The Hutchings Family: 2008

Kayla Helps Cook Dinner

The Snow Arrives

The predicted snow storm finally arrived and it has been snowing for the last week and a half, (with a few breaks). Usually when it snows here, it melts pretty quickly, so when the snow sticks around for a while, the whole area is utterly unprepared. There are not very many snowplows, so the ONLY streets that get plowed are the highways and the main roads. No residential streets, no grocery store parking lots, nothing. I grew up with snow, so the way things shut down with a little storm shocked me. But if the roads don't get plowed, it's a totally different situation. Almost every one we know has been working from home, including Seth. I talked to a friend of mine yesterday who hasn't left her house in over a week because they live on a hill and literally cannot get out. We, luckily, live right off a fairly main road, so once we brave our way out of the parking lot we are okay. We have a Fred Meyer about a block up the street from us and Tuesday night we went out to buy a few things. They were running short on some important things, like fresh produce and eggs, because they had not had a shipment in 3 days. Last night we saw the shipment truck...stuck in the road, blocking up traffic, trying to get into the parking lot. There were police cars with flashing lights redirecting the traffic flow. We saw a fedex truck stuck at the corner just a few blocks away. The 3 closest airports to us, Seattle, Spokane, and Portland have all been closed for days at a time. The area literally just shuts down with the snow.

For our family, however, the snow has been really fun! It has been great to have Seth working from home right at the holiday. Kayla loves the snow and loves to watch it falling.

And at least Santa's sleigh has something to land on!

Kayla's reaction to the snow.

Our pond and the nature walk.

Kayla watching the snow fall.

Seattle Paralyzed by Chance of Snow

This is a local headline. You can read the article here:
Seattle Paralyzed by Chance of Snow

After living in Utah, Idaho and Alaska this is a very different attitude about snow!

First Snowfall

Saturday night we had our first snowfall. We had a solid inch on the ground, but the roads were clear. Sunday they canceled church.

Because it is so humid here they worry about the roads getting too slick. We are happy the snow came in time for a White Christmas, and the weather forecast shows we will probably get a little more in the next week.

Kayla's 1st Birthday and Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we headed south to Seth's parent's house. Summer and Brian and their kids also came. Kayla's birthday came just a few days before Thanksgiving.

First we opened presents.

After blowing out the candle, we let Kayla dive into a brownie with whipped cream. She did not like the way the whipped cream stuck to her hands.

But she did like the brownie.

Overall she decided that it was a pretty fun first birthday.
For more of Kayla's 1st birthday, Seth is working on a video that covers Kayla's first year of life. We will post that when it is finished. So...more to come.

On Thanksgiving we had two turkeys, one traditional, one BBQ. Incidentally, one of the turkeys weighed 22 lbs. The other weighed 12 lbs. Strangely close to the weight of the two babies.

Kayla with the 22 lbs turkey

Brynn with the 12 lbs. turkey.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. And the people we spent it with were wonderful.

The rest of the week we spent just enjoying each other.

Grandma with Brynn and Kayla

Kayla enjoying playing in the grass on a warm fall afternoon.

Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Hutchings who housed us and fed us and gave us such a fun vacation.

Seattle Asian Art Museum and Seattle in the Fall

On Saturday we made a little trip to the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM).

This is Sam the camel who sits out front. Similar camels sit in front of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). These camels were carved 500 years ago in Asia.

This is the view from the front door of the museum.

Right next to the museum we discovered this strange building that looks like a medieval castle...

...which turned out to be a very elaborate water tower. We climbed the steep steps to the top...

...and were rewarded with this beautiful view of Seattle:

You can almost see our home in this picture:

New England may be famous for their autumns, but I think here in the Northwest we can give them a run for their money.

Happy Halloween

Here are a few pictures of Kayla in her Halloween costume. She got to go trick-or-treating to a couple of neighbors' houses. Mom and Dad helped her with the candy.

Jack-O-Lanterns

Earlier this month we went to a pumpkin patch with some friends. We hunted through acres and acres to find the perfect pumpkin.

Here are our works of art:

Seth's Pumpkin (and he did NOT trace from a pattern!)

Amanda's Pumpkin. (3 different faces on the same pumpkin)

"Any Opposed..."

Kayla really likes to do whatever Mommy and Daddy are doing. Whether it is cooking dinner, reading a book, playing Pac-Man, she wants to do it too. She gets mad if she can't see what is going on and be involved.

Last Sunday at church they were announcing new callings. When they asked for "all in favor" Seth and I raised our hands. Kayla got the idea, and as soon as they asked for "any opposed" she enthusiastically raised both hands. Twice.

Discovering Tape

Kayla has been a little extra fussy today. I was struggling to find ways to entertain her while I made some dinner. There was a roll of clear tape handy so I gave her a few pieces. She had never played with tape before. She would pass the tape from hand to hand just staring at it. She was so confused! She got one of the pieces stuck around her finger and she tried to wipe it off on her dress, the wall, and a chair. Then she did what any baby would do, she sucked on that finger.

She was pretty grateful when I pulled the piece of tape off. She even shared her Cheerios with me at dinner.

Wild Blackberry Jam

Blackberries grow like weeds here. We thought it would be a good idea to pick some before the season was over.

Here is Amanda picking the wild blackberries.
(Yes, everything green in this picture is blackberry's)

Smashing the berries for jam.

Some of the jam jars.

We also put a bunch of blackberries in the freezer for smoothies. Yum.

Learning to Post Videos

We have struggled to figure out how to post videos, and we finally succeeded! Enjoy! (Note: The date should have been January 2008 not December 2007, oh well. Kayla is about 6 weeks old here.)

Welcome to Washington

About a month ago the Hutchings Family moved to Bothell, a town in Washington state, about 30 minutes out of downtown Seattle. Upon graduation, Seth accepted a job offer here as an internet marketing analyst. Here are some of our adventures and observations as new residents of Washington. It is amazing how green it is here. There are trees everywhere! As you drive down the freeway, both sides are full walls of trees. There are stores and restaurants and houses off every exit, but just driving down the freeway you feel like you are in a national forest instead of a busy Seattle suburb. Here is the view from one of our windows:

At the base of these trees are wild blackberry bushes that grow all over the place like weeds. You are welcome to pick them and they are delicious. We have put a bunch in our freezer and I am planning to pick some in the next day or two to make some jam. We were very blessed in the finding of our apartment. We came here with a list in our hands of apartment complexes we were interested in that we had found online. Our first choice place had filled its last apartment that morning, but we were referred to this complex. The manager of the complex use to live in this unit and had just moved out because she bought a house. We got a great deal on the apartment because a number of people had recently moved out of this building because of job transfers or buying real houses, and they needed to fill it back up. AND it was available for move in immediately. We looked at several apartments in the same price range during the rest of the afternoon and nothing came close to comparing to the quality of this place. When we were preparing to move I was praying for help finding an apartment and I asked that we could find a place that was safe, quiet, and not on the first floor. We were able to get the paper work done and move in that night. We were just going to move in the essentials then move the rest of it the next day, but we had some neighbors come home just then who helped us move everything in that night. All I have to say is that through this whole experience I know that Heavenly Father heard our family's prayers and protected us and provided for us.

There is a pond and a nature walk that starts right next to our building.

One of the great things about our apartment is that we live about 3 or 4 miles from Seth's work. He has been biking to work most days.
Our first weekend here we went to Seattle.

We went to Pike's Market, the place famous for throwing the fish.

We were not able to get any pictures of the fish throwing because it was too crowded. As we were watching they threw one of the fish out into the crowd and it hit Kayla's stroller. Turns out it was a stuffed fish. Quite the crowd pleaser. The flowers were amazing.

We had lunch at the Athenian Inn, a place where a scene from Sleepless in Seattle was filmed. We didn't know that until we got in. We picked it because it had a long line and we figured, hey, if it has a long line it must be good. We had mediocre fish and chips, but a nice view of the bay.

On the way out we saw a huge sculpture of an umbrella caught in the wind. It also works as a giant weather vane showing which way the wind is blowing.

More locally we spent one Saturday checking out Country Village Shops, a little place about a mile down the road from us full of little crafty shops from a quilting shop that my mom would die for to a place full of naturally made candles and soaps. You can't miss it because of the giant chicken off the side of the road.