It's somebody's birthday...(well, it WAS on October 25th)

Yeah, another birthday! It's hard to believe Austin is 14 already, but it's true. Here are 14 things about Austin:
He...
1. is so fun to hang out with
2. is a big helper
3. is a great friend
4. is so cute
5. is smart
6. is funny
7. is photogenic
8. is really good at piano
9. plays the tuba
10. plays the baritone
11. likes playing flag football
12. is kind
13. is thoughtful
14. is growing up way too fast!

Happy Birthday to my youngest boy!

Jeremy, Class of 2011

These photos were taken by Ashtyn Foster, who does a great job. If you live in the Phoenix area, give her a try! She's on Facebook under Smash Photography if you want to see more samples--she also lists a blog address where you can see more samples, a price list, and her contact information.


Here are some pictures she took of Jeremy:

Birthday boy

Wow--time goes too fast! Our Jeremy is 18 today! Here are 18 facts about Jeremy:
He is:
1. very athletic
2. a good student
3. really musical (although tone-deaf)
4. hilarious
5. respectful
6. fun-loving
7. a jokester
8. a great brother
9. an awesome son
10. a conservative Republican (he found this out in a politics class at school after doing a survey)
11. extremely photogenic
12. an Eagle scout
13. a natural-born leader
14. an awesome friend
15. very smart
16. a great help to have around
17. a great pizza maker
18. officially an adult!

(I will try to add some pictures to this post when I can get back on my regular computer)
We are so happy he's our son and wish him the greatest year ever!!! Happy Birthday, Jay!

Don't faint...

I'm baaaack...!
Time's going by SO fast! And it's hard to fit blogging in with digital scrapbooking, keeping up with Facebook, and keeping up with Josh's mission blog on top of all other life duties. I'm only one woman!
This summer went by really fast and unfortunately it was way too quiet. Ken's car had issues so for the most part he took mine to work and the boys and I were without. So like the kids in the Cat and the Hat, we sat, sat, sat.
In all this time since I've blogged, life has gone on. People have moved in, moved out, been born, died, gotten sick, gotten better, lost jobs, found jobs...you get the point. I still read your blogs and try to keep up but to be honest I'm behind in that, too!
Adam and Austin swam for the city of Gilbert again this summer and they did a good job. Their times improved over last year and for the most part they had a good time. The meets were held Thursday nights this year--last year they were Saturday mornings. It's not easy being in the audience when it's so hot out but it's always fun to see them compete.


Jeremy worked a lot and played when he could. He's just started his senior year and is looking forward to being done with high school. He still works at the pizza shop down the street. Adam is now a sophomore and would love to have a job, they're not easy to find these days. Austin is in 8th grade and it looks like it will be another great year for the boys.
Ken has no new injuries to report, so that's good! But with his car trouble he's sometimes ridden his bike to work and he still loves to swim laps and hit the treadmill. He hopes to get back into triathlon training now that his foot is almost all better.
That's about it, you're all caught up!

It's been forever

A while back I joked about needing a "bloggers anonymous" program because I was so addicted to blogging, reading blogs, creating my own blog pages using digi-scrapping, etc. I think somehow I found a cure without realizing it because it's been a really long time since I've blogged.

Here's a Reader's Digest version of the last few months.

In February, I started working for CERI (ASU's Cognitive Engineering Research Institute) again as a research technician. I'm enjoying this research project and even got to go to Boston for a meeting, which was really interesting. While in Boston I was lucky not to be killed by taxi drivers and experienced the several days' downpour that added to the flooding problems there. I also got to tour one of the cognitive psychology research labs at MIT, which was fun! There were so many things I wanted to do in Boston that I could have stayed another week but it wasn't to be. I wanted to go on the Freedom Trail tour, go to the aquarium, see the JFK Presidential Library, go on a whale-watching tour, take the Duck tour around Boston and Boston Harbor, and so much more. Boston, I will come back again someday!! What a great place, so much to do, so much to see, so many things to try, so much history. I made a mistake and put off taking my graduate exams rather than taking them a few years ago when I graduated from college, so I will be preparing for my grad school entrance exams and will be taking an upper-level statistics (for psychology) course I need as a pre-requisite for an applied psychology master's degree. ASU is working on providing a PhD program in Cognitive Systems Engineering. That is a while off but my applied psych masters would lead into that PhD.
Ken recently tore a calf muscle and when he recovered from that he was filling his weekday evenings with softball (he's a good pitcher) and volleyball. But one evening when he was playing volleyball he jumped up at the net and came down on someone else's foot. He heard something snap--in fact it was so loud that our son Austin, who was sitting just outside the gym door, heard it!! I took him to Urgent Care and they said they didn't see a break when they looked at the x-ray but they'd send it to a radiologist. The next day the radiologist's office called and said that he'd fractured his foot! So he's been hobbling around trying to recover from that. It's been about 5 weeks now and he's doing a lot better, it's hard to tell him to take it easy, he doesn't know the meaning of the words.

Josh is doing really, really well in Hungary. You can catch up with his adventures at his blog, there's a link in the upper right corner of my blog. We miss him and are so proud of him!

Jeremy has been working a lot, playing soccer, and keeping busy taking Ken's place at volleyball. He's also finishing up his junior year of high school and making plans for his senior year, taking SATs, etc. This past weekend he went to prom with his girlfriend Katie, who is a senior at a rival high school. They've been dating since last summer, don't they make a cute couple?

Adam has been really busy working on his scouting requirements for his Eagle rank and playing volleyball on his school's jv team. They're finishing up the season this week or next week and will hopefully make it to playoffs. They are doing a great job and it's exciting to go to their games.

He's also taking a strength and conditioning class so he's lifting every day and he's preparing for the annual triathlon he attends at Easter AZ College. That's coming up this weekend.


Easter Sunday the Easter Bunny came and brought way too many goodies. We enjoyed dinner with Ken's mom and brother and watched old family movies. The best part, for me, was seeing video of Ken the day he left for his mission back in 1985 and seeing video of him at JFK making his way to the mission field in Germany. Very cool to see that, especially with Josh on a mission right now.

We were able to go see the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Pittsburgh Pirates last weekend. Unfortunately the Diamondbacks lost, but it was a perfect evening to sit at the ballpark with our boys. Jeremy was working so he didn't get to come. :(

This past Saturday I held a lunch for the moms in our ward who have sons out serving a mission. The mom of one of Josh's companions, Elder Pickerd, lives across town and was able to make it (she's standing to my right, or in the picture she's on my left.) It was a really fun afternoon and I'm really grateful to the guys in my house for doing so much to help make it special. They helped clean the house, do yardwork, and make special brownies.


It's that time of year again for gardening and Ken's worked so hard to get the garden planted much earlier than last year. We should get some good crops before it gets too hot out for the food to grow. We've been getting a lot of strawberries from our 4 x 16 raised bed and they are DELICIOUS. Yesterday we got a quart, the biggest amount we've gotten in just one day. I hope it keeps up! We're so excited to put in some trees soon, we want to grow oranges and lemons. We also got some blackberries, red raspberries, and blueberries. We'll see how they do!! So far they are still in the pots we bought them in and we'll be replanting them in a new type of garden we're installing sometime soon that's extremely successful in Arizona. Wish us luck!

Spelunking

This past weekend, Adam and his scout group went to Peppersauce Caves. Apparently it was a little windy...another tent bites the dust!


I'm so glad the boys have fun exploring caves, I can't even sleep in a sleeping bag I'm so claustrophobic.

Adam found what appears to be an old hammer handle

It was hiding back in this tight spot, yikes

Here's the group making their way through another tight spot

The scout leaders put so much into helping these boys have a great time. We really appreciate it and I know the boys do, too. Our kids have done some great things with scouts, things they never would have done otherwise, so hats off to them and a huge thanks to them!

There's a saying....

....it goes something like this. "Be thankful you don't fit in where you don't belong." That probably means different things to different people, or even different things to the same person at different times in their life~whatever way it's taken, it's one of the best quotes I've ever heard. Just thought I'd share.

February 3

Time doesn't heal all wounds but it can lessen their sting. Today is my sister's birthday, or would have been, however you look at it when someone isn't here anymore.

Linda was born on February 3, 1969. She was a cute baby and a good-natured one, too. Linda was very artistic. Our school had an annual "Spring Fling" and 4th graders (if I remember that right) were asked to make posters to advertise it. A winning poster would be chosen and Linda's was chosen. It hung near the cafeteria with a blue ribbon on it and I'd tell all my friends, with extreme pride, that was my sister's poster. She won other poster contests, too. She was the kind of child who colored inside the lines, colored in all one direction, and used colors that went well together. One time she made a salt-dough map of the world and that thing was PERFECT. I think each continent was a different color. I think my mom still has it. She had long, slender hands and used them to do kind things for others. She also played the piano and learned really quickly. She had very neat handwriting, too. Her room was always tidy and during the times when we had to share, I felt bad for her because I was anything but tidy! Our room, at one time, was set up with her bed just inside the door and my bed across the room. Our beds were separated by two tall dressers, one facing her direction and one facing mine. (Genius, Mom...pure genius!) I think we would use the back of the other's dresser as a bulletin board? We had really cool beds that had drawers underneath for storage. Linda's side was always so neat; my side often had clothes, shoes, and other items on the floor between my bed and the dressers. She and I could walk through the same mud puddle and I'd be covered from head-to-toe, she'd be clean. I was the Oscar to her Felix.

It wasn't long after she was born that my parents were told she had a genetic disorder called Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Her life wasn't about CF but unfortunately I have very few memories of Linda because I was 10 when she died (she was 11) and the ones I do have usually involve her illness, hospitalization, or treatments. I'll never forget one time she was too sick to even walk into the hospital so my big, burly dad carried her. That sight would crack even the toughest nut. When we were younger, maybe 4 and 5?, Linda went into the hospital and I wasn't allowed to go in. I remember being outside and looking up at her window where she stood waving at me. She made friends easily and some of the best ones she made were also CF patients who were frequently in the hospital the same time she was.

I often wonder what memories we would have made, what it would have been like to see her drive a car or have a job, get married and have children,or just be like everyone else. I look forward to the time when illness can't weaken our bodies and death and separation are no more because I know we have that promise.

Happy Birthday, Linda!

From Wikipedia:

Cystic fibrosis (also known as CF or mucoviscidosis) is a common hereditary disease which affects the entire body, causing progressive disability and often, early death. The name cystic fibrosis refers to the characteristic scarring (fibrosis) and cyst formation within the pancreas, first recognized in the 1930s.[1] Difficulty breathing is the most serious symptom and results from frequent lung infections that are treated, though not cured, by antibiotics and other medications. A multitude of other symptoms, including sinus infections, poor growth, diarrhea, and infertility result from the effects of CF on other parts of the body.

CF is caused by a mutation in a gene called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). This gene helps create sweat, digestive juices, and mucus.

10 things

I was tagged to come up with 10 things people don't know about me. I don't think that's possible, I'm such an open book. I'll try to come up with 10 new things.

1. I love campfires! Campfires + friends = good times. Of course, I've also fallen INTO a campfire but don't hold it against them.
2. Goes along with #1-I love camping. I'm not the biggest fan of sleeping on the ground or the whole bathroom situation, but camping in general is so fun.
3. I love being outdoors
4. I have a love/hate relationship with water. I love swimming in pools. I would love to live in a simple cabin in the woods by a lake. Doesn't that sound wonderful???? I love boating and even water skiing, etc. But don't ask me to swim in that lake, it's scary. And don't EVEN ask me to go into the ocean because I'm petrified of the ocean and "what lies beneath".
5. I'm quickly becoming addicted to reality tv, which in honesty I believe is as far from reality as regular tv.
6. I'm an athlete wannabe and working on changing that from wannabe to achieving my goals.
7. If you see people of the world in terms of "tortoises or hares", I'm a tortoise. For sure. See #6-I'm nearing 40 and just now finding real joy in various activities. I have some serious goals for this year that I've got a good head-start on. I didn't graduate from college until 20 years after I graduated from high school~but make no mistake, I will finish what I start even if it takes a while. (It only took 4 years but I didn't start for 16.)
8. I love pictures! They really can tell a story. Over the past year I've put together a scrapbook of photos and information about my dad's life and I've learned so much that I didn't know before. I've also put together books of my husband and kids~and looking back has been so much fun. I'd love to be better at photography and all things related.
9. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up
10. I don't think I realize what I have in the moment-it's not until I look back that I realize it...and I'm hoping that changes!

Belated birthday

January 3rd, Adam ~who shares a birthday with a lot of people I know and adore~ turned 15! I have a lot of favorite memories of Adam. He's just one of those people who does funny things without trying to be funny but he's hilarious. Sometimes it's only funny later--like one day I needed to go somewhere and take all the boys. I told them to get their shoes on and Adam couldn't find his. We all pitched in to help him look and for 45 minutes scoured the house. It was a small house, just 900 square feet, so we knew his shoes couldn't have gone far!! Plus, he'd had them in his hands not long before. We looked in all the obvious places and it finally hit me to look in a not-so-obvious place. The fridge. I opened the fridge door and there they were. Go figure. A lot of our memories of Adam have to do with the fridge. Those who used to visit our house in Dallastown, PA can probably remember that we used to bungee-cord our fridge shut because we had a hard time keeping Adam out of there. He wouldn't just eat the obvious stuff-he'd drink ketchup, drink salad dressings, stick his fingers in the butter, things like that. (Are you catching on that the "obvious" doesn't always apply to Adam?) He figured out, though, that he could open the door a little bit and stick his arm in, so there was a circular path his arm could reach that he still wiped out at will.
One time when he was just 5 years old, Ken and I went out of town. Friends of ours stayed with the boys and took them to Baltimore, MD to the National Aquarium at Inner Harbor. Adam was with me later that week when I took our friends to the airport and we got lost in Baltimore on the way home. We were somewhere near Inner Harbor and I was driving in circles, basically. Then Adam said he remembered going past a certain landmark with Kathy and Max a few days ago and said "to get home, we went that way". I followed what he said and sure enough found I-83 and our way home to York, PA. What a memory!!

15 things I love about Adam:

1. his smile
2. his heart
3. his sense of adventure
4. his sense of humor
5. his singing
6. his willingness to help others
7. his natural curiosity
8. his sense of justice
9. his loyalty
10. his kindness
11. his strength
12. his willingness to try new things
13. his memory
14. his company
15. everything :)

I know it's late, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ADAM!

The Hosch Family, Established January 11, 1989

My family and Ken's family have known each other longer than I've been alive. We attended the same church. Because Ken is 5 years older than me, I didn't know him very well. By the time I started to attend youth program activities like dances where I'd be around the older kids, I was 14 and Ken was already 19, in college, and on his way to Germany to serve a mission for our church. I was, however, always good friends with his younger brother Roland and his sisters Heidi and Pam. (His brother Randy is 4 years older than me so I wasn't around him much, either.) Ken was in Germany from 1985-1987. When he got home, I was spending the summer in Arizona with my older sister, Barb. When I got home from Arizona, Ken was always working, in college classes, etc. He wasn't really home when I would be over at the Hosch's house and he was certainly too old for youth activies.

Fast forward to 1988. Heidi and Pam invited me to come swim at their house on a VERY, VERY hot day. Who could turn that down? Ken happened to be home and joined us for swimming and video games. As it turns out, we were both heading to college at BYU so we started talking about that and many other things. We started dating and haven't been apart since.

Like all married couples, we've had our struggles. But we're pretty well matched in a lot of ways. We have four great boys we just adore and it's been quite an adventure building a life together.



That dress is soooo 80s! I've been watching "Say Yes to the Dress" lately and the boys have asked to see my wedding dress and gave me a thumbs up. I rented it so I could have an expensive dress without having to spend much money. I don't regret that for a second, I loved my dress. If you're getting married, consider it!

I had such trouble with my hair-I cut my bangs myself the day before our wedding. My hair was wet and I combed my bangs down my forehead and cut them to the length I thought I wanted them, not realizing just how short I was cutting them. When I dried my hair I was shocked to see that my bangs were extremely short-they were halfway up my forehead and so short I had a hard time wrapping the hair around my curling iron! Luckily it didn't look too bad-the young can get away with a lot. My dad cut Ken's hair. (Ok, he fixed what I'd done wrong because Ken was having me cut his hair from about 2 weeks into our dating. He only had sewing scissors at the time so I did my best but I'm glad my dad fixed it before the wedding!)

Walking into the temple to get married that morning, I slipped on what was probably the only small patch of ice on the entire temple grounds, breaking the nail on my right middle finger. My dad laughed and said "Ken, she's blonde and Polish, are you sure you want to marry her?" Thankfully I didn't break any on my left hand or photos like this wouldn't have been taken.

It seems like that all took place maybe 5-10 years ago, certainly not 21.
My 21 favorite things about being married to Ken are:

1. Josh
2. Jeremy
3. Adam
4. Austin
5. he's my best friend
6. he's really patient
7. he's really forgiving when I'm immature or mean (hey, it happens)
8. he can fix just about anything
9. he can build just about anything
10. he can cook better than me
11. he relaxes by doing housework
12. he is willing to go to the store at 11 pm to get me something if I want it
13. he's extremely thoughtful
14. he's one of the most selfless people I know
15. he's really even-tempered
16. he's supportive
17. he works really, really hard and always has
18. he laughs with me, not at me
19. he knows what I like and don't like because he listens
20. he moved us to Arizona just because I wanted to live here
21. he married me even though I really am blonde and Polish