Quick update

First, I'm posting a recent picture of my face taken about 2 weeks to the day after my surgery. I'm really happy with the results because you can hardly see the scar at all! After only 2 weeks! I'm finally allowed to wear makeup on it so it's pratically invisible.


This last week, I finally sold my 1968 Camaro. Jaime bought it for me back before we were married and we have put a lot of work and money into it. I was hoping to restore it, but I realized it was a much longer process than I'd liked. And I was pouring far more money into it than I'd expected. So I decided to sell it and buy another newer and more reliable car (most likely a late 90's BMW M3.) I got the asking price for the Camaro so I'm really happy about that. I'm pretty sad about it being gone too, I really got attached to that car. It is going to a lady in Hawaii who has the funds and time to make it into a show car. Don't worry, I am planning on getting another 1968 Camaro in a few years. I'm already saving up for one and it will be in far better condition than my last one. Here are a couple pictures of it.


$8500!!
On Friday night, Jaime and Kevin drove all the way to Port Angeles, WA so that Jaime could pick up his new bike he bought. It's a 2006 CRF 230. They didn't get home until 3am Saturday morning. So we got a few hours of sleep and then got up to go riding. Unfortunately, my bike has got some carburetor issues, so I had to take my old bike which isn't in the best of conditions either. Right now we don't have a truck for transporting our bikes so Jaime got his '66 Chevy running just good enough that we could make the short drive to Ravensdale. We did run out of gas on the way back, but luckily we had a gas can in the bed of the truck. Here is a picture of the old truck with the bikes loaded up about to take off to the trails.

Plastic Surgery

About 2 years ago I noticed a small bump on my right cheek. I figured I would just wait for it to go away, but over time it started to get bigger and more annoying. During this last summer I had it looked at by my Dr. and they told me it was a sebaceous cyst and that it will never go away. It was just continue to slowly grow and maybe eventually stop. This is what it looked like in February of 2006. Very small and only visible when I smiled really big.

This picture was taken just last month and its hard to tell from the picture, but it had grown significantly to about the size of a marble. I decided to get it removed by a plastic surgeon so scarring would be minimal.


This picture was taken about 3 hours after surgery.



2 days after surgery.


I'm so glad that it's gone. I forgot what it felt like not having a marble sized growth in my cheek. It's been about a week and 1/2 and the stitches are out. It's healing very nicely and the scar is only slightly visible. The surgeon did a great job!

2008 Recap

Most people write up and send out Christmas letters that recaps their past year. But I don't have the patience to do all that, with the mailing addresses and sealing envelopes and all that. So instead I'm just going to write my "year recap letter" on here.

I got my 3rd kidney stone near the beginning of this year. It was by far the most painful episode I've had with kidney stones and it was the largest one (6mm) I've had.


Jaime and I took a week vacation to Mesa, Arizona and stayed with Andra and Dustin. We spend 6 days hanging out with them and doing fun outdoor activities. It was really nice for us to be able to hang out in the warm sunshine and for me to be able to spend time with my sister.



This year Jaime got his Papa's 1966 Chevrolet pickup truck running. It has been in his family since it was brand new back in '66. His Grandpa LeBlanc gave it to his son, and Jaime's dad gave it to him when he got home from his mission in 2003. After a motor and tranny swap, Jaime finally got it running and is continuing to restore it.Jaime acquired some new dirtbikes this year so we now have 5 dirtbikes in our garage. Somehow we are still able to fit 2 cars in our garage as well. One of the bikes he got was one he designed and a friend built. The other is an XR200, which is his favorite kind of bike.


For Memorial Day, we went on our campout to Little Naches. We had a lot of fun riding our dirtbikes during the day and hanging out by the campfire at night. On the last day, Jaime blew up his motor on the new dirtbike he'd designed. He is still working on getting it running again, but has many backups to use in the meantime.

Andra and Dustin FINALLY moved back here to Washington in June. I can't even begin to explain how much better it is having them live close by. They lived in Arizona for about a year and a half, but it felt like 10 years! We had a big birthday/welcome home BBQ at Lake Wilderness which was a lot of fun and the perfect activity to kick off the rest of our summer adventrues.


During the summer, Jaime and I went camping as much as possible. We went to Little Naches, which is over Chinook Pass, each time we went. That way we could camp AND have hundreds of miles of dirtbike trails. We also spent a lot of time hanging out on the shore of the Little Naches River. We love spending time out in the wilderness and we do it as much as our schedules allow.


One of our goals this summer was to ride the "Naches trail" from Greenwater over to Naches. It's actually been a goal of ours for a few summers, but we haven't gotten around to it till this year. Jaime, Kevin, and I did the ride and it was such a fun trail! We had a great time and it was actually far easier than we had expected. We had amazing weather and got to see some of the most amazing views of the Cascade Mountain Range. On our way back over the pass, my chain came off my bike and left me stranded up on a ridge in the middle of nowhere. I had to sit there for about 45 minutes all by myself before Jaime and Kevin came back for me. Other than that , it was the perfect ride.
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This summer, I was able to get a new job!! I am still a Dental Assistant, but I now work in an office in Newcastle, WA for Dr. Chen. It's a much better office in so many ways, and I don't feel like ripping my hair out everyday after work. I hate the stress of new jobs and learning new things, but it was well worth it to be out of the previous office I was at. I especially LOVE having the weekends off so Jaime and I can actually go and enjoy our lives and have fun together.


Over Labor Day weekend, all 5 of the Hinckley kids were all together for the first time in a few years. It was great to all be together again and spend time together. We went on some hikes, shooting, played Rockband, had bonfires, and BBQed. It was the perfect way to end the summer.
Since we went out of town on many weekends during the summer, we had to leave Pawsi home all by himself. I felt really bad for him so I started to bring up the idea of getting another kitty for him to have a companion. We ended up getting another pixie bob. This time we got a girl and Jaime named her "Roll-a-Lexus" but we call her "Lexus" for short. It was an interesting experience introducing Pawsi to the new kitten. It took him a good month or so to be okay with her and not try to kill her. Now they are the best of friends.



In September, Jaime and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary! In the past, we usually do something pretty low key for our anniversary. So this year, we planned to go to the Oregon Coast and spend the weekend hanging out on the beach. We had the most amazing weather for the end of September. It was sunny and in the 70's. We had a great time and hope to do it again next year.


We got a new cat named "Lexus" but we also acquired a REAL Lexus. Jaime has wanted this specific car for about 2 years or so. Every once in a while he would get online and look for one in his price range. One day I got a call from him saying "I'm buying a Lexus." When I got home, there was a 1992 Lexus SC400 in the driveway. He is in love with this car. Even though it doesn't look all that great (its got some cosmetic issues) it sure does have some serious power. We have had a lot of fun with it this summer driving in the snow. Unfortunately, Jaime got pulled over recently and got a ticket for $550.00 for negligent driving. He is hoping to get it dropped, but we'll see what happens.


Just this last week, Jaime and I celebrated our 2nd year in our house in Black Diamond. I can't believe we've already lived there for 2 years!! Even more, I can't believe we've been able to make the monthly mortgage payment each month for 24 months. But we love our home and hope to stay there for a couple years to come.

I know you are all dying to know, but we still are not pregnant and we don't really plan on it for a while still. But ya never know what might happen......we will keep you posted!

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.