Bucket List Weekend

So Brian and I had an exciting weekend back in September and productive too! I have two things I can cross off my bucket list! Granted, these things would NEVER have been on the bucket list to begin with...so they'll go on the "never have to do that again, once was enough" list.
It started out tons of fun. Brian got some Giants tickets from work so we went to SF with some friends and watched the game. It was fun and they were playing LA so it made for an exciting game. Everyone kept chanting.."BEAT LA..BEAT LA!" it was a blast. Well, they didn't "BEAT LA" but we had a great time anyway. P.S. My favorite part of the day was the carpool lane over the Bay Bridge. :) We not only got to skip out on the lovely lines of traffic that would have cost us another half hour, but we didn't even have to pay! I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as we passed lines and lines...and lines of cars that were at a dead stop. Props to Brent for that sweet move!


Saturday started earlier than I would have liked. We were up at 4am after getting about 3 hours of sleep...We headed to a boat dock near San Jose. Brian's friend has an annual fishing trip he invited us on. Yep...we were going deep sea fishing. I was a little anxious because if you know me you know I've lost my lunch on just about everything; children's playground equipment, carnival rides, doctor's offices, airplanes and even a cruise ship. So I knew this was gonna be interesting. Brian kept telling me "we" didn't have to go, but he was looking so forward to it, and didn't want to go without me, so I googled "preventing motion sickness" and took all the precautions. Dramamine, ginger (thanks for nothing Mythbusters), and even called a favor in from my Uncle to prescribe me the patch you put behind your ear.
I was very brave when we first got on the boat. I kept telling myself that I would be alright but I really didn't know what to expect from the day. I mean the last time I went fishing, I was a young teenager tying raw chicken legs to string catching crawdads. (Which by the way, is my kind of fishing) The morning was cold and rainy so we went into the tiny cabin and on the table I saw a brochure for a Great White Shark tour. Perfect. Not only am I going to lose my lunch, I'll lose a limb too! Our boat was not that much bigger than the one on Jaws, I'm sure an angry shark could take us. Thankfully after reading through the pamphlet I saw the sharks weren't out in the region this time of year and luckily I brought my ipod so I could listen to soothing music to calm myself down.
Once we were off, I learned that we would drive out about 4 hours to our fishing spot. FOUR HOURS! I could stave off my nausea for a little while, but 4 hours out meant another four hours back! ahh!! Where's the emergency exit??
I decided my strategy would be to sleep the way out, so it was to my advantage that I didn't get any sleep the night before. That worked for a couple hours...then I started seeing others lose it. At first I was disgusted, then I realized that I didn't feel so bad yet and I was proud of myself for holding on longer than others could. VICTORY! ...for a little while. About the last hour out I was not doing so hot. The ocean was super choppy so the boat was really rocking. As we were leaving the bay it was beautiful so I thought the view would keep my mind occupied, but the last half of the trip out was just fog and water and rain. Lovely.
Inevitably I lost it right before we reached the fishing grounds. The green face ensued for the next...well, however long we were out there. But it wasn't as bad as I thought. AND, out of everyone who got sea sick, I was the last. I held out longer than some of these tough guys! SWEET!
I took a quick fishing lesson and with that my line was out and a few minutes later, I had a fish on my line! Wow...that was quick! Ahh, the silver lining in the clouds. There's a limit to the number of fish each person can catch and they told us we'd stay out till everyone hit their limit so I was hopeful it would be a quick trip. Well, after the 3rd fish, I couldn't get anything on my line for a little while. The boat was rocking like crazy and I couldn't take the smell of the air or the fact that I had fish at my feet with their eyeballs and tongues popping out at me, and I had squid ink under my fingernails from the bait...I lost it over the rail again and threw in the white flag. I had to surrender to the sea, it beat me up pretty bad and I spent the rest of the trip in the fetal position trying to sleep in the cabin. I left my line cast out so if Brian saw something on it, he could reel it in, and right after I went inside, the biggest fish of the day was caught. ON MY LINE!!! Sorry fellas, fish like my guts better than squid! Brian was stoked and became the one to beat, but no one could do it.
After a good 5 hours of fishing, we finally got to head back into the bay! HALLELUJAH! The trip back in was a bit quicker which was nice and it was warm enough I headed to the front of the boat and got some air. It was beautiful, though a little foggy still, and I have never been so happy to see land in my whole life!
We had tons of fish fillets from all Brian's fish and even brought home the trophy for biggest catch. It's quite the sight...and proudly sits with all the other junk in our garage we don't know what to do with. Definitely a trip to cross off the bucket list.




Brian's winning fish that got him the beauty of a trophy below.


My empty perch and Brian fishing away. I was in no mood to take pictures because I felt like I had puke all over me...and can you blame me?? The fish are at your feet!


You can really see how huge Brian's fish is compared to the other being filleted. Can you believe that monster!?!


We went under the Golden Gate Bridge which was pretty neat, and guess what?? It's only golden from the sides up, underneath it's GREEN!


Watch out...this trophy is coming to the next white elephant party!!


Lastly on our extended eventful weekend, we went to a Monday night football game. It happened to be a Raiders game. I know what you're thinking...and yes, you are correct. It was the scariest, foulest, filthiest sporting event I have ever been to in my life. The same fishing boat friend has season tickets to the Raiders and invited us along with Brian's brother and his wife. It was shocking to see the crazys out in the world...and apparently, they all like the Raiders.
Don't get my wrong, we have some fun memories. Namely the mondo nachos Josh ate. After which he wiped himself down with baby wipes. We were also sitting in the wrong seats the whole first quarter. The best part about it is some guy came up thinking they were his seats and we shooed him away. We saw him pacing back and forth about three sections of seats looking very confused. haha...the guys behind us finally told us where to go and we had a good laugh.
The football game itself was pretty good, and kind of exciting at a few points but that was overshadowed by the horrific cat calls that came every time a girl passed by, the cops coming to break up more than one fight, and at one point the crowd was actually chanting swear words at the referees. Hmmm, interesting. I think I heard more foul language in that 3 hour span than I have in my whole life combined. There wasn't a single minute that passed without something being said. Yikes! Sorry, no pictures there, I'm trying to block this one out of the memory bank.

So, there you have it. Deep sea fishing and live professional football games crossed off the bucket list they never made it onto in the first place!

The last Elder Hodnett

Well, we've had quite an exciting summer, but the most exciting is having our whole family complete again! Elder Hodnett served a mission in Kentucky for 2 years and probably would have stayed there the rest of his life if he could have. But we've got him back now and it's been tons of fun.
We actually had our whole family at the airport waiting and each of us had a balloon we were going to give him as we gave him a hug so he would end up with all of them. Anyway, we sat there patiently at the bottom of the escalator and then we spotted a pair of black shoes and pants. We all held our breath....

nope, not him...security.

I think he sat on the plane until they kicked him off...(that happens in my family at movie theaters too. They sure get their 9 bucks worth as they watch all the credits roll. hmmm..)
I've decided there are a lot of black shoe & pant wearing people at the Sacramento airport, but then finally, I saw some familiar hands tapping nervously on the escalator and knew exactly who it was! He was brave to meet our big balloon holding brood. (and brave to expose both hands to the germs on those escalator rails...)
There were a lot of us and it was horribly awkward at first but I've warmed up to the idea and I think we'll keep him.

The Circus McGurkus

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus came to town this summer and I found a great deal on tickets. So, we got tickets for the little boy cousins and headed to the event. We even made them little matching elephant shirts so they could get super excited.
I don't remember ever going to a real circus in my life, so this was definitely an experience. There was a ridiculous amount of stuff to see and it was kinda sensory overload, but the boys seemed to enjoy it. I couldn't get the theme music out of my head for a week!

"ZING, ZANG, ZOOM! THERE'S MAGIC IN THE ROO-OOM!"

AHH! Even typing that sticks it back in my head.

It makes me wonder how people get a job with the circus. I'd be interested to know what their hiring process is like. I think it must stay mostly within the families. I mean, how many of you (well, the 4 of you that read this) have ever woken up in the morning and wanted to be a lion tamer, or an elephant trainer? Or better yet...the stunt clown? Yeah, I want to be the stunt clown.

Anyway, the boys had a blast and they still talk about seeing elephants and a cannon and clowns at the circus.

Take me out to the ball game....

Every now and then Brian gets some perks from the attorney firms and investigation companies he uses and this summer, we sure had our fair share of River Cats games. They are a AAA or AA team here in Sacramento that is way fun to watch. I kinda get a sense of community going to these things. It's a small stadium and in between innings they do fun things like whipped cream pies in the face and play "who let the dogs out" while launching hot dogs from a cannon off a golf cart. You know, quality entertainment.
The best part is that these companies bought the little suites and stocked them full of food and goodies to enjoy during the game. The luxury of air conditioning at a scorching hot baseball game is priceless.
I couldn't tell you who any of the players are, or if they ever won or lost, but they were so much fun! We even had a couple foul balls caught in our booth. Well, one wasn't really caught as much as hit two girls and landed on the ground. Note to self: next time bring a mit and a hard hat.

Fourth of July

So the fourth of July is always a big deal at our house. For one thing, I like to think of myself as a Patriotic American, and secondly, I'm a bit of a pyro at heart. I mean, really, who doesn't love a good firework show? The past few years it had become a Hodnett family tradition to go to Lake Tahoe and watch the spectacular show they do on the beach. This year, in our current situation, we were going to skip the vacation, but Brian and I got engaged in Tahoe watching fireworks 5 years ago, so we decided a couple days before we were going to make a day of it.
We convinced my parents to come along and EARLY on the 4th we headed up the mountain. We got there at 7am, and it wasn't too soon!! There were already people with their shade tents and rope and lawn chairs, with their spots staked out all along the beach. (this is new to us, we usually casually headed to a private beach the hotel we stayed at had in the early afternoon and still got front row seats.)
Well, we found a great spot and set up shop for the day. The fireworks didn't start until 9:45pm so we had a couple of hours to kill in between. We brought games and snacks and stuff to keep us busy, but can I tell you the most entertaining thing to do was people watch! Especially as it got closer and closer to the fireworks, people would try and squeeze their way toward the shoreline in front of others who had been there 15 hours before them!! At one point I had a guy LITERALLY leaning against my chair. We just had to laugh about it because at that point we were so exhausted it would have made us too grumpy to enjoy the fireworks...which by the way, were great.
They choreograph them to music that broadcasts on a radio station, but sadly, being a couple miles away from the barge this year, we kinda lost the effect of the sound of the blast in your gut and light that fills the whole sky. Next year, we'll book the hotel.


Our sweet set up. You can tell we were staking our claim because our stuff exploded everywhere! Next time...rope, so people can't walk over everything! Some were even so rude they walked right through our shade tent. Hello people!!


Beautiful Lake Tahoe


I spy with my little eye...I spy a grandpa with a kayak...in the picture above...do you see him!? (pardon the nakedness strewn along the beach)


We thought the kayak would be fun for the day...but sadly, it was super choppy. Pops even flipped once and didn't realize he lost a hydrodrive (a set of foot pedals.) After a couple days of sweeping the lake, lots of prayers and a little miracle later, some guy at the boat rental happened to pick them up wondering what it was and was working the same day Pops stopped in to ask about it. HF even cares about kayak pedals.


The scene on the beach at about 2pm. By 7 the hill in the previous pictures was covered with blankets and people and by 8:30 you could hardly see the sand.

I'M A GENIUS!!

Alright, so I don't mean to brag...but truly, it took a genius to fix this dumb blog!! My sidebar had somehow gotten down to the bottom of the page of my blog and not let you go through to older posts. Anyway, it made me not want to update anything until I got it fixed. SO...I started learning a little html coding...and I FIGURED IT OUT!!! There were some extra letters in a couple of the picture codes that made them too wide or something so it kicked the other stuff to the bottom.

WOO HOO!!!

soo...needless to say...pictures from the past few months are coming!
(Circus included just for you Jess!)

Playing Catch Up

In an effort to update my blog, I'm enlisting the list...in picture form for your viewing pleasure. My life in 30 snapshots or less.

My man turned 32...which...until November makes our ages exactly reversed. I don't know how I feel about that...I'll try not to think about it...


I planted a ghetto garden in our tiny backyard...



Planted: snap peas, green beans, cucumber, cantaloupe, butternut squash, tomato, tomatillo, strawberries and boysenberries. It made for some back breaking work but it'll soon be worth it!


We went to a great Air Show where we got to sit in a jet! As I climbed up the ladder the pilot greeted me by saying, "Hi! Welcome to my office!" I think I could get used to that life!! Thanks Landon and Tasha for letting us tag along.





I visited my favorite sister where we laid in the sun, hit the Bob Jones trail, walked farmer's market, cooked and baked, roasted marshmallows at the beach and shredded. Sadly we were having too much fun to take many pictures...






that last picture is our genius windbreaker, and though it looks a little redneck, it worked like a charm...until the wind shifted that is...

Brian and I went to Muir Woods where we enjoyed a Friday walking around the cool bay area. The huge red woods were incredible. We wandered up a trail that claimed it led to a view of the ocean, but as we neared the top, we just saw the highway we came in on and realized we could see whatever the view was from our car...turned around and went back down. After over an hour of sweating and walking up what felt like a million steps, I regret not finishing what we started.





I tended, watered, weeded, exterminated, picked, pruned, and enjoyed! My ghetto garden has turned into a respectable one! I'm so proud!





The snap peas have been growing like crazy and they taste as sweet as candy!


We attempted a family camping trip. We called it a "trial run" to see if it would be a fun way to vacation as a family. It ended up being just a few of us with a relaxing day spent bundled up in 40 degree weather continuously stoking the fire we were huddled around. Ice House truly was ICY! We made some fun memories and will definitely retry the "trial run" after working out some kinks (like how not to chop wood with a horse shoe stake causing you to borrow your neighbor's splitter, breaking the splitter and taking a road trip to find a hardware store to replace said splitter). We ended the trip early to thaw out in the hot tub and learned how to work it at garage sales.









On the not so happy news front, two of my favorite people moved away; back to their Oklahoma roots. These young women doubled our miamaid class and added endless laughter and love. You two can't ever be replaced!



After finishing MANY unfinished craft projects, I needed a new hobby. Thanks to my parents, I've fallen in love with bike riding. I admit, I'm amateur as my bike is proof, but I really enjoy it. I've practically begged, borrowed and stolen to custom-make this beauty. I'm borrowing my brother's mountain bike that's two sizes too big, slapped on some road tires, decapitated my beach cruiser to use the cozy seat, jimmy-rigged an Ipod (also borrowed) to the handle bars and inherited my dad's 1980's bike gloves complete with beige netting. I'm sure I'm the bud of many jokes made by the passing swarms of speed racers in spandex but our recent excursions around Folsom Lake have been so much fun!



The latest and greatest news is my new baby nephew. I saw him for the first time today. What a tiny little cutie!

**This man previously pictured inside mama's tummy in the air show pics. Grateful to see you made it here safe and sound.

uh oh.....

It's finally happened.

I've developed one of my husbands quirks!!!

After 4 1/2 years of marriage I guess it was bound to happen at some point. But last night I was coming home from dinner with Brian's family and it happened. I was listening to some old school Cold Play really loud and I did it.

I began tapping my thumb on the gear shift!

It might not seem like a big deal to some of you, but I always make fun of my man when he does this. It's not like the kind of tapping along that most people do. It's full blown "I think I'm the drummer carrying the tempo of this song" tapping. And seriously...it was like I was watching his hand, only it was attached to my body!! AHHH!! I laughed at myself, and then felt bad that I would always give him such a hard time..but you try to NOT tap to Cold Play's "Politik!" (I told you it was old school.) It's nearly impossible.

Cookbook Chaos

Okay, so I really am going to be better about posting on my blog. The last few weeks I have been glued to the computer, and obviously not enhancing THIS at all, but stuck typing recipes into some website for our girls' camp fundraiser. That's right! For all you poor souls doing girls camp, a cookbook is the way to go. (Note to self:...and all of you:....DELEGATE!) I've practically camped out in my computer room for the past 3 weeks typing recipes, checking out formats, typing more recipes, proofing recipes, typing more recipes....I even moved a fluffy chair in front of the computer to save my derriere for becoming eternally flat! It was quite a bit of work, but I'm totally stoked about them now! Almost 350 recipes strong and all are delicious! As I typed them in, I kept thinking...mmm, that looks yummy....ooooo, I've GOT to try that one! The young women seem excited about it too, we're going to have a contest to see who can sell the most cookbooks, and they win a fancy duffel bag to go to camp with! It'll be good, but man, this president thing is kinda wearing me out...I'll be excited when the books are here and SOLD!
So, anyway, that's where I've been the last little while...right here...typing away. At least I'm a quick typist or it would have been MURDER getting it all done!


oh, and don't be surprised when I hit you all up to buy one of our snazzy creations to help my fabulous ladies! They're the best!



here's what the cover will look like, but our title is "Favorite Family Recipes" and then in the corner, "Mather Ward 2009." Fancy...I know, what can I say?