Last 3 weeks or so...

Thanksgiving: watching the boys play Madden

Thanksgiving: My first tiling job ever. Only a few "waves". It turned out really cute. Good thing dad was there to do the cuts.


Brady Helping Grammy Tami do dishes after Uncle Gordon's 80th BD party.

Brady after helping Grammy with the dishes. He was soaked.

Cam outside our trailer after the first snow. We have so much more now! Cam spends his afternoons on top of giant snow burms in our parkinglot.

Darc and Mitch after shopping in Downtown Spokane.

Hollie hiding the turkey underneith her shirt...Just kidding. She is due in a week. We can't wait to meet the new baby girl.

Red Robin after shopping in Spokane.

Dinner at an Irish Pub in Seattle.


Me near our Hotel in Downtown Seattle.

more picts to come.

good weekend

My Mom/Dad/Darcie came to Cheney for a couple days. It was good to hang out, and I even enjoyed entertaining here in our "cozy" trailer house. We ate good food and shopped all day Thursday. So thankful for mom and dad coming and seeing me here at my home, and all the help they were with my kids. Its so nice to get a break.
Then they left Friday morning and Leon and Tami came up here on Saturday morn and stayed till Sunday evening. We toured the Spokane area looking at homes in N. Spokane, and eating out. It was super fun driving around and enjoying family. The boys had their primary program and they did so good. They had memorized their parts to say, but when they got up to the podium they noticed the paper there and read it off the script...darn paper! Jack was so cute he sang and mostly wanted to stand in front of everyone and smile. Thanks to my In-laws for surviving church with us and having a trailer house Sunday dining experience.
I am a home-girl and miss family when I don't see them for a while. However, this trailer feels like home now and (plug your ears mom,) I do kinda like Cheney now. The weather is a different story though, its freezing here and we actually got an inch of snow the other day. I gotta buy some boots for my boys fast! I'm glad the holidays are coming up and I'll get to spend time with my sisters and other family.

Darcie's State playoff Games

Dersh played some awesome volleyball this year. They made it to the second round of state playoffs and finally lost. She did well, and I loved coming home to watch. It's sad that the Alleman family had their last round of spectating this fall, and now we won't have a sister/cousin playing anymore. Now we're just Legacy. (just kidding). Good job BOP.

Annual Apple Juicing

Our Halloween

I'm not a big fan of dressing up my kids for halloween, so the job is given to someone else every year. This year my mother in law and sister were gullible enough to do the job.

Thanks, Tami and Hol.
I also hate the gross costumes that kids want to be, how do you not let your kids be something totally gross and scary for halloween? This year Cam wouldn't be something cute. He wanted gross. And you know what I didn't end up caring, Tami did his costume, and he loved it. So Scary it up! I'll Take the "whatever you want" approach and it's stress free.

Easy Halloween = Happy mom.

Mostly for my HERMISTON fans...

My sister-in-law has a super ear for good music. And has recently got this celebrity to sing in Pasco. This event will be the party of the year and would be a great girls night out! Buy your tickets here NOW. She is almost sold out!

http://passionistapresents.eventbrite.com/

park outing

Darcie Alleman senior night.

Last home game in the DAWG HOUSE. Bittersweet.

See the ref with a huge mop of red hair? Yeah she hates Hermiston with a passion and she isn't ashamed to show it. The last girl of the Alleman legacy to have to listen to her rotten calls and see her giant booty up on that stand.

RIP RED.

We love you bop. Good job sticking with it all four years.

You are a super Athlete.

EWU football game

We saw Eastern play Northern Arizona. We whooped up on em.

Mitch and I got a babysitter, and pretended to be young college students. Our favorite part was eating at a little hole in the wall italian joint in spokane afterward. They have the BEST stuffed mushrooms I've ever had!

A regular day

This is what our neighborhood looks like on these fall days. Couple of boys riding bikes and brady chillin' on the porch. He hated it at first but has now settled into his fate of being penned up. It is clear at night making no cloud cover and frost is showing up on the grass. Last night it got down to 30. Brrrrrrrr. Will I survive here this winter?

Last night I went to the EWU volleyball game. I got in free (because I am officially a student here now. yay for me). I got a piece of free pizza for coming to the game (poor attendance), and found a spot to sit. I remember my dad taking me to boys bb games when I was young and sitting with my friends as far up in the stadium seating as we could go. It brought back some good memories. Later the arena got more and more packed and I realized I was sitting in the "student" section. I didn't mean to do that and I felt MEGA SUPER old. I was almost embarrassed that I was lone-ing it trying to fit in. I moved to a different seat and enjoyed watching the girls play. During "half-time", they had students come down to the court and serve. Whatever prize they hit on the other side they got to keep. I was in. I love free stuff.

So I stepped up to the line...and missed my serve. I know, kill me now huh?

My second serve was like old times and I actually hit a pizza box and won a coupon for a free pizza (too bad it's really gross pizza).

I felt cool.

Mitch stayed home with the boys and let me have a night off.

It was a super time-out for mom.

Things are going good here in the Eastern side of the state. Mitch and I have new callings in our ward. He is the webelos leader and I'm the Scout Committee Chairman (whatever that is?). These are both new callings for us, but Im reassured that with my ward planning parties, that i'll be doing the same thing but just for the Pack meeting each month. It'll be great. At least i'll have something to do.
We've enjoyed getting to know one of Mitch's younger cousins lately too. She is in her 2nd year up here and is one of the coolest girls I know. She babysits in exchange for food too (what a good deal for us!). Tiff and I even walk in the mornings for an hour together.
The boys are doing good. Cam talks about kids that are his "friends" at school, so I know he is liking it. He rides the bus home after school and has made friends with a special needs boy 2 houses down. He has a social worker who comes over everyday to work with him and I ended up in a conversation with him. He is from Mozambique AND went to BYU in provo. He is a member of the church? crazy small world. He said that Braxton has been taking leaps and bounds socially since Cam and him hang. Camden doesn't even know he is doing his missionary work. Jack and Brady are still my buddies at home. Since my life has slowed down, we take naps every afternoon and love it. We went to the park today and Camden met a Russian family. And its funny how camden always convinces the kids to play "chase" and Camden is never it.
I sent the signed papers in to close on the sale of our house. Bittersweet.
Things are good!

Best Date Ever

Mitch and I drove to Pullman to see Brian Regan. It was a BLAST. He was so funny! He did new jokes and then in the encore he took requests. We happened to buy our tickets like 2 seconds earlier than Mitch's cousins and ended up sitting next to them at the show. What are the odds? Huge auditorium sold out and all of Mitch's cousins are sitting behind us! Crazy.
We also stopped over in Moscow for a quick tour of the law school there. Mitch met some really good people and got some great information. We are narrowing our list of schools to apply to and now the prayers start. He will start applying next week as soon as he writes a personal statement. And boy it better be good! We'll keep you updated.
Thanks to Tami for driving up and watching the boys in our little trailer so we could go.

Things here are good.
A little on the boring side though. Not having a job and two callings make for a slow day. Cam goes to school and Jack, Brady and I pick up the house and watch cartoons for a hour or so. Then lunch, naps, play outside, nightly walk to a park, then bed. We mix in lots of trips to the library and dollarstore. Hopefully things pick up once we get settled into a schedule again. Mitch starts school next Wednesday and then we will be busy applying to law schools. When we went to Pullman last weekend, we drove over to Moscow, ID and checked out UofI's law program. It looked good, and Mitch got lots of info to help guide him. I wanted to watch the girls season home opener volleyball against Montana. I think that'll be the most fun this winter is watching college sports again. When I was a kid living here, I remember my dad taking us to the ewu boys basketball games. It was super fun and got us out of the house, I hope to take in some ball games.
Our new ward was small. Many people i recognize from before and most of those people remembered my parents and asked about our family. Bishop came over and visited after church and asked about our "strengths". So i expect a calling soon. Thats good, because I could use some meetings, Im having withdrawl.
We are still super blessed and things are going well.

New baby

Not mine!
My lil sis had her baby last night. Dan got to skype thru the whole thing, and mom and baby are doing great!
Afton Kate Hochhalter
7lbs 15 oz
22 inches long!

Yay katie.

My Camden had his first day at school yesterday. He is in Mrs. VanHorn's class and sits by a boy named Romeo. He walked home from school by himself already. When the weather gets bad we will end up driving but he loves feeling like a big kid. Mrs. VanHorn said he is her 26th student and they will have to ship some kids to another elem. school. I kinda had to laugh because we come from Psd where the limit to a classroom was like 35 or something.
Jack dressed up like he was going to school too. He was so excited to walk cam to class but then we had to go home and he was kinda bummed. We'll be doing lots of preschool printouts and library visits, that's for sure.

Our trailer is turning out to be just great. It cleans SO fast. The boys are sharing a bedroom and they are getting used to that. Brady is starting to sleep thru every train that drives by too (like 8 a night). Our storage space is so LIMITED, and I've even packed up things to put back into storage in Pasco. My couponing has to be on hold too, there is NO space to put 12 boxes of trix I got on sale.

Cam starts school tomorrow at my old elem school. It'll be weird to walk down those halls again. I went to Salnave 4th through 6th grade (and 7th at the Jr. High). I even found out a good friend of mine teaches there. We sat down tonight and set up schedules, chore lists, prayer charts and got fathers blessings.
We are going to dive into the Cheney Parks and Rec program and the library is my best friend already. They have an after school classes once a month for cam and once a week for jack and Brady. We even have a coop preschool thru parks and rec. It's waaaaayyyy cheaper than the school one and I can sign Brady up and he can participate too.
Every night we try to take a walk. If the boys get out of the trailer then they fall asleep faster after they are worn out and this place is a little too small to do our regular nightly wrestling matches. We are gonna check out the college sports facilities soon. Hopefully we can swim and play some evenings before bed too.

I look forward to meeting some friends and families at church and finding some good babysitters .

Heavenly father blesses us. We see that everyday.
Love you all.
Nan

Cheney

Shush. I don't wanna hear it. I know I've been horrible with blogs. But thats the way it is. Get over it. I plan to be much better from here on out. Promise.

Quick update:

We moved to Cheney and even though it is only 2 hours away from Pasco, it is 10 degrees colder, and the town is tiny. I did spend 4 years here as a kid, and the town seemed so much bigger! Anywho, I thought I'd show some pictures of our home in our new chapter of life we like to call "trailer livin'"

(keep in mind, these were taken a day after we moved in.)

Our summer so far

We have been so busy having "mini-reunions" since Katie and the kids have been home. It's been a blast. Swimming, eating, yardsales, eating, and swimming.
Loving it so far!

New England Trip: Day 2

After waking up the day after Newport RI, we loaded up and drove to NYC (actually somewhere in CT and caught a train and subway) into Times Square. We stayed in the Hilton in Times Square and got a screamin' deal. We were total TOURISTS! Taking pictures everywhere, and eating everything. Loved the noise and smells! We ate a super meal at Bobby Flay's restaraunt Mesa Grill, had great seats for Phantom of the Opera, saw ground zero, Statue of Liberty, and stayed up late out on the streets!