Christmas in Washington

This Christmas all the Hoch kids went home for the Holidays! It was so much fun to be with that side of the family again. Usually when we get together with the Hoch side of the family we have jam packed days--a lot to do in little time. This time Tyler and I flew up on the 14th and Amber, TJ, and Kyle followed on the 18th. 9 people in a house (for a couple days there was 10 when Alex came up). Now I know how they felt on "Full House." But really it was nice to relax for a while right before our last semester of school. The calm before the storm if you will. We watched a lot of movies, played a lot of games, and lost a ton in Badminton to Jordan and Deeds.

Winter Wonderland

We got the chance to help Tiffany in decorating a teacher's door for a project she had to do for school. It was so much fun and we probably had too much fun doing it.

Christmas Eve
Like I said before we played a lot of badminton through out the day. However, none of us could shake the "humble and fair" team of Jordan and Deeds...I think they won like 8 straight games.

 3 on one side and we still can't win!

The birdie on the ground with Deeds and Jordan didn't happen to often.

We had the missionaries over for dinner that night and what a dinner it was! Absolutely delicious! Debbie says that she always wants to go to culinary school...I think she can go as a teacher!

Then that night we opened our pj's a tradition I love!

Christmas Day
Christmas day we all felt like kids in a candy store. The Hochs have a tradtion to stay upstairs until everyone is ready and the parents say we can. Even with the youngest being 16 we stayed up there until Kyle decided to grace us with his presence.

The view from upstairs

Our Santa gifts and Stockings

Kyle's best gift...Superman boxers

One of my favorite gifts my princess fleece blanket

Tiffany with her snuggie and office calendar

(we gave her the office calendar)

All of us downstairs.

(If you look closely and see the blue monster next to Glenn...that's Jordan!)

The only picture I got with all of us in our pj's and Jordan is in the middle of a yawn.

Asay vs Hoch Basketball
There is an epic basketball rivarly between the Asay and Hoch family. I think it started ever since Tyler's family moved up there. They have played weekly for the last 10 years or so when everyone is around. Since all the Hoch boys were back together and the Asays were back from England the challenge continued. Sadly, the Hoch family didn't do so hot, but Jordan was for sure the MVP...sadly he was playing on the Asay team because they needed one more!

The Basketball Homies

The Cheerleaders

We got bored at the basketball game so Amber painted my nails to match hers. 

Seattle Temple
Tyler's grandparents work at the Seattle Temple and so a couple days after Christmas we went to visit them and do a session at the temple. Tyler was the only one, between the 4 of us that went, that had done a session at the Seattle Temple before.

Amber and TJ

Tyler and I

Amber's Birthday (New Year's Eve)
On our last day there we took family pictures at a park nearby. The pictures turned out awesome! Then we had a fabulous birthday dinner, played the present exchange games, had dessert, Amber opened her gifts, then we went to bed early since we had to get up at 5:30 to get on the 6:30 ferry to Seattle. It was a nice ending to a fabulous trip!

The Whole Clan

The Hoch Kids

 The boys being thugs

Amber and her cheesecake



Elf

Elf is my ALL TIME favorite movie! Christmas and non-Christmas movie. I can recite that movie from beginning to end! So you can imagine how excited and happy I was when Debbie (tyler's mom) came up with the fabulous idea to have an elf dinner Sunday night. She kept it a surprise the whole day, everyone kept asking and she would say nothing. She had us go into the other room while she staged the kitchen. We read the story " 'Twas the Night before Christmas in Idaho" In honor of Amber and TJ. After the story was over, she let us go into the kitchen, all we saw was the candy dishes, then she said that they were our toppings for dinner. Then all of a sudden she plopped spaghetti on the counter. I thought it was hilarious! We ended up just putting regular sauce on top and then eating the candy as snacks. Later after we ate and talked for a little we watched ELF!!! It was one of the best days of my life!!!

Our reaction

Spaghetti with the 4 major food groups: candy, candy cane, candy corns, and syrup! :)

Pysch-ing out!

So Tyler and I are in love with the show Psych. More me than Tyler but anyways...Since we are up in Washington for Christmas and still have our passports we decided to go up to good 'ole Vancouver again, with Tyler's grandparents this time. What does this have to do with Psych you ask? That is where they film this great show. So we went on a hunt to find the places where the film. The Psych office, the pier, and Shawn's house. 2 out of 3 isn't bad. We got super lost going to find the house and were going to be late for our session at the Temple. So the main reason we went up to Vancouver was to go to the temple. The last time Tyler and I went up to Canada, the temple was in between the Open House and being dedicated. So now we were able to go in. With the traffic of Langley (where the temple actually is) and us getting lost, we were late for our session. We ended up doing initiatories and then getting a mini tour of the temple. So it actually turned out to be a good thing that we were late. Overall we were in Canada for a few hours, but it was a great trip. Especially traveling with grandparents they always say the funniest things and make the trip fun. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Williamson!

 

 At the "Santa Barbara Pier" from Psych

 

At the Psych office. In real life it's a museum and it was under construction, hence the blue fence.

 

 The Vancouver Temple

New Page

Check out the new page we have at the top of the blog! It's the "video" tab. It basically is what it says. It's a page where you can see a bunch of videos we have put together over the years. You can have a selection of our engagement pictures, wedding pictures, honeymoon pictures, and pictures from 2009. At the beginning of next year we will be posting a video of pictures from this past year. Enjoy!

Update...

Let me start off by venting just a little bit! I for one am feel bad for the Thanksgiving holiday, everyine focuses on what happens AFTER Thanksgiving and just brush off the holiday. It's all about black friday and weekend sales, putting up your Christmas tree and decorations, sometimes even before Thanksgiving comes! Don't get me started about Christmas music right after Halloween. I just have pitty for Tahnksgiving, it's like the red-headed step-child of holidays. Right in the middle of Halloween-getting all excited to trick-or-treat with your kids and the bonus of eating some of their candy, and Christmas-the family time, presents, and life long traditions. Thanksgiving has turned into people complaining about who's coming or not, all the food you have to make/bring and the hassel of getting seating arrangements. Poor Thanksgiving! So I have decided that I will give all my attention to each Holiday every year! Which for you that really know me, and know that I HATE Halloween, and hate is somewhat underrated. Once I have kids I know I will totally get into the holiday--the fun part not the gross and gory part. So to give Thanksgiving it's attention that is needed, I started listening to Christmas music, and we put up the tree and all the decorations come out on December 1st. Thank you for hearing me out.

Also this year I have become a little crafty. Julliana helped me make a stocking holder that I saw on another friends blog, check it out: http://auntielolocrafts.blogspot.com/

So this past week Tyler and I found out our assignments for student teaching! Finally! Tyler will ba at sand Ridge Junior High in Roy. He will be teaching History and English. He will do US History and Utah History, for English he will do 9th grade English. He is pretty excited!  I will be a couple blocks away at North Park Elementary. i will be teaching 5th grade for 6 weeks and ESL pull out for 6 weeks. I am really excited becasue the teacher I am working with in our ward!

Sand Ridge Junior High

North Park Elementary

Last Saturday, we got to hang out witht the buddy again! Ben came over while Troy and Julliana went to go see James. Ben is getting to be more talkative now. He counts everything. So for about 20 minutes Ben and Tyler sat on the kitchen floor eating pretzels and counting each one they ate. It was preety funny. However, once Ben counts to nineteen, everything is nineteen from then on.

Tyler doesn't really know all the words Ben actually can say, so during their pretzel time Ben turned to Tyler and said, "more!" Tyler starts yelling to me, "Lucci, Ben said more!" I replied, "Then give him more!" I've heard Ben more all the time at my sisters house so I knew it wasn't anything new. However, Be did said Tyler for the first time, actually it came out Tywer, but Tyler was very excited. Another funny thing that happened, which shows how much of a turkey Ben really is...Ben found our candy stash and so he picked out a sucker, I was unwraping it for him and I told Ben he had to say please to get the sucker. He kept repeating, "sucker, sucker, sucker" I know Ben can say please, he says it all the time. But as a kept asking him to say please he would just say sucker. Finally I gave in a nd gave him the sucker. Once he had it in his hand and licked it a little, then he said please. That little turkey!

Ben's favorite way to sit on the banana chair

Ben put the two banana chairs together,

when I went to go sit next to him in the other one he pushed me off.

I guess he just wanted to build "mega chair"

Tyler and Ben's Pretzel Time

Later that night, Tyler and I went to see the Forgotten Carols at the Dee Events center. We love the music and have the play on DVD, but tickets were cheap and the seats were great so we went and had a blast! It got us into the Christmas Spirit! Plus,Michael McLean is actually pretty funny.

Little James Update:

Little is doing great! He is out of his "condo" and out in room temperture. He is off oxygen! Which is a huge sigh of relief for my sister. He is getting milk every 3 hours, they are trying bottle feeding once a day. Little James gets tired sucking on the bottle so he hasn't finished a full feeding yet. Last I heard James was up to 3lbs 9oz. So he's growing! As my sister says, he's starting to look like a real baby instead of a old man.

 



The Week at a Glance

With the whole blizzard warning on Tuesday, Tyler and I both got off work early and we have had a break from school and work since. You would think we would take the time to relax and catch up on some things around the house, we actually did the opposite. We stayed pretty busy, having long days, and getting home late. However, we did so much and had so much fun that I would take it back. We figured we are done with the semester in a week so we can catch up on things then.

Tuesday, was my last day at my field work, with the first graders. I loved working the first graders, however, I have learned that I have an even greater desire to work with the upper grades. They were super cute and fun, but I'm not sure I could handle that many 6 and 7 year olds for 9 months out of the year. When we were saying our goodbyes, all the kids were yelling our, "I'm going to miss you Mrs. Hoch!" then from the back of the room you hear little Nathaniel, "I hope you have a good Thanksgiving Dinner!" They always made me laugh.

On Wednesday, Tyler and I finished up some homework that we wanted to get done so we didn't have to worry about it over the weekend. That night I went out and met up with my friends. The four of us have been friends since the 8th grade, now that we are going our seperate ways we try to find time to still hang out and have fun like the good old days. Now 3 missions, 2 weddings, and 1 pregnancy later we had a night to ourselves. It was so much fun to catch up and reminisce.

Me, Bri, Naomi, Tawny (and baby Streeter)

Thursday of course was turkey day. Now that Tatti and Chris are married and live in a mansion, we had thanksgiving at their place. It was our family, minus the Lund Clan, and Chris' Family. I ate so much, that I just sat in my seat for a while after. That night like we always do we went and watch a movie, this year...Megamind. Super cute and funny movie! I loved it! We took our camera but got so caught up in the moment that no pictures were taken.

On Friday Tyler, my dad, Moroni, and I all went to Salt Lake and took a Church History tour for ourselves. Our sunday school teacher gave us a map of the Salt Lake City cemetery and where prominent members of the church are buried. We visited the graves of Porter Rockwell, John Taylor, David O. McKay, Wilford Woodruff, Spencer W. Kimball, and President Hinckley to name a few. Then we went to the Church History Museum, Brigham Young's House, and walked around temple square to see the lights. It was a fun filled day!

 There was a monument in memory of Hyrum Smith.

President and Sister Hickley's Grave

The Kimball's Grave

 Camilla Eyring Kimball, who my middle name is named after.

A replica of the conference center pulpit, it's huge!

Tyler giving his future conference talk.

The light were wonderful!

Saturday was probably my favorite day of all of them! We got to go to the temple and see the lady that was my first baptism on my mission go through and get her endownments. It felt like I was going through for the first time too, I was so excited! Tyler and I were asked to be the witness couple, so I got to sit by her too! It was at the Mount Timpanogus Temple which was the temple I went through for my endownments and were Tyler and I were sealed, I thought that was so cool!

April 12, 2008 Andrea's Baptism

November 27, 2010

A date with Ben

Tyler and I were excited to watch Ben while my sister and Troy went to see James at the hospital and out to eat with some friends. Ben is just a funny little guy and has a fun personality that we couldn't wait to play with him. We took him to the tree house, we knew Ben went there a lot, and that it was one of his favorite places...one time he went with his grandparents to the treehouse and pulled down his pants when he walked in because he was so excited and felt like he was at home...I guess he does that a lot at his own house. However, we didn't know that he knew that place like the back of his hand. Every time I thought he was running away, he was just going to see another exhibit he liked. One time he started running towards a part where there was a hallway with an exit sign. I was worried he was going out a back door or something, but no! ben knew exactly where the stairs were and wanted to go upstairs to play in the music exhibit. It was a fun nigt. We got to milk a cow, play some africian instruments, go in the oval office, play life-size chess, and of course play with legos and building blocks...Ben's absolute favorite!!!

Then we came home and taught Ben how to rock and sit on a banana chair...too bad we didn't get a picture it was pretty hilarious.

 Ben, I and Betsy

Ben has the most infectious giggle. So of course we have to have "tickle time" when we are with him.

                          

P.S. Here is one of my new fvorite pictures of James. He is doing really well, and is a strong little fighter!!!