Merry Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas to all! We love this time to reflect on the Savior and our Heavenly Father's love. 

Esther has taken to using my iPad and watching the Mormon Channel. Her favorite is this Christmas Mormon Message that I'll share with you. 

We recently moved from our "barn" into a real house.  Apart from having a place for both my kids to sleep uninterrupted, and a ceiling tall enough for Chris to stand up tall, and enough windows to know whether the sun is out or not, the BEST part of the house has been getting it all decorated for Christmas. 

It was our first year getting a Christmas tree and Washington is definitely the right place for that.

Here I am with Sam at the little tree farm where we could choose any tree to cut for $20. Not a bad deal.

The winning tree and a very blurry photograph. 

The tree skirt.

The stockings, nativity, and advent wreath

The cute little lady in last year's dress that finally fits. Guess who loves Christmas?!

Esther LOVES Christmas music. Her favorite songs are: Jingle Bells, Rudolph, Frosty, and Santa Clause is Coming to Town, and Mister Grinch.  She loves opening up a new Christmas book each day.  She is a bit worried Santa is going to eat her (not sure why).

Happy Saint Nicklaus Day!

On the night of December 5th we set our shoes out for Saint Nicklaus to come a "check on us" to make sure we're being good before Christmas.  Esther was worried he wouldn't leave a present because we forgot to leave carrots for the reindeer, but the next morning we found a new hot chocolate maker on our doorstep along with some other surprises in our shoes.  After that, Esther kept asking if we could set our shoes out for Santa. Clever. 

My favorite weekend of the year.

Happy 30th Birthday

Celebrating 30 Years of Chris

We took the entire day to celebrate the momentous occasion and it was delightful! Chris is embarking on a new decade of life and in order to set the tone for the day/year I woke him with the music of "The Best is Yet to Come."  The rest of the day proceeded as follows:

-Breakfast: German pancakes, berries, and even bacon- something rarely seen in my kitchen

-Gifts in the form of maple syrup, homemade granola, and a few other yummies from Trader Joe's

-Exercise: take the kids to the YMCA so we can work out together. Feels like we're already on a date. But then we go home to change, take the kiddos to the (blessed) Dyers, and we drive to Seattle for the real date.

-Date: Sailing! So fun to be out on the Sound and experience the quiet movement of a sailboat. Bliss! Definitely a favorite. Chris is considering taking it up as a new hobby.  

-Dinner: Walk through Seattle to get sushi. Yum!

-More Gifts: We put our mother's gifts to good use as we purchased a pair of much needed running shoes and two desperately needed white shirts.  Thank you parents!

-Cake: German Chocolate, of course, which we decided to wait and eat with the Dyers. That way we could enjoy their company and ensure we didn't eat the entire goodness ourselves. :)

Without the kids we feel so young...which is ironic since we were supposed to be celebrating his advancing age. It was a wonderful day with a wonderful man!

Deception Pass, fishing, and other adventures

DECEPTION PASS

We got to spend a night camping with the Dyers and other friends from their ward up at Deception Pass. The combination of islands, beaches, lakes, and forests make this place absolutely stunning and sadly the pictures do not do is justice. 

Esther's favorite games while hiking (and every other time) are galloping like a horse and playing hide and seek with daddy. Can you find them?

 Boo!

FISHING
Apparently, the Salmon run up a river near us so we (meaning Chris with my full support) are taking up fishing! I was surprised by how fun it was for the whole family.  Esther explores along the river and, inevitably, gets soaked in the water, Sam sits with mom while I read, and Chris does the actual work (naturally) of fishing , and we all get to enjoy being outside in a pretty place. Now we just need to make it out to the river this week since the fish are actually running!

Snohomish River

DONKEYS

Up the road from our house is a pasture with miniature donkeys that are SUPER cute. Esther and I have had to pull over on several occasions to admire them. So when we learned that one of those very donkeys would be at the Snoqualmie Ice Cream - o - Rama (what exactly is an O-Rama anyway?) we knew we had to be there.  We met Little Red Man, but Esther who was in desperate need of a nap, didn't get her usual thrill out of the donkey.  We also got to see some goats, a miniature horse, chickens, and best of all, some Alpacas which are very cute and apparently quite lucrative since their fleece can be sold for up to $30 an ounce. Who knew? Chris is considering them as a future pet for our kids since they fairly easy to maintain AND they are an income producing animal unlike dogs, cats, and especially goats. (The Hardy can understand.) 

Utah Trip Part II

Our second week in Utah, while my parents were at the MTC, we got to spend a couple nights with my sister who just moved to Salt Lake from Chicago.  We had a picnic at Sugar House Park, played games, ate gelato, talked, played with cousins.  Love having them closer!

 We even had time to visit with some dear friends. 

Adrianne and Rachel from High School.  They are even more amazing as they were back then.

Meredith and Brittney  - wonderful room mates from BYU.  These two women taught me so much about obedience and commitment to the gospel.  Love them! (Since I forgot to get a picture with them, I stole this from Facebook since it was only taken a couple weeks later at Brittney's wedding. Wish I could have been there!)

The Hansens were our dear friends in North Carolina. Luckily we both were visiting Utah at the same time so we got to spend a lovely afternoon at Aimee's parent's house. I love how Aimee incorporates regular gospel teaching in her home.  She is one amazing momma.  Love this family!  

We're keeping this picture for when Grant and Esther are both at BYU...to remind them to be friends. :)

Wednesday, we went back to Kaysville to welcome my parents back from the new mission president's seminar. They had just spent 5 days being taught by living apostles of Jesus Christ along with other church leaders, and when they walked in the door we all noticed a visible change in them. They were radiant! They were both so excited to get going. It was a special evening to sit and listen to them tell us of their experiences. The whole family is starting to catch on to the missionary spirit.

We spent the next day just enjoying be together one last time. 

Sam and my grandma Beth who will be 95 next month. She is amazing!

Then early Friday morning we all donned our Cyrillic "I love Ukraine" tees and went to the airport.  

There were smiles...

...and even more tears.

                                 
                                 

Away they go!

(To this day, Esther still thinks grandma and grandpa are at the "air fort.")

Goodbye mom and dad. We'll pray for you every day until you come back. 

Summer's Fun

Utah Trip Part I: Lochhead Family Reunion

The first of the two weeks we spend in Utah were at the  Lochhead family reunion with my parents, their 6 children +  spouses, and all 18 grand kids. I'm so glad we had such a happy time together, especially since it was the last time we will all be together for 3 long years.   

The week ended by sending my mom and dad off to our Church's Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah where they would spend the next 5 days preparing for their new full-time calling to preside over the missionary and ecclesiastical efforts in the Ukraine, Donetsk Mission.

I love these two so much! I'm amazed how, in just 6 weeks, they managed to move home from Russia, prepare to sell their house of 24 years, make the financial-medical-spiritual-logistical preparations for their 3 years abroad (no coming home this time), AND spend quality individual time with each of their children's families.  They must have had lots of help from above. 

At the MTC, my dad was set apart by Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. It was such a privilege to meet him! Elder David Evans of the Seventy set my mom apart and gave her such a tender blessing. I'll remember this experience for a long while I think. 

I sort of fell apart...even though it was just a warm-up farewell as we would get to see them the next week before taking them to the airport. 

Two of my sisters and their husbands had to race to the MTC after running much of the night for Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay.  Die hard.

The beginning of our reunion was much less tearful and really quite happy. Highlights of the week include:

Esther discovered her great love of hot dogs.

My brother hosted all of us for a birthday BBQ for my niece Lily.  I love the similarity in my sister's facial expressions and hand gestures. And we wonder why we have strong-willed kids??

 Love that in both these pictures my dad is stepping back and taking in all the family togetherness. Maybe he is trying to store up 3 years in one go. 

 [I kind of love my little blonde niece in the foreground]

Love these two little cousins just 2 weeks apart. Apparently, whenever someone refers to Esther, Harriet interjects with a "No! My Esther." Love this girl.

It was so great to see all the kids playing together instead of in sequestered age groups. 

Ice cream good-by party at the barn

 My amazing, almost 95 year-old grandma and Sam (almost 5 months)

 My beautiful Mom and Sam

One of the most memorable parts of the reunion was the family meeting we had one evening. The grand kids had prepared some missionary songs, grandma and grandpa talked about why they were choosing to go on this mission, they shared their testimonies, and the sons and sons-in-law gave them Priesthood blessings.   

We all felt the Spirit of God as we united our faith for my parents. There was a tangible increase in the love we felt as a family both for my parents and for each other. I'm sure these are just the first of many such moments Heavenly Father will be sending our way as my parents set out for Ukraine. It's been a good reminder for me to see that even when God asks us to do something hard, the blessings always exceed the sacrifice. Here's to missionary work!

 Cousin love. 

 Emil is going to be quite the ladies' man

During some intense monkey's on the ground, my niece chipped her newly grown (adult) front tooth. Not good.  But she was a great sport about it all.

 The oldest grand-daughters - can't believe what little ladies they are!

 What is a family reunion without a water fight? 

 The inflatable slide we mistakenly believed to be a water slide.  The kids were flying down that thing! There were some major crash landings at the bottom, one particularly memorable when my brother-in-law holding his 2 year old hit the barrier at the bottom and then proceeded to sail right over it.   I guess it wasn't the safest, so we called the company and discovered they had mistakenly given us the 22' dry slide in stead of the 18' wet slide. Ignorance was slippery bliss.

Love this picture of the on-lookers of our "water" slide craziness. 

My brother's family planned an awesome day camp for the kiddos based on the Percy Jackson books about Greek mythology geared for kids. Here they are showing off their newly forged swords. 

Esther used her sword more as a battle ax

She LOVED getting her finger and toe nails (aka "piggy nails") pained with Aphrodite

The day culminated in a rousing/lethal game of capture the flag, a hot dog roast, and s'mores.

Thanks for a great week!