It's about time......

Ethan's 1st Birthday which happened to be on Thanksgiving.
He loved his puppy dog cake!

Aggie school spirit

Aaron and I found a monkey at the
Trunk or Treat!

We'll be seeing all ya Utah folks in 2 days!! We can't wait!

Yea for Visitors!!!

My parents and little brother came to visit us last weekend. It was great to see them and show them around College Station. We didn't have time to do a lot because they were only here for 2 1/2 days. However, we did do a few things like go on a tour of the Texas A&M campus and visit the George H. Bush Presidential Library. I had never been to a Presidential Library before last weekend and I thought it was great! I was hoping I'd run into Pres. Bush Sr. because he apparently hangs out around his library but unfortunately I didn't. Maybe next time!
Ethan was scared of my family at first but he warmed up quickly. He kept on looking at them funny and you could tell he was thinking what are they still doing here. And then....before we knew it it was time for them to go. :( But we just bought tickets to go home for Christmas on December 10th for a whole month so we will see them and more family in less than 2 months!

Politics Schmolitics? I think not!

Something very strange has happened recently!
Aaron has become interested in politics. This is very big for those of you who don't know him. He has never registered to vote and has never really cared to. I on the other hand have always liked to be up to date with happenings in the political world and I always vote. I'm certain my interest in it is because of my parents. I remember many a times my family having political discussions. Sometimes they were pretty heated considering one of my parents is a Democrat and the other Republican. From what Aaron tells me his family is quite the opposite of mine when it comes to politics.
So, you can imagine how surprised I was when Aaron watched the WHOLE Presidential debate a couple weeks ago and then again on Thursday when he watched the WHOLE VP debate. (Poopy that The Office wasn't on because of it. We were very disappointed!) I thought I couldn't be any more prouder of my hubby until he told me that he thinks he better vote this year! Aaron I love you and you will never stop surprising me!

Happy Baby!!!

I've been meaning to post this for awhile but our internet here hasn't been working too well. This is a video of Ethan giggling. He is such a happy baby most of the time. He has the funniest laugh! He gets especially punchy late at night which is when this video was taken.

Last night hurricane Ike arrived here in College Station. It has been raining a lot and really windy since then. Luckily our power only went out for an hour. Hopefully it won't go out again with all the flooding that is sure to occur. Today has been pretty boring because a lot of the stores are closed and boarded up. I had to get out so we went to the mall but it wasn't open either. Before the hurricane arrived the grocery stores were crazy. Everyone was stocking up on food and water and several shelves were empty. About 3,000 evacuees are here from Houston. Some are staying at our church. I'm just happy that the worst is over. Hmmmm.... Funny thing-Before we got the hurricane news I was actually thinking about visiting Houston and Galveston this weekend. Good thing we didn't!

Howdy

Well, we made it here safe and sound with a pretty uneventful trip. When we first walked into our apartment our first thoughts were, "Ghetto!" but now that we have everything set up it definitely feels like home. There are a lot of broken things and carpet stains but we don't really notice them anymore. The day after we got here Aaron ran into our next door neighbors. They are a young couple who are also LDS and he is a grad student at A&M too! They also have a little boy who is almost a year old! This discovery made me super happy and was an answer to my prayers. They told us that they were the only members in this area until we moved in.
And even more good news: We found out that Aaron got a full tuition scholarship!!!! We were planning on taking out student loans so this is a super great blessing for us.
Aaron found a little lizard in our apartment while he was shutting the window and he accidentally cut the lizard's tail off in the window. Luckily we were able to catch it quickly but the tail is still on our window sill and I'm trying to make Aaron dispose of it. In the past two weeks we have seen a lot of bugs we have never seen before. There are a lot of toads too. They just jump out at us when we go on walks.
It is super hot here. Temperature wise it's about the same as Utah but the humidity is deathly. Whenever we go outside we get super sweaty. Poor Ethan cries whenever we get in the car because it feels like an oven.
Well, that's all for today.

Next Stage

We have been enjoying our last bit of time living here in Utah. We will be moving a week from today! I am both excited and nervous. I am mostly anxious about the 22 hour drive down there. I'm sure it will be longer because we will have to drive slow with a trailer. :( Hopefully Ethan will be good on the drive. He's been good in the car lately and just watches out the window. We will be driving our car and truck down (the truck will be pulling a trailer with all our stuff). Aaron's brother, Nathan, is going to be driving down with us, which will be a huge help. I guess I better start packing now!

Hawaii

Last week and the week before we went to Hawaii with my family. We spent the first week on Maui and the second on Oahu. It was a nice to go on a relaxing vacation because our big trip to Europe last year was a lot of running around. The beach in Maui was awesome!! It was just half a block away from our condo. It is the second best beach I have ever been to- Cancun being the first. Ethan was scared of the water at first but soon became quite the beach baby. I unfortunately lost my sunnies twice in the ocean. The first time Aaron found them in the water 20 minutes later. You would have thought I learned my lesson not to wear my sunnies into the ocean but big waves kept on taking me down by surprise. I love to play in the waves!!!

It was nice to visit Oahu again. I can't believe it had been almost 10 years since I went last. We visited all the touristy places such as: the Polynesian Cultural Center, Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, Waimea, Hanauma Bay, and the Dole Pineapple Factory. The place we stayed at on Oahu had a bunch of man-made lagoons that we had fun playing in too. Oh, and not to forget shopping!! My family loves to shop. My favorite store we went to was a Japanese department store. It was just like being in Japan again.




Ethan with his Uncle Jacob and cousin Seth

Photos

I'm slow at posting pictures but here are some of our recent move, Aaron's graduation, etc.

Ethan's first rice cereal feeding

Playing on his tummy

Aaron and Ethan "in the hood"

With Aaron's sister Janelle, Aaron's mom, and my mom

Ethan "helping" us pack

Recently

I love living in a house with a big kitchen and yard!! It's been almost 2 weeks since we moved into Aaron's mom's house. We will be here until the middle of August, which is when we will be moving to College Station, Texas- Aaron was officially accepted to Texas A&M a few weeks ago!!!
Aaron's mom is living in SLC for the summer so we get to house sit and take care of Elise, Aaron's 17 year old sister. We planted a garden a few days ago and Aaron has been loving the big garage for all his projects. He is building a custom bumper for his truck. He taught me how to weld today!
Mother's Day was great this year- my first one being a mom. Ethan gave me the best present ever! He slept for 10 hours Saturday night with one brief feeding and then had a super long nap Sunday afternoon. It was amazing! Aaron gave me flowers and a CD of hymns. I love being a mom and I am even more grateful for my own mom now that I am a mom. I hope I can be as good as a mom to Ethan as she is to me.

10 Reasons

I haven't been in the mood to blog for awhile but my sister-in-law Sami tagged me a while ago so I guess I'll give in.

10 Reasons Why I'm Lame

1. I don't like to spend money on myself. Aaron pretty much has to drag me to the store sometimes.

2. I sleep in until 10 or 11 am. It is so so hard for me to wake up earlier than that especially now that I wake up a lot during the night for Ethan.

3. I worry too much. Most of the time it's about totally absurd things.

4. I get motion sick when I swing on swings. Just the other day I was barely swinging with Ethan on my lap for about 5 minutes and I felt like up chucking after.

5. I like to watch ET, Extra, Access Hollywood, etc. For some reason I find celeb news so fascinating. Aaron thinks it's funny!

6. I can be a little too competitive sometimes and I don't like to lose. I get mad at Aaron when we play Stratego because he always finds my flag way too fast. Also when we play Chinese checkers he ruins all my awesome moves.

7. I always sing the wrong lyrics to songs. I don't do it on purpose, but for example, I honestly thought the song "It's too late to apologize" really said " It's too late to fall in love". Oh well, I secretly think my lyrics are better!

8. I am obsessed with this season's American Idol. I like the Davids!

9. I think it's fun to organize things. I like to organize the luggage in the trunk when we go on road trips.

10. I have spent way too much time on this!!!!!!!!!!

10 Reasons Why I Rock

1. I can beat my husband at leg wrestling 18 out of 20 times! Arm wrestling is another story.

2. Aaron and I came up with an awesome business idea: "Mansies"! These are onesies but for men. I think this would be very popular with the plumbers because they wouldn't have to worry about showing off their bums every time they lean over.

3. I make really good pizza! I'm not very good at rolling out the dough into a perfect circle though.

4. I won the fight for Aaron with my roommate. Luckily she's married now and over it.

5. I have a great husband who helps out with Ethan in the middle of the night and takes him in the early morning hours so I can get some sleep.

6. I can measure out exactly half a pound from a big block of fudge. Thanks to working at the BYU candy counter.

7. I can do an awesome baby voice- unfortunately for my siblings who feel like I am torturing them every time I do it. Friends at work told me I was good enough to do voices for cartoons though.

8. I just got called as a family history indexer! It is fun to do and really easy.

9. I am good at playing practical jokes on people. Ask my sister Lindsey about the time I put a lobster shell in her bed. When she found it she was laying in bed and was too afraid to move because she thought it was alive.

10. I have traveled to 23 different countries. Hopefully more will be added to the list in years to come.

Tag! You're it: Lindsey, Rebecca, Brooke Berges

Lately

Here are pictures of some things we have been up to lately:

Aaron and Ethan washing the car

Poor sleepy babe

The Hatch cousins after an Easter egg hunt

Ethan's incredible balance

Aaron's 24th Birthday!!!

Police Beat

Aaron brings home The Daily Universe for me everyday because I like to read the newspaper. My favorite section is Police Beat. It cracks me up with some of the crazy happenings and absurd reasons the police are called. If any of you have read it I'm sure you will agree. Here's a couple entries out of the other day's paper that I thought particularly odd and funny:

Disorderly Conduct
March 12: A male student posted fliers in female dorm halls asking for dates to satisfy a dating requirement for his marriage preparation class. The fliers not only violate BYU policy but were disturbing female residents. Police discovered that the student was not enrolled in that class and the professor he said he had has retired.

Suspicious Behavior
March 14: A student called BYU police when she noticed three suspicious males walking around a parking lot. When police responded they determined that the suspicious males were actually grounds crew who had been picking up trash.

Home Again

We really enjoyed our trip to Texas! The plane trip went pretty well with Ethan and on the way there some passengers even commented on how good he was. We are pretty sure we will be moving there in the fall for Aaron to go to Texas A&M. I liked College Station because it had a lot of shops and restaurants and most importantly a mall. Since it is a college town it reminded me of Provo some. We especially had a lot of fun visiting the Barksdales. Ethan liked having so many kids to watch and entertain him. The following are some pictures of Ethan and his cousins.
Eliza, Ethan, and Hyrum after church

Ethan and Hazel ( 2 months)

Ethan and all the Barksdale cousins

Texas

On Thursday we are flying to Texas for Aaron to check out Texas A&M for graduate school. We will be in College Station, which is where the university is for a couple of days and then we will spend a couple of days with Aaron's sister Juli and her family in Austin. I'm excited to go on a little trip but nervous to go with a baby, especially the flying part. I'm sure everything will go smoothly though! I'm definitely looking forward to the warm weather down there.

Reading

Lately I've gotten back in the book reading groove. Since Ethan was born I had been watching a lot of TV. I just got into the habit that every time I fed him, which is a lot, I would flip on the TV to pass the time. Luckily a friend that I use to work with at Los is an avid reader and let me borrow a few of her favorite books. Now I read instead of watch TV, most of the time, when I feed Ethan. It's kind of tricky turning the pages one handed but I'm getting good at it. Three that I read in the last week are The Secret Life of Bees, The Alchemist, and A Heart Like His. The last one my mom let me borrow and it is by Pres. Hinckley's daughter. I recommend them all especially the last book and most importantly none of them are scary. Aaron discourages me from reading scary books because when I used to I would cuddle up really close to him and wake him up at night because I was so scared. I was also too scared to go to the bathroom because there is a window in our bathroom without any blinds and I led myself to believe that a scary man had his face pressed up to the window and was watching me. That is silly because the window is beveled so he wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway, thank goodness. Anyway, I would love any book recommendations.

He's at it again

Ethan likes to pee on Aaron and me when we are in the middle of changing his diaper. He stopped doing it for about 3 weeks and we thought he was cured but unfortunately he hasn't kicked the habit yet. He has really good aim too. He gets it right into his mouth and eyes sometime! Yuk! We have tried holding the diaper in place and putting a washcloth over him but he's a tricky little guy and manages to soak himself in the split second that we turn away to grab a new diaper. If any of you have any remedies please share. Until then I guess I'll be busy doing the wash over and over again!

Happy Valentines Day!

Over the last few days I have been looking everywhere for Mexican Coke for Aaron for Valentine's Day. He says it tastes better than American coke. I have to agree. European and Japanese coke taste better than American coke too. They used to have it Albertsons but not anymore. I don't drink American coke but I might if it tasted like the other countries. I wonder why coke has a different taste in other countries.

New Comer

I'm finally giving into the blog craze! Now that I have a baby I don't get out as much and don't get the chance to talk to others who can talk back. So, hopefully this blog will help me keep up on the English language. Also, Aaron and I will be moving away from Utah at the end of the summer and blogging will help us keep in touch with family and friends. Oh, and ofcourse I can post super cute photos of Ethan to show off to everyone!