Mammoth Trip

Hi family! =)

Jason and I spent Labor Day weekend camping in Mammoth with his Dad's side of the family. It was quite an adventure! When Jason told me his family was a having a reunion in Mammoth, I excitedly responded, "I've never been there!" Funnily enough, the six hour drive looked very familiar, and by the time we got to the town at the base of the Sierras (Bishop) where we turned off the highway, I was showing Jason the Sizzler that my Grandpa Harrison had taken me to twice so we could binge after a week back-packing through the mountains. While I had actually been to the area, I'd never explored the town Mammoth, so Jason gave me the tour of the town and I showed him the trail-head off the Twin Lakes where my previous back-packing trips had begun. Also an interesting discovery was the fact the air mattress we'd found in the garage (left by a previous roommate; "Let's bring it!") is only twin size. So Jason and I were pretty cozy all weekend (between the knees and elbows). Oops! Jason caught the most fish this year (a fluke, really, but now he has bragging rights for a year so he's super excited) and I cast half my pole into the lake. I did get better from there though! I also learned to play horseshoes and Boinko Ball (which I won once). The day before we came home we also went on a hike in an attempt to hit a peak and FAR surpassed it (purely by accident), but the view was breathtaking (as was the 5 hour hike ;-) so this trip was definitely a success!

Back to the norm, I'm in four classes and working almost full-time at work every week so it's busy. I am sorry to report that my garden has missed a few waterings as it hasn't been the highest priority. Jason's thrilled that the football season has officially started and watches many of the games because his Fantasy Football players are in them. He's also a great cook and has been experimenting with salsa recipes, which is fun for the whole house. I appreciate all the cleaning and cooking he does between his work so that I can stay on top of school.

Lastly, I'm SO excited for Kaylie & LJ. =D I am happy ta say that my wonderful managers are letting me take the week before Thanksgiving to come to UT (provided I'm back the Sunday before Thanksgiving) so me and Jason will be able to attend the wedding. I'm thinking we'll drive up the Tuesday of that week... more updates to come.

Congrats to Nate as well! I hope you'll enjoy the weather her in CA. We do. =)

Love,
Jason and Brittany

I think I'm pretty late in posting...

Hey family.

Wow, what a month.

My head seems to be in a perpetual spin motion, barely hanging on to the nape of my neck. Which I guess is probably how everyone feels upon becoming engaged/making big life decisions such as that.

Between Lj getting home, the engagement, wedding planning, school starting, and BEING ENGAGED (which sucks, by the way...) life has just been one big tornado. Not to worry, though, it has been a tornado chock-full of warm-fuzzies. Life is great, regardless of the business of it.

Sooooo, BYU vs. Oklahoma game. I know Zach was longing to be a cougar that night. After the game, Provo pretty much went up in flames. I've never seen Mormon kids party so hard in my life. It was absolutely riotous here. We drove around hanging out of the car windows and sun roof just yelling for probably about a half-hour; and even though there were far too many people smashed into our vehicle, we weren't worried about getting pulled over because all the provo cops were doing crowd control elsewhere. (Like the stadium where, I swear, half of Provo gathered to sing the fight song, mosh, and wait for the team to get in.) Outside of my apartment (The Riv on University and University) there were kids running around shirtless in the streets for hours. It was fantastic. Not that they were shirtless. But yeah.

Lj dislocated his clavicle and tore some ligaments in his shoulder playing football a few days ago. He keeps telling me it was karma's doing, because of his incessant mockery towards Bradford after his injury in the game. Hm.

School is... Urg. It's actually really good-- however, my drive is almost completely lost to do homework. Between work, school, and fiance-- I barely have two minutes to check my facebook at the end of the week. But seriously.

The wedding plans are coming right along-- but that is only thanks to all the people helping me out. (Specifically, my mother.) I bought my dress. I picked it out back in April. And it's awesome.

Nate got his mission call, which is INSANE. I can hardly believe that he's already leaving. I'm so proud of him, though. I am, however, really sad that he'll have to miss the wedding. I guess we'll just have to have two of those sweet, life-size cardboard cutouts. (One for Nate, and one for Lj's brother Trey.)

Basically, life is great, and I'm really, truly happy.

I love you all!

Update from the National Champ :-)

Hey Family,
August was a super busy month for me. I am working full time on my research for school. Unfortunately my nano-particles are not cooperating. Oh well. I spend about 8-9 hours in the lab. It has it's good moments and bad, but mostly they are good. I am also starting my routines/practice for the touring team for ballroom again. 3 weeks of lots rehearsals and 9 dances to remember give my old body a pretty good workout. We have National Championships Labor day weekend in Irvine, CA.
Things are going pretty well and I'm glad we have drugs like ibuprofen. School is starting as well. I have only one class, Chem 729R - Surface Chemistry and Analysis. After that, my course work will be pretty much done except for one writing class. I'm hoping my stuff will cooperate sooner rather than later. It will be cool to have so many family members in Provo. Anyone else wanna join?Jared

Note from Libby

Hi--I'm trying to remember to do this, but am obviously not very successful (nothing new about that, is there?)!Do I write a letter and then post it here, or do I just write here, or ??? This is MUCH harder to remember to do...too bad the old days and old ways are past us now. I miss getting letters written by hand and checking the mailbox to find things besides junkmail and/or bills....CONGRATS to Nate, and of course to Kaylie and LJ. (The poor guy looked relatively stunned to have so many 'new' Hancock's to remember when we were 'all' at Nate/Zach's ordinations...and that wasn't even everyone!)Have a good rest-of-September...maybe there'll be time to say "real news" in October? How 'bout Christmas break???Libby

Life Really Seems to be Changing by Steve

It is amazing how much can seem to change in a month. The changes haven't come yet, but now those moments we have prayed for and wondered about are not too far away. Lynette and I were thinking the other day that by the end of this year Kelsey will be the oldest one at home. That is a very strange feeling having three kids leave the house in a matter of months. But we couldn't be happier about how it is happening.

So everyone knows now that Kaylie is engaged and Nate got his mission call to Santa Rosa, CA. He is truly excited the leave. The only thing that puts a damper on it is that it is 3 days before Kaylie and LJ's wedding. I just keep telling myself that the Lord could have easily had him leave a week later, so we will enjoy it.

Quite a bit has already been done for the wedding. (Of course I am measuring this by amount of money going out. So maybe it really isn't a lot if we were to measure it time wise. But a lot of the important decisions have been made.) Kaylie has her dress now. We have a place for the reception and wedding dreamers on board. We have all been able to see Kaylie's dress, except LJ of course. Well, Kelsey hasn't seen it yet, as she so tactifully reminds Kaylie when Kaylie wants to see Kelsey's homecoming dress.

Nate is now working full time getting ready for his mission. He has really taken seriously and is putting a lot of effort into it. He will be speaking in church on the 15th of November, his birthday. Those of you that will be around, we would love to have you.

Zach is now up at our Alma Mater. He has been in school about 3 weeks and already has had a lot of different experiences. Some good and some bad. So far he has been home every weekend. We get to see him when he isn't with his girlfriend Jessica. :-) He probably won't be coming home again for another couple of weeks this time though.

Kelsey is still enjoying soccer. Their team started the season slow but has come on really strong. They are first in their region and we hope that they continue on that way. Kelsey was asked to homecoming, so we are excited about that. Zach's girlfriend is still in high school, so he will be going to that as well. We are absolutely certain Lehi will not win the football game, but everything else should be fun.

Anna has started into volleyball season. She is on the sophmore team, so she has to go from Willow Creek middle school right to the high school each day for practice. Luckily there are some other girls that are making that trip as well. In the first game I watched I was really impressed with how much she has improved. She plays most the games for them.

Tyson, Brianna and Max all have a brand new school this year. It is close enough that they get to walk or ride bikes to school. No more buses.

Tyson and Max are both playing soccer now. Tyson's team is doing really well. They haven't lost yet in the regular season. Max is glad he now gets to play with a keeper. It is his dream to be a keeper and he does a great job at it. He also plays well in the mid-field so we will see what he settles with.

Brianna spends most her free time with friends, but is also buckling down and practicing her piano. We are hoping to have another pianist in the family.

Well I think I have written enough. Hopefully enough to bring everyone up to date. We hope everyone is doing well.

Love from the Lehi Hancocks.

Summer is almost gone. Let the busy season begin.

August was just as busy as the rest of the summer. The month started out with Kira having soccer try-outs and debate on the same week. Debate was at Bingham high. I went there twice a day. In that week I put over a 1000 miles on my car. Because dummy me let Kira split the difference and make it to debate in the morning and then took her to soccer in the afternoon. That week Elijah was going to go and hike devils peak. Terry came home that week early. Kira was really tired and had a tournament on Saturday. Elijah came home early due to weather and it was a good thing to because I was really missing him. The the phone call that I got from him did send me in a panic. I also think that Elijah would have gotten very mad at some of his fellow campers for some bad attitudes. It was a really dry week. Though on an exciting note we were stopped in traffic jam were just minutes before there was a shoot-out. Good thing we stopped to get food. The other 2 weeks were spent getting ready for school. I had to resister the 2 older kids boy that was expensive. School shopping for school stuff. This year is Noah's first year of school. He is very excited about it. I had to get ready to coach Noah's and Isabelle's soccer team. Somewhere in between there Kaylie called to tell us that she was engaged. Isabelle and Noah had to very funny things to I thought to say on that matter. When I told Isabelle and Noah, Isabelle said she put her hand on her head and said oh man you mean she gets a pretty dress and a ring and can gets babies now. When is it going to be my turn. Kira and I just laughed. Noah asked what LJ looked like I told him that he kinda looked like him. Noah's response to this was she sure must love me lots huh mom. I laughed and said yes she does. Noah is the star of having funny things to say. Noah had to have an assessment test done before school. I didn't think that I would have to tell him how the test works. 1st mistake. He went in to the test with flying colors. The teacher asked him his colors, numbers, and how to write his name. He did just fine on these. Now here comes the tricky part. She asked him what this shape was. He told here it was a box. She asked if there was another name for it he said no it's a box. She then asked him what other shapes were. To which he answered ( I don't know why this is yellow) that's an oval and duh that's a diamond I learned that in pre-school. Now here is my 2nd mistake I forgot to tell him to try and be respectful to his teacher. She continued to ask him about the shapes and he got the rest right. She got back to the box and he said I already told you it was a box. Then she said it has another name what is it. Well I guess it could be a cube but a cube and a box are the same. Is there any other name for it she asked him. Then he asked her what she would call it. So then he said I guess if you really wanted to you could call it a square. Well they went on to ask him more question like where is the front of the book and back of the book. Then she read him the first page of the book and asked if he were reading the book where would he start from he turned it to the second page and pointed to the top of the page. The teacher then put the book back to the beginning and asked him the same question. He again turned the page and pointed to the beginning. He failed this part of the test. They said he didn't know where to start on a book. Noah's thinking was they had just read the first page so it was time to read the next one. Made sense to me. So the teacher had come to tell me how the test went. She said that he did really well in the beginning but toward the end he didn't. Maybe he was just getting tired. Well during this time Aaron's 5th grade teacher Mrs. Jacobson came and told me that she would take any of my kids. After this I was talking to Noah about his test. He then told me he thought that he needed to go to Mrs. Jacobson's class. I said but she is a 5th grade teacher. He then asked me if they were really kindergarten teachers. I said yes they were. He said are you sure they are. I assured him that they were. I asked why he thought he should be going to 5th grade. He processed to tell me he doesn't think they are because he had to tell them all the answers to the test. They didn't know any of them! So how could they be teachers. That is also why he stopped answering the questions. 3rd mistake I laughed at this. Which kinds of made him mad. I had to explain that he was taking a test and they were trying to find out what he knew. Then it made some sense to him. He still questions his teacher about things though. I did think that it was funny. Terry was able to be here on the 1st day of school which was great. Kira and Elijah nor was Aaron looking forward to me walking them to class and the taking of the pictures. Terry told them to just grin and bare it they couldn't stop it. I must admit that I did cry. I always do one the first day of school. We went to dinner. It was Noah's choice and he chose Olive Garden. He was so excited about it. I think that he had a great time. Though I do think that he should have gone to Red Lobster. He kept on asking for everybodys shrimp. Noah didn't have to start school until Thursday. Well, when it came time for me to walk him to school he informed me that he didn't want me to walk me to school and he didn't want me to walk him to class. I had to tell him that I walked the 10th, 8th , and 6th grader to their class and school I'm going to walk him. He can have Aaron do it all the other times. Well, now he wants me to do all the time. Kira and Audrey's schools played each other in pre season soccer games. We won. It was the first win for Stansbury High ever. Their game ball was signed by all the players and it is now in the trophy case. This is all for now. Terry, Pauline, Kira, Elijah, Aaron, Noah, and Isabelle

Better Late Than Never

Hey Everyone,
It is hard to believe that the summer is almost over. We have had a great summer so far and luckily we have been able to spend a fairly good part of it together as a family. We started the summer off by making the children miss all the shenanigans that occur on the last day of school and had everybody on an airplane to visit Virginia. The stated purpose of the visit was to have a family vacation and enjoy the historical sites of Virginia. The secondary purpose was to ascertain how well the family would handle relocation away from mountains, high altitude and in particular Grandma and Grandpa. The flight proceeded without any major embarrassments. Noah did not smell any disturbing odors that he felt obliged to questions and for the most part everybody slept for most of the flight. We had a great visit to Virginia except that the weather did not want to cooperate. It was rainy and cloudy except when we were in DC and then it was so hot and humid everybody wilted and a five dollar bottle of water at the Lincoln Memorial sounded like a great idea. While we were in DC we decided that it would be fun to see “A Night at the Museum – The Smithsonian” at the Smithsonian. Unfortunately, 10,000 of our closest friends decided that this sounded like memorable experience at well. The staff (used to handling a few dinosaur loving prepubescents and their sightseeing families were all of a sudden drafted into shuttling 3,000 people into a sold out theater. Needless to say anarchy was the rule of the day. I was able to use Isabelle to get me in a side door. As I was trying to get Kira’s and Aaron’s attention to let them know I had some good seats in my sights, I watched some very ignorant (Utah definition) people push Aaron down and steal the seats he was trying to save. We finally succeeded in scoring enough seats with only one that had a seat pan less than horizontal when in use. The movie was very enjoyable and definitely beat the heat. The majority of the vacation was spent at the Water Park and Busch Gardens. We did drive by a couple of historic monuments and wondered if they were related to the civil our revolutionary war (Pauline was able to set us straight and gain some brownie points for knowing stuff that Dad didn’t - not really all that uncommon; however, I have the kids buffaloed). The vision that the kids would come back with a greater knowledge/appreciation of our Nation’s history was replaced with a knowledge of physics and what pulling 3 g’s will do to the human body (in Kira’s case it turns her a interesting shade of green).
We also spent some time at Virginia Beach. It was raining most of the time; however , we were able to still have a lot of fun. The girls weren’t all that keen about playing in the water. Isabelle preferred to build a sand castle while Kira was all about looking pretty for the boys. Elijah and Aaron had Dad nervous about how far out into the water they were willing to venture. The most surprising of all was Noah. He absolutely loved the ocean. He loved playing in the waves and did not care when he would get knocked down. I could not believe how big of fish he was and how much he loved the ocean. I kept expecting him to grow some fins and gills and swim off. The rest of the month was very uneventful – the family returned to Utah and started to get moving on their action packed summer. Kira and Elijah went on Trek for Youth conference while Aaron stayed home to keep Pauline company. I will get Kira or Elijah to write about Trek since no one has been very verbose in discussing their experiences with their dear old dad. That is the update for June. I will post July when I get it done. Pauline is responsible for August.

Cute Wallpaper

Cute Wallpaper...who ever changed it! Looks good!

The Date and Time should now be final

Kaylie and LJ have finalized their plans. (At least the important part of their plans.)

The wedding will be November 21st at 1 PM in the Draper temple. The reception will be that night. We hope it doesn't snow too much that day as the temple is up on the hill.

On November 20th in the evening we will have a wedding dinner.

So put it on your calendar. If you are able to make it we would absolutely love it.

Love to all.

And the votes are in...

I don't know why that's my title.
But I'm engaged. I think all of you already know.

We're thinking November 21st. Subject to change, though.

Expect a phone call, post-temple scheduling, of course.


It's crazy exciting.

I'll tell my Dad or Nate to put the vid up for those of you who don't have facebook.