home, I cut up the elk meat, peeled and cubed potatoes, sliced onions and started messing with the seasonings. Once that was all in the crock pot, I cleaned up the kitchen, emptied the dishwasher, loaded the dishwasher and then got ready to mop the floor. I cleaned the bathroom and mopped the floor. I dusted the bedroom and living room and vacuumed the entire house. Oscar and I had a date with the trainer, so we spent an hour doing intervals and I also did an upper body weight workout. I showered. I did 4 loads of laundry. I moved furniture and had lunch with Tim at Rumbi Island Grill. I cleaned up the basement. I listened and critiqued Tim's presentation. I took Kona out at least 17 times. Eric and Karen and Cole came over to clean carpets, so I watched Cole which was a treat. We went for a walk and saw a deer. We watched tv and he did lots of face plants on the bed. We ate cheese and fruit snacks. After the carpets were cleaned, we all had dinner together and enjoyed some fun conversations. So now, I'm on the couch watching Grey's Anatomy and Tim is practicing his presentation and Kona has crashed on the big bed.

Is it wrong to say that I'm really and truly glad that this day is over?!?

Weekly Workouts

February 21 ~ 60 min on the trainer. I warmed up for 10 minutes and then did 2 min intervals with 3 min recovery for 45 min. I cooled down with one legged pedaling drills for 5 min. I also did Jiggle Free Arms, an upper body workout for 33 min.

February 22 ~ I did a 45 min dvd called Cardio Overdrive. I had intentions of lifting as well, but I'm tired so I stuck with a hard cardio workout instead. I burned 444 calories so I'll take it.

Weekly Workouts

February 17 ~ 45 minute trainer ride...I did a 5 min warm-up and then intervals of hard spinning and I also did a 15 min ab workout.

February 18 ~ 31 min of cardio + 48 min of Hi Def Sculpt (used 10lb dumbbells).

My Life Lately

Life has been seriously crazy lately and I have also been struggling with a complete and total lack of motivation. I think that the lack of motivation might be due to just the whole winter thing...I don't know. Anyways, here's what I've been up to lately...

- Doing the stay at home housewife stuff, like cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.
- Tim and I got new callings at church. I'm the new Mia Maid advisor which means I'm teaching the 14-15 year old girls. Tim got a cush calling and is in the Sunday School presidency.
- Planned and executed a great birthday party for Rylan involving dodge ball which was super fun. There has been a request for more family dodge ball parties.
- Working with Kona on his training. He's learned "on your spot" and he also got to go to a "teeth cleaning" class.
- Trying new recipes.
- I signed up for my first century ride. I'm doing the Little Red Riding Hood Century on June 4, 2011.
- Tim has a huge international presentation next week, so he's been over the top stressed out. I'll definitely be super happy when that is done...I'm sure he'll be even more happy.
- I put together a super romantic fun Valentine's gift for my super fabulous husband. Being married is a spectacular way to spend Valentine's Day.
- We found out that spring is coming soon. That is always happy news.
- I spent 2 days with my cute hubby pulling an engine, transfer case, and transmission out of the "extra" LandCruiser in the sunshine wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I even got some sun on my super pale body.
- I baked 160+ gingerbread hearts and helped my mom bake basketball, football, and baseball sugar cookies for Ry's birthday.
- Cheered the Aggies on to a win against a team...I can't remember which team but as always the Spectrum was fun and exciting.

So yep, that's my life lately...not too exciting, but definitely not boring either. I wonder how the rest of the month will be?