Gayle force winds. . .

There is a serious whirlwind of fun, efficency and drama in the Hatch home this Christmas. I love being home. There is nothing like constant noise and interrupting to make me feel most comfortable.

Brian and I, after finishing finals took packed up everything and parked in Las Vegas and then flew here to NC on Christmas Eve. Christmas day we woke up at about 7:30 and opened presents, ate breakfast, played Ultimate frisbee and then all of us decided to help my dad finish the siding on the house as a present-- he's been trying to do it himself for over a year.

We fly out on Monday and then we drive to Flagstaff. We feel pretty blessed. We are living in a half a million dollar home in Flag while we are there-- personal fireplace and whirlpool tub included (not bad, ey?). But the best part is that it is right up next to Forest Service land and the foothills so we can cross country ski to our hearts desire! We are pumped to go on a backpack through the grand canyon Jan 1-6. Woohoo!

Goodbye to the Y

Goodbye BYU. Angela and I finally finished packing and cleaning and we're headed south. Goodbye Wymount, Campus, Provo, and Utah! We'll miss it (except for the homework).

Brian's post

So the haystack is s'posed to be both Angela's and mine (angela said I shouldn't post right now because its friday night and we'll look like losers) hmmm, so anyway, this is my first post.

See ya,

Brian

Christmas Miracle

So yesterday I was cleaning out my old boxes when I came across a pile of brightly colored paper. Rupies, Rubles, Riyals and Pesos. I need to preface this by saying that Brian and I have been in slightly-obsessive throw-away mode. We are getting the biggest kick out of minimizing; tossing old papers, taking boxes to DI and eating everything in the house (yesterday we successfully finished off the olive oil, wwflour and oats). Victory. So when I came across the pile of foreign currency, I picked it up to throw it in the trash when suddenly I got an idea. I phoned Wells Fargo to see if they accepted Mexican, Saudi Arabian and Indian currency. The answer was "yes" (they do not however, accept 1961 currency from the former USSR). I headed down expecting to make $4 towards Christmas gifts, so when she told me that the grand total was $192 I was floored. I wanted to grab the money and run in case she changed her mind. Then 10 minutes later she checked the exchange rate for pesos again and it had gone up giving me a grand total of $202. Talk about Feliz Navidad.

Reading Day

Jens at work.



cold? scared? tired? hungry?



Looking down the gully from the top of pitch two. We're 400 feet up here.



Jens leading the last pitch .



This is the Great White Icicle as seen from the parking lot.


So this is what Reading Days are really for (or at least they have been for me all 8 semesters at BYU). Jens and I climbed over 1,000 feet of ice today. We left Provo at 5:15 this morning, climbed Great White Icicle - 4 pitches - then climbed the first pitch of Stairway to Heaven - 300 ft. Awesome, the only thing it was missing was my responsible wife who actually studied on reading days. I missed her, but we're going to go next week.

Wedding, Escalante, Bryce Canyon, Mt. Olympus

Marching with the rythym of dreams

This might be too good to pass up. So last night (or really early this morning) I had a dream. A colorful strange dream. I was in the shower and the tub and the entire room was full of about a foot or two of water. There was a foot-long brightly colored salamander and a foot long brightly colored frog. An extra large cicada. A spider. A may Fly. I was trying to avoid them all because I desperately needed to wash my hair-- but they were all coming closer.

A call for interpretation? Maybe a representation of small and large exams approaching? Or perhaps the spirits of the poor animals that I sacrificed for disection or bug collections have come back to haunt me? Or maybe trying to balance one foot out of the shower (b/c of my huge blister) has left a bitter taste in my mind.

A thug Christmas. . .

So it's been me and b-honey
these hectic finals days
Tryin' to be a plannin'
and organizin' all our ways
It's been a holly and a jolly
season for us both
with cocoa and a tree and
our puffy down coats
It's a wonderul life, like
George Bailey liked to say
We want to wish to all of
ya'll a happy hol-i-day.
We can hardly be-leive
our Y-time is coming to a close
We are leaving happy valley
and our days in Pro-vo
Although we might shed a tear
we are gettin' pretty psyched
for our holiday bash and
our Vegas to NC flight
Bry0n and Annie here are happy
as can be
That we have the bestest
friends and the coolest fam-il-y!


MERRY CHRISTMAS!