Catching up...a REALLY long blog

Everyday I think, "I really need to post something on my blog." Then I get home, play with Halle, make dinner, play more with Halle, put Halle in bed, and then veg or clean. So, it's finally Saturday, Halle is napping, Jared is golfing, and now is MY time to catch you all up on our lives. The first thing I'll do is post a ton of pictures going way back to the beggining of the Hurtados and we'll move on (eventually) to more recent events in our lives. I want to warn you, this four years worth of blogs, so you need to make time to read this one.We were married July 1, 2004 in the Mt. Timponogos Temple.

Jared received his bachelors in Music Education May 2005 and we went to Disneyworld as a graudation gift from his parents. In May 2006 I got my Bachelors in Statistics. In December 2007 Jared got his Masters in Music Education. That's what happened in the time before we had Halle.

Halle was due July 19. On 6/6/6 (what a terrible day) I went on bed rest because she was not growing like she needed to be. You have to understand that at work I run around like a turkey with my head cut off. At the time we lived in the U's married housing and I walked 10-15 minutes up hill to work every day. So, they think all the nutrients were going to me instead of Halle. In the month before I was put on bed rest I had gained 1 pound. Not good. In my first week on bed rest, I gained 5 pounds, much better. I had three appointments every week with lots of testing. Luckily I have a WONDERFUL boss and was able to work from home. The top is me working on my laptop in the hamock at my in-law's house with their dog Tito protecting me from the evil Jared and anyone/anything else that may come near (his little black head is by my knee). The other is me working on our couch in our tiny 400 square foot, one bedroom apartment. Finally on June 29 my amniotic fluid level was too low and my Ob/Gyn wanted me to have more monitoring. We figured it was just monitoring, so Jared went to class at the U. 5-10 minutes after he left they came in and told me I was getting induced. I was terrified, and cried as I called Jared. Fortunately we were expecting something like this because I had already gone into preterm labor 2 weeks earler. I had a bag at home all packed with a list on top of it specifying everything else we would need to grab. I was induced at 9 AM on June 29 and delivered Halle on June 30 at 5 PM, the day before our second anniversary.

Our little 5 lb 8 oz, 18 inch bundle of joy in her first week or so of life. For those of you unaware, Triple H, the title of our blog, is for Halle Hope Hurtado.Since I wasn't allowed to eat for nearly 36 hours I was starving. My wonderful daddy went across the street to McDonald's and got me a Big Mac and fries...which I promptly threw up. Our first Christmas. Uncle Dustin and Aunt Paulette gave Halle an auction figure of the wrestler, Triple H. Don't you just love her giant cheeser in that second picture??
Around 7 months mirrors became SUCH a fascination. She loved staring at her self in this little mirror.
Jared taught at a Highland Middle School in North Ogden for one year. When the kids found out we were pregnant and that he wasn't coming back to teaching one of the girl's moms made this completely ADORABLE hat for Halle. Don't you just love it??So, Halle had a REALLY bad cold one day. She was at work with Jared, as usualy, she sneezed, and luckily he had the camera. Yes, that is snot running down her nose into her mouth. Gross.Yes, Jared takes Halle to work. He works for his dad, who kindly allows this chaos. He's beeing working with Halle since she was 3 or 4 months. What a great daddy. If you think taking your child to work would be fun, see the picture above. She's the little person sitting infront of that colorful gate. A day in the life of daddy.Last summer was the first summer in our house and we grew tomatoes. We learned quickly that Halle LOVES tomatoes (so does Rameses, you'll learn more about him later). I was inside making dinner one night and went outside to check on Jared and Halle only to find that Jared had given Halle this whole huge tomato. Yes, she ate it all.

For Halloween last year we went to Texas for visit my brother's family. My mom and my sister's family came too. Halle was a butterfly/fairy (I don't know, she was just plain CUTE). She wasn't a big fan of the trick or treating and scary people answering the door, so she sat on Aunt Erin's stroller while the boys went out. Note...it's still WAY too warm to wear long sleeves in Houston in October - she was a sweaty head!Daddy teaching Halle how to eat falling snow last winter.
She LOVES this little vacuum. She's such a good helper.She thoroughly enjoys putting on our shoes. Here she has Jared's docks on. She is really good at walking in them. She can even walk around in my 3 inch close toed heals. It's incredible.For her 2nd birthday Grandma Koren got her this baby carseat. Man does she love this thing.

Last week she INSISTED that the baby needed a diaper change. How ridiculous does that look? Then we had to put one of Halle's t-shirts on the baby. And then of course once the baby had a clean diaper, she was ready to go for stroll around the house.Grandma Koren also got her this adorable Schwinn Tricycle. She hasn't quite figured out to pedal, but man does she love being outside on this thing. It's a back breaker for Jared and I though. Since we celebrated Halle's birthday on June 28 with family and friends, we still wanted to do something special ON her birthday, June 30. So after Jared picked me up from the bus (I ride the bus to and from work) we went to the Thanksgiving Point Farm. Halle LOVES animals and she got to ride the ponies TWICE! She had a blast.

Now I'd like to introduce you to our zoo. We have Rameses, the dog, Gizmo, Lola, and Stitch the sugargliders, Goolosh the gecko, and Pouches the hamster (the newest addition to our family). It's really not as big of a zoo as it used to be. We used to have the dog, three gliders, three hamsters, the gecko, and three fish. We've cut down drastically.This is Rameses. He is a rescued Greyhound that we got last June. We've been wanting a dog for SO long and Jared has always loved Greyhounds, so when we moved into our house April 2007 getting a dog was one of the first items on our agenda. He was almost 4 and had a great racing career, but was ready to retire. If you've heard the rumor that Greyhounds are giant couch potatos, it is NOT a rumor. He honestly sleep like 22 hours a day and wouldn't have it any other way.
I just love this picture of him.

Greyhounds are quite the sprawlers, but also have an amazing way of curling up in a tiny ball. The above is him sprawling. Below is how he generally lays down. If you've ever seen it before you know that his butt can't reach the ground with the size of those racing thighs.He gets cold in the winter. He has pajamas to wear to bed (he whines in the middle of the night when he's cold, so we finally got some custom made for him). And he also has a fleece jacket for the snow during the winter. Very warm.Now if you know anything about the lives of racing hounds, they stay in a hard bottomed crate all day everyday. Seriously, it took him two weeks to decide his bed was a safe place to lay. He was terrified of that big brown circle. Carpet was softer than he had ever experienced and he LOVED it. So, now that he figured out the bed was comfy, he figured everything soft was comfy. So, as you can see above, we pulled down our comforter one day so that we could wash the sheets. I turn around and what do I find? Sweet Rameses curled up in the comforter.So, now he finds anything softer than carpet that he can put some part of his body on. Below is some little beany baby that he managed to get his foot on. If there is a sock on the floor, you bet he'll rest one of his feet on it. If we're doing the laundry he'll lay in the pile of clothes. He's got quite the personality and is really the sweetest thing you could ever imagine.Now for the Sugargliders. This is Gizmo sleeping in my pajama pants pocket. We got him December 2006 at a kiosk in the mall. They are really social animals and you really shouldn't have just one, but we thought we'd try it.

But, he was terribly lonely and would bark at night (yes, bark). So we went back to the store in February 2007 to get a baby girl (boys might fight). The baby girls hated him and would freak out with loud noises and scare him. Right then somebody brought in a cage with a girl they didn't want anymore. She was one year old and named Lola (note, I already had decided if we got a new girl I would name her Lola. I knew this was fate). We got Lola out to see how she liked Gizmo and they cuddled up together in the pouch and fell asleep. Love at first sight. Gizmo wasn't quite old enough to reproduce or get neutered, so we figured we were safe. (Secretly I wanted a new baby glider, who wouldn't?) Gizmo is the one with the bald head (hormones cause this).

This is Lola eating corn. (Note, corn is NOT good for gliders, but they LOVE the stuff. So, in the summer when corn is in season I let them finish off my corn on the cob.) Lola is the one obsessed with the stuff.Alas, they had a baby. Gizmo was netuered immediately and Stitch was neutered once we knew he was old enough (not a difficult, painful, or bloody process, sorry boys, but you just take scissors and cut 'em off). We named the baby Stitch, he came out of Lola's pouch about the same time as Halle was born. The babies remain in the pouch for about 2-3 months (yes, gliders are marsupials, they are not rodents or monkey or squirrels or anything of that sort). We weren't sure there was a baby in Lola's pouch until we started seeing him move, just like you see a baby move in a human's belly. Then he was getting so big that his tail would hang out, or a foot would hang out. Then we KNEW he was coming out soon.Lola was really sweet about letting us touch him. He hung onto her back like a little monkey and would stick his head into her pouch to nurse. She's such a good mommy.This is stitch all grown up sharing some peanut butter on bread with me.

Okay, now I swear I'm almost done. In February Jared had a business trip to Anaheim and in April I had a business trip to Anaheim also. So, we went to Disneyland two times in three months. Halle LOVED it. The second time around she was in a TERRIBLE mood the day we arrived. Jared took her to Disney while I was at a conference. He said that they got off the shuttle and when she realized where she was she started jumping up and down with excitement. Isn't that cute? Halle's FAVORITE ride of all was the Merry Go Round, so here are two pictures of that.

Finally, we went to the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake on July 12 with the Porters (Loretta, Shane, Kaden). Halle LOVES birds, so here are the last pictures so you are all updated on the past 4 years of our lives as the Hurtados (thanks to Loretta for taking the pictures and sending them to me).We got to go in and feed all of these cute little birds some apples on a stick. Halle was so brave. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture, but a few landed on her shoulder and she just sat there and looked at them.For some reason all birds flocked to me instead of Jared. I had, I think, 8-10 birds on me and ended up putting out my other arm to get them all. You might think this is really gross, but amazingly none of us had even a speck of poop on our bodies.Halle really enjoyed feeding the geese.Not all are in cages and she thought it would be a good idea to chase after this goose to hand feed it. I was terrified it would charging at her and peck her eyes out and went running after her. Luckily Loretta got a good picture.

That's all folks. Until next time... (I promise my blogs won't be this long again.)