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!

Fall Colors

Fall is such a pretty time of year!! Although, it is a little depressing because summer is over and its a few months wait until the snowboarding season officially starts. But the changing of the colors and the crisp cool air is so enjoyable!


One weekend before Halloween, we were able to go to a pumpkin patch and corn maze out in Enumclaw. We snapped a few pictures and picked out our pumpkins before spending about 30 minutes going through the corn maze. It was a lot of fun and we really lucked out with the sunny weather!

Flashback Photos #2

This is a picture of the Hinckley family in 1988. On most all weekends of decent weather, we would go out on adventures into the mountains with the old Dodge Van. This particular trip was to an old railroad shed that we are standing on top of. Years later it was burnt down.

We stopped along the way to have lunch and roasted marshmallows. I think I'm the one on the right and Andra on the left with red pants. Fun memories!

Twilight Countdown

Read the books.... loved them. Pretty excited to see how the movie comes out.

Flashback Photo

This is an old picture of Andra and I in our backyard in Federal Way. I'm pretty sure Andra is the one sitting on the bench and I am standing. (I know this because of the socks. My parents often color coded us to help tell us apart.)
We are trying to get up on the picnic table because that is there the cat food has been placed to keep it away from Andra and me. For some reason we thought that stuff tasted better than candy and we were always getting into it. That is our old kitty named "CatFace" also up on the table trying to eat his food.