Tyler's Birthday!

It's the big 2-6!!!! Wow, times flys when your having fun!
(Now don't mind that his birthday was a week ago, better late than never, right?!)

For the big 2-6 I surprised Tyler with a night on the town on Saturday, okay more like an afternoon around Layton with my parents and brother. But believe me there was never a dull moment. Especially when Moroni is around talking about who know what.

We had lunch at Chili's Tyler's new favorite. Then we went on a shopping spree. Tyler wanted to get some new shoes for his birthday. This kid has only one solid good pair of shoes at one time our whole marriage. So I broke him into the shoe world by getting 3! One brown, one black, and one white. Now hopefully we won't have any brown-black combo again!

Tyler's haul after shopping!

WSU posters from Kyle

In the mist of all the shopping we had to stop at home and check out the Chelsea game. It actually turned out to be one of the most exciting games I've ever watched. I thought Tyler was going to have a heart attack.

On Tyler's actual birthday (Monday) we met my parents and brother again at Tucano's, aka HEAVEN, according to Tyler's brother. We can't stop at the Gateway without stopping at Aeropostale! That would be blasphemy! So we both got shirts for our trip!

Tucano's!

In other news...4 days of school until our 1st year completed! I will have to move my classroom out to a portable, so that will make for a busy summer. On top of that we have trips and activities planned up the wazoo! London/Portugal (9 days!), Disneyland/Universal/Sea World in July, and the USA women's soccer game! This summer will bring many a blog posts so stay tuned!

Happy Easter

After a non-stop spring break, it was nice to have a peaceful Easter Sunday. Listening to the primary sing in sacrament always gets to me. They are so cute and pure when they sing. After church, Tyler and I hid each others easter baskets. This was the first year that we have really done any Easter type activities it was fun.

 

Even with all the fun and cute Easter activities, this season makes me contemplate about the greatest sacrifice and yet the ultimate demonstation of love. When our brother, Jesus Christ, died on the cross for each of us, and rose, to show us that we can return to Him and to our Heaven Father.

Elder Holland said it perfectly in the April 2009 Conference when he said...

"With all the conviction of my soul I testify that He did please His Father perfectly and that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ's mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required, indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

But Jesus held on. He pressed on. The goodness in Him allowed faith to triumph even in a state of complete anguish. The trust He lived by told Him in spite of His feelings that divine compassion is never absent, that God is always faithful, that He never flees nor fails us...

Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so...Truly the Redeemer of us all said: 'I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you].' "

I am grateful for that great and solemn sacrifice that Christ made for not only me, but for all of us. I will eternally be grateful to Him.

New Additions

My new goal is to have the blog be more of a priority. It is a great way to journal and share our family life experiences. Everyday I think about getting on the blog and updating and everyday I never get around to it. I hear about from many people...mainly family...which are the only ones that really read this--rephrase that...the only ones that really care. :) Either way, ever since my birthday, 6 months ago, I keep thinking about the greatness of what this blog can be. Tyler got me a book of our blog for the last 2 years of marriage and I just keep thinking, I need to do a whole lot better so that we can have many books to come. So starting now, I am going to pencil in time in my schedule to blog. With all that said let's continue...

For the last couple months we have had many additions come in and out of the Hoch residence. Some have stayed. Some, sadly, have left us.

We added a cute little table to our living room, to make it a little more complete. I LOVE IT! Tyler says I better it took us about 6 months of shopping around, stores and online, to finally find a nice man in South Jordan that agreed to build one for me. :) He did a wonderful job, if I don't say so myself.

We finally have a little area that I can decorate and have fun with...

...and a place to old our candy jar!

Next, about a month ago I was having horrible mouth and tooth aches. Mainly my front teeth. Some days it was tolerable, some days I was in horrific pain that would make me cry. After a week of that, I made an appointment with the dentist. He had a lot of bad news, and a little of good news. I had a cyst growing on the root of one of my front teeth. It was so big that it had killed my tooth. I needed to have a root canal done right away. It would be a 2 hour process and I would need to take work off for a day. The good news you ask?! It was the tooth that I hated the most. :) My front tooth that has had a dark stain on it since it grew in when I was 7! I finally had a chance to get rid of it and insurance would help cover it, since it isn't cosmetic! So the long process began...I went in for the appointment, after the dentist started the root canal, he realized that it was worst than he thought...YES, WORSE. He had to cut into my gum and cut off part of the root of my tooth, and remove the cyst that was larger than he thought. I ended up getting 6 stitches. It ended up being a FOUR HOUR process. After all was done, I visited the dentist 4 times in 4 weeks. The initial appointment, root canal, removal of stitches, and final crown placement. I am completely dentisted out. I told him that I don't want to see him until my next cleaning in 6 months. He agreed. :)

Before

Right After

Notice how I can't really smile. :)

Final Look

Finally, the last additions we have had here in the Hoch Residence is FAMILY! The greatest addition! Amber and TJ came down for a weekend a couple weeks ago, and Tyler's parents and brother just lest a couple days ago. It's always nice to see the family around to give you the excuse to go out and have fun and do things you haven't done in a while.

With Amber and TJ we went to City Creek, Opening Weekend...big mistake! But it was fun, and then we went and saw the Utah Blaze...actually pretty entertaining.

Tyler's family came down for a couple days making the rounds to all the children during their Spring Break, it turned out to be our Spring Break too! We golfed, went to Fat Cats, Temple Square, City Creek, Tucano's and a Jazz game!

Jordan's Heaven on Earth

Oh and one more...Tattiana and Chris had a cute little boy the end of March! Three nephews! The boys are taking over!

Little Nash

Now, I need to get back to my regular sleeping schedule and get back into my daily routine for next week. Having this week off just makes me more excited for our summer adventures!

Playing Catch Up...

I am sorry in advance for the modge-podge type blog that this will be, but this year has definately been a busy one. In the short two months we have had. At the end of January, I was putting together my class newsletter and I realized I had 3 or 4 "regular" days. No meetings, no early practice for our 6th grade performance, no Greek Olympics, no DARE graduation. Yet, we find time to have fun on the weekends and play a little.

Back in January we went to support the Washington State Cougars. Great game! Bad ending!

That's a lot of Y's my friend!

We have been saving up each month since we started teaching so that we can go back to Portugal this Summer. This month it became a reality!! We bought our tickets! We are going to spend 2 days in London, and then off to Portugal. I am excited to go to the island Madeira! Tyler got to serve on the island but I never went. It looks gorgeous! Check out what we will see...

LONDON...

Watching this on London Broadway!!!!

PORTUGAL...

Since we just celebrated the day of love...check out what I did for my co-workers and students!