2008 in Review

I thought I would follow another bloggers lead and post our year of 2008. It was a great one! We spent a lot of time together as a family and had some fun visits from family and friends.

In January, Aaron was able to go snow caving with the scouts. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of that trip. The temp at night was negative 2 degrees! BRRR! Also, Aaron was able to go to the temple with the girls and do Baptisms for the Dead.

In February, my brother Scott and his wife Nicole came for a visit. Nicole almost caught a fish at Pikes Market. During February, we were also able to take a tour of the USS Abraham Lincoln. What an amazing privilege and experience!

In March, Christopher introduced us to the sport of Lacrosse. We LOVE this sport. So fun to watch and Christopher is a natural.

In April, my mom and sister Christy came for a visit. We took in the sites and good food at Black Diamond Bakery and took a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island.

May was a busy one. Jaycee tired out and made the "A" team for Marauders. She has some serious soccer skills. Preston also tried his hand at baseball. He picked it up so quickly and is a natural as well. Also, our good friends from Utah, Steve, Kim, and Devyn Olsen came for a SH-visit. :-)

In June we headed to Orcas Island for some camping at Moran State Park. AWESOME trip! If you have the means, we would highly recommend it. Here we are getting ready for our first ever kayak adventure.

July we went to Port Angeles and the Olympic National Forest for the 4th of July. WAY fun trip. We stayed at the Salt Creek Recreational Area. This was a great camp! Here we are at Hurricane Ridge in the National Forest.

August was our tip to Utah to spend time with the Jones and Hatch families and take a trip to the cabin.

September was back to school. I don't have a picture of my grin from ear to ear.

October is when Nessa kicked some serious butt in swimming. Go girl!

November we enjoyed a great Thanksgiving. Every year we say it is the best Turkey, but I can honestly say 2008 was the tastiest!

December was full of family Christmas activities. We made cinnamon rolls as a family, went to movies, sledding and read scriptures on Christ every night. Oh, we also shoveled a ton of snow! It was a white Christmas. This was a year to start many new traditions. Thanks to family for all the ideas!

Here we are making the cinnamon rolls.

Yee Haw! What a fun year!

and GingerSnap makes 7!

Let me tell you a story. Aaron's Dad, Step Mom, and Grandma decided to send money this year for Christmas. They wanted us to decide what to do with it and let them know through pictures what our decision was. So...we had a family meeting. We decided we would all give out two ideas and then take a vote. I voted to go buy a bunch of presents and drop them off at Toys for Tot. Or, I suggested we go somewhere for the weekend and play. Aaron voted for a Home Depot card or Stereo Speakers. Preston wanted a monkey. Christopher wanted to split the money and have each of us shop for another member of the family, not ourselves. Then Jenessa brought up a puppy. That is all it took! Aaron and I quickly realized we should have put in place guidelines to this voting. Too late. We thought we could evoke Executive Power and each parent take two votes, but the kids put up a fight. The rules were not set before the voting process began. We could all vote for two things. Of course the puppy got the most votes and split the money and shop for everyone else took second. We did a secret ballot to see which of the two final ideas would win out. As you can see from the pictures, the kids won. Aaron and I voted for split the cash, but clearly were out numbered.

We tried having a dog about 10 years ago, and frankly, it was not a good experience. We didn't do our homework and we had three kids that were 9 and younger. We had no time to devote to the dog and we also picked the most hyper and hardest dog to train. We lasted about 3 months before we sent him to live on a farm. (It really was a farm...in the Midwest.) We decided that this time has to be different. This dog will actually be a part of our family. We want to make it work. We have spent the past week learning about different breeds and there has to be more to it than just picking out a cute dog. For one thing, the dog has to be easy to train or I want no part of it. Who is training this dog? Well....obviously me. As a result, my vote has to count at least 10 times. Once we decided upon a breed, we had to find a dog that would fit our budget. We went to a pound, but they only had about 6 dogs and none that would fit our lifestyle. The kids decided to chip in some of their own money and we started to look for puppies. We found one! It is an Miniature Australian Shepherd. She is about the cutest thing we have ever seen. Plus, she will be easy to train. That makes her even cuter!

We met a nice couple with three kids who live in Federal Way and went to their house to meet the puppy. The mom of the pups is named Snickers and the dad is Oreo. They had 10 girl pups in this litter and named them all after cookies. The name they chose for the puppy we fell in love with was Gingersnap because of the brown eyebrows! She has a sister with similar eyebrows and her name was Gingerbread. Gingersnap won our hearts though. We don't have to keep the name, but it's growing on us. It will help us remember that we got her for Christmas. She is only 4 weeks old right now, so she will stay with her mom and dad for a while longer. She will join our family in about 3 to 4 weeks. It will give us time to do some homework and puppy proof our house. Aaron and I have to admit that we might just like this idea of having a puppy after all.

We Tried to Go!

We were excited to get the call this morning telling us that Sacrament meeting was on today, in spite of the weather. So, we all got ready to head out the door. When we opened the garage door, there was a bit of snow that had drifted up against it. To make sure it would close, I started to shovel it away from the door. I found out that we had freezing rain during the night when I took a step out on the driveway and started to slip. I started to panic a bit wondering how this trip was going to end. Fortunately, I ended up stopping at the bottom of the drive when I hit the snow on the street. We decided that it might be best to not try to make the trip to church. :) Here is a video of my slide. (Sorry for the sidways view)


We ended up having a sort of service at home by watching a church Christmas video.


Oh well...we tried!

Snow Day = Long Commute in Seattle

Today's commute was a long one. The day started with a three hour bus ride to downtown Seattle. It snowed about 4 inches and put a layer of ice on the freeway. Cars were abandoned on the interstate and people were walking. We even passed an empty bus on the freeway. It was one of those extra long buses that bends as it rounds corners. This one had jack-knifed on the freeway and was just sitting there. We moved our way around it and I thought, "Man that would be a bummer to have that happen!"
Our bus driver was great! Once we hit the first stop in downtown Seattle, the whole bus let out a cheer for her skill and ability. She felt like a hero!
So, I finally got to the office and got some stuff done. The whole while the snow kept coming down. I was starting to get worried that the bus service would be cut off, so I decided to leave at about 12:30. I jumped on the bus and started to head home. As we were moving along, there was wreckage going both directions. Cars off the road, bumps and dents everywhere. We made one stop and almost did not start moving again. The chained tires just spun for a while. Finally, we started inching along. Not long after that, one of the passengers said, "ooo that truck is across the road." Sure enough, a delivery truck was blocking the opposite lanes of traffic. Several cars and our bus were trying to stop. At this point, we were headed down hill on about an inch of ice. Needless to say, the loaded bus did not make the stop. This bus was also one of those long buses that has the back end that bends on corners. It also bends when the front of the bus stops but the back does not. There were a couple of screams and profanities and then our bus was jack-knifed. Just so you know, it is a bummer when your bus is jack-knifed.
So myself, with my 120 closest new bus friends, walked the rest of the way down the hill in a blizzard to the closest transit center. Luckily, it was only about 1.5 miles away.
Here are some pics of the spot where the bus and other cars had troubles.

It is hard to tell from this shot, but the back of the bus is at about a 90 degree angle from the front of the bus. Clearly, people were a bit surprised!



This is looking up the hill at the bus and the delivery truck across the road.




This is a look down the hill at the other cars stuck on the ice.



All in all, I spent about 6 hours traveling today. Long Commute!

Old Pics

Stacy and I have recently received some old pictures from when we were kids (Thanks Lynne and Dad!). I am amazed at the memories that come back when we receive them. Not only do Stacy and I get a kick out of seeing them and reminiscing, but it is great to see the reactions on our kid’s faces when they realize that their parents were also young/small at one time and that we actually look like them! Or is it the other way around? Either way, got to love the old clothes, haircuts, and colors of the 70's.

Stacy's on the right. Love the funky colors!

Pic with the Osmonds (Donny and Marie). I guess Donny even had purple socks on! Stacy is the one in front of Donny.


Donny's car. I thought he would have been driving something cooler like maybe a Pacer.


Nice Suits! Stacy is on the left.

I love this picture. I have no recolection of where we were but got to love the "Happy Time Orange Soda"!

My brother and I used to love running through the sprinklers! I remember one time that I cut the bottom of my foot on a metal sprinkler head. I was so bummed out because the next week I could not go in the ocean due to the cut. One other memory about that time...We saw a school of flying fish lift out of the ocean during that trip to the beach.


This was taken one Easter morning. We were so excited to have our fake lawn mowers! See the red and white post in the far upper left of the photograph? Remember when Brian pulled the neighborhood fire alarm and all the fire trucks that came to see what the problem was? I am sure that Brian does! :-)


I love this shot. It looks like I am being held by my younger brother Shawn. He and my Dad are the spitting image of eachother!

Halloween...Hatch Style

I have these visions of how I would like life to be. Especially during the holidays. I would love to have a family outing where we go to a pumpkin patch, have a hayride, pick out the perfect pumpkin, then go home and carve with smiles and pictures galore. I would love to plan my kids' costumes months in advance and have them made to fit perfectly and set out the night before. I would love to go trick or treating as a family, hand in hand with Aaron at my side with the kids skipping along. So not so when it comes to Hatch reality! Life is crazy right now, so Halloween was last minute-lets see what we can throw together. It started with Aaron and Christopher carving a pumpkin last minute on a Monday night right before Pack Meeting. I forgot to unpack the carving tools when I got out the Fall decorations, so Aaron had to be inventive with finding new carving tools. Somehow we screwed up on the date and carved the pumpkin a week early. It rotted and we had to throw it out. Next Monday night, Aaron got a new pumpkin on the way home from work and they last minute started again. This time Preston got involved. I think they turned out great! Jaycee got a pumpkin too, but she had so much homework she didn't have time to carve it. I have never really been a fan of this holiday. Even as a kid. I would always dress up as a fat coach. I just wore big sweats, filled with pillows and wore my dads hat and whistle. It kept me warm and I was dressed up enough to at least get some treats from the neighbors. Now that I am older, I have to really force myself to be excited for my kids on this holiday. I get the candy part, but the dress up and scare people is just not my thing. Ironically enough, that is exactly what Christopher wanted to do this year. Just scare people. I'm not sure what he is, but he came up with his own costume. I found it scary. Preston decided to go as Harry Potter, and I talked Jaycee into wearing a poodle skirt I made years ago for Jenessa. This all came about 2 days before Halloween. Phew, just in time! The day was somewhat crazy, keeping with true Hatch form. Jenessa had a swim meet tonight at Rogers High School. It was district prelims. She was not thrilled this was taking place on Halloween. Aaron took her and she did AMAZING! Out of 4 events, she got personal bests on 3. Way to go Ness! YOU ROCK! She qualified for district finals in two events that will take place today. If she swims well, she will go to State in two weeks. It's looking pretty positive right now. So, while Aaron was at this swim meet, I took Jaycee to a Halloween Party, dropped Christopher off at the Fullers, took Preston around the block with my neighbor and tried to be home enough to hand out all the candy we bought. Right when Ness got home, she headed to the football game and off to a friends until Midnight. Poor Aaron had to wait up until then to go pick up both girls. We both are going to be exhausted today. Jaycee has a soccer game in Sammamish and Ness has District finals. It will be a long day, but yet rewarding at the same time. I love to watch my kids compete and share in their excitement.

So...my fantasy about Halloween didn't come to pass. Thank goodness. How cheesey was that?! Life is what it is and we will roll with it!

****Update*****
Jaycee won her soccer game 2-0. She even had a shot on goal. That is not an easy task at her level of play. Way to go Jaycee! Her team is undefeated this year and are in 1st place in their league. She plays left midfielder.

Ness had another personal best on the 200 Free Relay by dropping another second. What an amazing two day meet for her. She was dropping time right and left. Sadly, only the top 7 teams can go to state and that particular relay took 9th even though she dropped a second. On the 400 Free Relay, she swam up to par, but the relay team took 10th. We couldn't be more thrilled with her performance though. She kicked butt and went further this season than last.

Preston's Playin'

It is time for soccer and we want to talk about how good Preston is doing but first a bit of a flash back...
When Preston first started to play I don't think he understood that you actually get touched and sometimes even pushed. All he had done prior to playing on his first team was kick the ball back and forth in the back yard with his siblings or mom and dad. Non contact fun for all. So soccer would be a blast right? Here is the picture before we hit the field.

Although it is a bit blurry you can see he was excited and ready to go play a game.


Here is the on the field picture just a few minutes later.

What the heck are these other kids doing?!
I think someone touched me!!




Well we are happy to say that those days are behind him and he loves playing. I think the past few years seeing Christopher and Jaycee bump, fall, get bruised and bloodied during their games has helped him understand you might get "touched" during a game.


Even though we are not supposed keep track at this age level...his team is undefeated. They are starting to learn how to stay in a position and pass the ball to another player rather than just kicking it.


This last picture captures him kicking his first goal. I was lucky enough to catch the shot. Way to go Preston!