White Christmas

Well, we are now 2 weeks into having snow on the ground and I have to say, I don't think this has ever happened before in my lifetime. The last time I measured our accumulated snow, we had just over 13 inches. It snowed about 3 more inches over Christmas Eve and Christmas, but I'm sure we're still near 13-14 inches because of some melting. It has been very fun and enjoyable, but the snow has caused its headaches too. We have been driving Jaime's Lexus everywhere we go which is rear wheel drive. Surprisingly we've only gotten stuck twice, which were in our own driveway (it's sloped upwards.) One night we got stuck, we spent about 1.5 hours digging out the car and then shoveling half the driveway so he could get up into the garage.

Our Christmas was so amazing!! Especially because Andra was actually here for it! It's so much better having them living here. Jaime and I are luckily able to perfect doing both the Hinckley Family and LeBlanc Family Christmas activities every year. We had a huge Christmas Eve feast at my parents house with everybody but Damion's family. Right after that, Jaime and I left to go to the annual Jex Family Christmas Eve gathering at the Ward's home. We had a great time catching up with family and all sorts of fun activities. We only wish more people could have made it. A few families stayed home because of the driving conditions, but there was still a large turnout.
Christmas day was picture perfect! We woke up to tons of fresh snow on the ground and it continued to snow for the majority of the morning. We spent Christmas morning back at my parents house with Andra, Dustin, Brent, Aaron, and my parents. After opening presents and hanging out with the family for a while, Jaime and I left to his sister Nicole's house for our annual Christmas Day Brunch. After stuffing ourselves with pancakes, sausages, hash browns, bacon, eggs, etc, we pretty much laid around and relaxed while the nieces and nephews played with their new toys.
Later in the day, Jaime and I met back up with my siblings and we all went to see the new movie, "Valkyrie", which I thought was a great movie. We finally retired back at home and spent another hour digging the Lexus a path through the driveway again. For the remainder of the night we played our new Xbox games. (I got Jaime "Dirt" and "Grid" and he got me "Shaun White Snowboarding.") It was such a fun day. I'm sad that it will be another year till Christmas. Here are some pictures from the last week or so.

Pawsi watching the birds in our backyard.

Lexus and Pawsi enjoying their new Christmas present.



Lexus wondering what I'm cooking. She's pretty scared of actually getting up on the countertop now because last time she walked across the hot stove and burnt her foot. So now she just sits on the bar stool and looks at me like this.

Our Christmas Lights are buried under lots of snow. But it sure looks cool.

Pawsi in what my dad calls his "Battle Chair."

Me doing a hand stand on my snowboard.

Lexus being cute playing in Jaime's snow clothes.

I'm watching Andra and Dustin snowboarding down the hill in my parents neighborhood.

Let it snow

It's been snowing here in Washington for a whole week now!! These pictures are from last weekend when the snow first started falling. One of our favorite things to do in the snow is ride our dirtbikes.Jaime, Dustin, and I trying to decide where to go ride.

Snow makes donuts a lot of fun

Riding through the front lawn.

One of our other favorite things to do when it snows is to go drifting. Ever since Jaime got his Lexus SC400, he has been dying for it to snow. On the first night it snowed, we went out driving for 4 hours straight and used about 1/2 tank of gas. It was a very fun (and down right scary at some points) experience. Here is a picture of me while we were out driving. We were probably sideways when I took this picture.


The next day when we actually had daylight, we took the dirtbikes out for a bit more riding.


The snow is still falling and is continuing to pile up!!! So hopefully more snow pictures to come!

Our Christmas Tree

A couple weekends ago, we had some amazing weather so we decided it would be a great opportunity to go up to the mountains and cut down our Christmas tree. We bought a permit for $5 and headed up past Greenwater. Jaime insisted on having a tree that goes all the way to our ceiling.

Here is a picture of me next to the tree that I picked out. It doesn't look all that big mixed in with all these other big trees.

Jaime and I carrying the tree back down to the car.

We got the tree loaded up and were ready to head back home.

Here's a view from our tree hunting site. You can barely see Mt. Rainier in the background on the left.
Me standing next to the tree once we got it put up. This is also after we trimmed about 4 feet off the top and 2 feet off the bottom.

Lexus playing with her first Christmas tree


Pawsi playing in the Christmas decorations.

Decorating the tree. We didn't get a picture of me putting the star up because Jaime was too busy spotting and making sure I didn't fall .

This was all our Christmas tree decorations. I had to go buy more because it still looks pretty bare.

Vashon Island

This past weekend, Andra, Dustin, Jaime, Aaron, and I went on a little road trip to Vashon Island. It had been so long since any of us had been on a ferry so we thought it'd be fun to go to Vashon just to hang out and play around for the day.

Here is Jaime on the ferry. It was too cold for him outside =) not really, he was on the phone trying to sell my camaro.

Jaime and I in the car waiting to get off the ferry.




Here is a couple pictures of Jaime and I standing outside the Point Robinson lighthouse.


This picture cracks me up because of Andra in the background.


Me with a huge stump we found washed up on the beach.


Point Robinson Lighthouse



Dustin, Aaron, and Jaime standing around on the beach.


Standing in front of the lighthouse


Andra and I next to the bike tree. That bike was chained there by some kid years ago so it just grew around it.


A cool sculpture we found next to the cemetery.


Me inside a cool fort I found on a beach.

November Storm Aftermath

As most of you know, the month of November brings a lot of rain to the Pacific Northwest. We always see amazing footage of storm damage and flooding on the news but Jaime and I thought it would be fun to go out try to see some of it with our own eyes.
On Saturday we were blessed with sunny weather so we headed out in search of some good sites. We drove towards Greenwater since we knew there was a huge landslide out there that closed highway 410 for a few days.

Here is a picture of us standing on the shore of the White River in Greenwater at a nice little park we found.


Perfect spot for an afternoon picnic......maybe in the summertime.

It's BIGFOOT. Oh wait, its just Jaime.

Jaime jumping up and down on this slippery rubber culvert. He thought it was a cool idea. I thought it was pretty dangerous being next to a raging river.


Another view of the park on the White River. Jaime is pointing at elk droppings.


This HUGE tree fell down in the storm. You can't see from these pictures, but when it fell, it took down like 3 other smaller ones with it.



The roots of the huge trees that fell over into the river.



Jaime holding his soaking wet socks after he stepped in the mud and it sucked his shoes right off his feet.


Some cool patterns in the sand from the flooding.

This is at the part of highway 410 where the landslide was. This little stream was raging a few days earlier and washed out underneath the edge of the road.

This picture is looking up the mountain where the landslide came down. It's very hard to tell from the picture, but the slide came from about 300 feet up the mountain. Now there is just a small stream and waterfall coming down the slope.

The other side of the road where they pushed all the mud, trees, and debris off to the side.


A 100 foot stretch of road was EXTREMELY slick and covered in slippery mud from where the landslide covered.

A forest service road right off of highway 410 just outside of Greenwater. The river washed away a huge portion of this road along with some powerlines.


It was amazing to see what mother nature can do in just a couple days of rain. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!