Merry Christmas!

Today is our Christmas morning! We have all of our presents separated, Gary's on the left, and mine on the right and our joint presents in the middle. Clementine's are scattered. She got lots of presents from her cousin and family too! Lucky puppy!

I'll send some pictures soon! Wish everyone was here, but I love that I have a Gary and my little puppy to share my Christmas with. I'm a lucky girl!

Check, Check, 1, 2, 3

Is anyone out there? Is anyone reading these?

Mini Hershey Bakery

I have been baking like a crazy woman lately. I tried to make the yummy caramel brownies that Gary's mom make.....and of course they are going to be good when you mix chocolate with melted caramel, but they didn't look right when they were finished. We're trying another batch tomorrow for our friends' christmas gifts. They all get sweets for Christmas. I also baked enough cookies for 3 each for my students. I think that turned out to be around 180, maybe more because Gary ate some. Then I wrapped them up in saran wrap and tied a bow on them. What a task, but most parents thanked me at the recital. The kids did great at the recital. A lot more mistakes than what I'm used to, but I also have lost a lot of parent involvement. It's frustrating to not have people WANT their kids to do good. Too busy with work I suppose. :-(

Well it's only 5 days until we leave for Nebraska for Christmas. I've checked the weather and it looks like we're going to have some good weather, cold but no snow. That will make getting everywhere easy for us. Including the airport. I say that next year, you all come to us. :-)

I have some stories to tell, but I'll do that on another post.

I have been trying to upload this picture for a week now. I love our little Christmas tree. Gary and I like to get ornaments where ever we have traveled together. So this is the first year I didn't put my 'baby' ornaments up.....the ones that I've had since I was a baby. Actually, I put up one that is from 1977.....my favorite from my great grandma Roland! Hopefully we'll get more pictures up.

Don't have much to say lately. Gary's busy with school again, and I'm feeling very bogged down with my work. Next week Gary and I will be playing in the mountains and eating turkey over and Dan and Cynthia's. We'll be having our own Thanksgiving on Friday. I'll make turkey and all the fixin's so that we can have some leftovers. It'll definately be nice to sit back and relax. Then we only have two more weeks before recitals and finals.

I'll put up Christmas pictures soon!

Love and miss you all!

Quote of my day: If you can't run with the big dogs, trip them. :-)

Halloween Costumes

We had a lot of fun dressing up! We're trying to think of costumes for next year already!

October

Lots of good things happen in October.

#1. It's my birthday and Gary spoiled me rotten all weekend long. Went for an 8 mile run in the mountains, carved pumpkins, and went go-cart racing and beat Gary. He he!!!

#2. Gary's parents bought a wonderfully beautiful house in Arizona! I can't wait to meet the house!

#3. I lost and gained 5 students in one week. God takes care of us....I keep believing in that.

#4. It's fall and the colors are beautiful out here. I don't remember the fall colors in Nebraska being so bright....and Gary doesn't think that California changes.....it's always green right?

Sorry I have blurry pictures....my camera is acting up....good thing Gary bought me a sweet new camera to replace mine! Thank you honey!

Happy Halloween!

Day 3

Wow, I'm on a role! Day three of Ireland, we took a ferry over to the Aran Islands. We got up and ate our Irish breakfast (Sausage, eggs, ham-bacon, blood sausage and soda bread) and got on the ferry at 10. It was awfully wavy out there......and we were in for a ride. We got over to the first island and got off to explore the island. It really was small enough to walk around. So we walked up to a castle, took some great pictures and headed back down to the ground. Did I say that it was raining unbelievably hard? It was! So the Guiness Stout and the bowl of potatoe leek soup was awesome when we got back to the pub.

The trip back to the mainland wasn't so much fun. We ended up almost tipping over in the boat. Have you ever seen the deadliest catch???? Well, I felt like we were one of those boats. I don't think I'll ever get on a boat that small again in such a big ocean. Here are some pictures again. I'll catch you up on day 4 soon.

It's my birthday this weekend......and we're going go-carting! I'll let you know how badly I beat Gary! :-)

Day 2 Ireland

One day 2 of our trip, we got on the road and headed to the Cliffs of Moher. The roads are just big enough for two go-carts. And trucks don't move over for you. So we spent a lot of time with me pulling over into the bushes and wincing as cars passed on the other side......the right side. We stopped by a ring fort and talked to some archaeologists that were digging up what they thought to be an old dwelling. They had found a skull and a medieval broach pin. It was amazing to think how old this stuff is. America is so young compared to what we saw.

The land is full of rocks and rock walls. They don't have fences. People many years ago I'm sure built these fences. It was absolutely beautiful!

We stayed in a town called Doolin. Small enough that we walked to the pubs at night. There was a twisty road that we had to drive up to get to the main road for the cliff of Moher. In my pictures you can see the tiny little ''Rupunzel" castle over looking the water. It was a magnificent sight. I loved this part of the trip. The cliffs were just so amazing, I could have spent all day there. Enjoy the pictures.....and stay tuned for more. I'm a little slow, but I'm getting it done.

We love you all!

Ireland

I figured that I haven't told to many stories of Ireland yet. I'll start today. We arrived in Ireland I think at least an hour ahead of time because of the tail wind. Our flight was 4 hours 45 minutes instead of 6. So we got there, and it was dark. We got the car, and I was off to drive on the wrong side of the car and wrong side of the road. Luckily, dad had chosen to stay close, in a town called Bunratty for the first day. We found a Bed and Breakfast called the Park House and got settled in. It was pretty early in the day and we were lucky that they let us in so early. The man of the house had tea and cookies while the rooms were made up. We crashed......for quite a few hours.
That evening, we went to a Medievil Banquet. It was in a real castle, which made it even cooler. The castle still has all of the buildings around it, so we checked it all out. The meal was traditional food from the Medievil times, I believe......it was fun.
After the banquet, we went to Durty Nellies, a pub across the street. We ordered our first Guiness! Yippee! And Gary got into trouble because he didn't let them pour it correctly. He grabbed the beer after the first pour. They have to pour it twice....which I'll explain later when I write about the Guiness Storehouse Tour.
So here is our first day with some pictures!

Love you all!

Back to school

Hello family and friends. September 22nd here. Happy birthday to Courtney and my dad this month. Gary still has the rest of this week and a couple days next week off from school. He's been hiking every single day. I wish that I could take some time off to hike with him, but I'm back at it full time. Clementine and him are both enjoying it though. The weather is beautiful here. We keep saying that if we had this weather we've had this summer and winter, we'd stay here. We'll see what it's like this coming year.

Nothing really is new here. We have Thanksgiving coming up. Bob and Jeanie may be coming up to spend our first family Thanksgiving with us. We've decided that we're going to make our own turkey this year. Usually we go to Dan and Cynthia's, but we want to start our own traditions. We love them, don't get us wrong!!! I think Gary just wants all the left overs to himself. I'll have to figure out how to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner for 2, if Bob and Jeanie don't come. They are waiting to sell their house. We keep sending good vibes their way. If you hold out for one more year, maybe Gary and I could buy it.......just a thought!! :-)

Well, like I said, not much anything new here. I'll write you some more when school gets started again! We only have 9 more months of classes for Gary before he starts working. And I think that he is going to walk with his graduation class next June, if anyone is interested in coming.....let' me talk to him to get the specifics and I will let everyone know!

We love you! I'll talk to you all soon!

Love,
The Hershey's

Some pictures....

It's way early on Sunday....I'm jet lagged so I thought I'd post some pictures while I was waiting for the sun to come up. I will post more later....but here's a teaser.

Ireland

We're in Killarney tonight, probably going to stay a couple of days. I'm tired of driving, and this place looks like we could hang out a couple of days. Tonight Gary and I went out on the town by ourselves to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. We're still madly in love with each other......for the next 99 years. still having a great time. going to do a few more castles then we're spending a day in Dublin, something that wasn't planned from the beginning.

We love you all, and will blog with all the details when we get home.

Hello from Ireland

Hello to all our family. We are currently in a town called Tarbert having tea, sandwiches, and Irish Whiskey with some relatives of my fathers. The people are cousins from a family that travelled by boat to the United States before the civil war. Very nice people.....and awesome to hear about their growing up. I can fill you all in when I get home. We are finally caught up on our sleep, and the food is treating us pretty well. We went on a boat today to travel to an island, only to come back with (30 foot waves Angela says) 10 foot waves Gary says knocking us around. I think we almost capsized.....I was ready to swim.

So far we have had lots of Guiness Beer and Irish food.......which I need after driving all day on the wrong side of the car, and on the wrong side of the road. The roads are only wide enough for two cars the size of Volkswagon bugs. there are noooooo shoulders. it's a little crazy.

well i will write more, but we are doing well, and we love and miss you!

Trip to Seattle

So here was our itinerary. Hunter and Bri arrived in Seattle on Thursday at 12:15 am.....and both came out of the plane happy as clams......even though everyone was worried they wouldn't. So we got home safe and got sleep. The next morning we all woke up and headed to the beach. A very long trip since Hunter had just spent 12 hours on the road to his All-Star baseball tournament, then 12 hours back and 4 hours to the Denver airport. He was tired, to say the least, of driving. But it was fun....and when Bri finally figured out what the ocean was, we had a blast. The kids walked in the ocean, looked for sea shells and, wrote in the sand. The best part was that we flew a kite. Not the one that is just one string, but the one that has two strings that you have to steer. Bri and I needed help from Hunter to keep the kite in the air......We had a blast!

The next day we went to do all the sight seeing adventures. We went on a cruise around the Seattle waterfront, went to the aquarium, went up in the Space Needle, and played in the Science Center. There was so much to do in one little day. We had Taryn and Jake go with us so that I could have an extra couple of eyes to watch the little one (Bri).

I needed a nap the next day, so we just sort of hung out. Did a little climbing at REI and watched a couple of movies. Clementine got a lot of exercise. She sure loves her little cousins. They play a lot more than Gary and I.

Today we went to a water park. There were rides and slides and all the stuff kids love. We're going to have to go back when they come back to visit. Bri needs to grow a little taller to do all the fun stuff.

We have had a wonderful time. I miss them so much in my every day life. I wish I could see them every day and talk to them, and watch them grow. I hope they grow up knowing that. Like I told them today, THEY ARE MY FAVORITE!!!

Some pictures of the visit

New Truck

Here are some more pictures of our new truck.