New Year's Eve

Hi, it's January 2, but I'm catching up and logging this past weekend and am just going to set the date as Dec 31st... We had a great and fun New Years Eve. Around 1:00 I went to Momentum with Corey and OP, I bouldered, Corey belayed the boys and then they bouldered a little bit too. 

We gotta get them to boulder so that we can all climb when we take them, rather than they just climb while we belay the whole time (cause I don't find that very fun). I did a purple V1 that I hadn't done before, on east side of north boulder! Now the only V1 I still need to do is the hot pink one, but alas, it is impossible. I tried it like 10 times today, but I can't get both of my hands on the 3rd and 4th to last holds. It's so slippery. 

So then back home and we got ready to head up to Brighton with kids for a New Year's Eve gathering with our neighborhood friends. I left around 4, hoping that it would still be light and we could get in some sledding time. I took Corey's car, it's so nice to have 4 wheel drive. The roads were slick and there was snow everywhere - a few cars were stuck but we were good in Corey's car. I left Katharine and Peter home with Corey and took Mel, Wes, Abi, Lily, Sophi, Natalie, Owen, and Daniel with me. I was going to go back down to get Corey, but they were able to all get a ride up with Ethan's friend Truman. Here's a cute pic of Katharine at home - searching for tiny legos and earrings on the floor. 

She's starting to roll around quite a bit (this video Mel made - so cute. Yes she IS lovely.) Katharine always seems to find tiny things - tiny papers, legos, bits of food, etc. I'm glad she usually keeps her binky in her mouth and just rolls around the tiny objects between her fingers, like this earring. Those sweet eyes...

Katharine! Be careful, I'm trying to be careful, but your siblings do not - please don't choke on anything you find on the floor around here! 

At the cabin we got set up in a room where I was going to sleep with Katharine (having a baby helps you get room priority, hehe) We didn't go skiing today and won't be skiing at Brighton this year, but did go sledding. Most of the kids didn't take me up on it, they wanted to stay inside where it was warm - playing with their friends and watching Elf - 

...but Mel and Lily did. 

I should have put my hair back...

As we'd sled down, our feet would make the snow powder spray in our faces a ton. 

Lily gave me her neck thing...

It helped a little. We only went down the hill like 5 times, but we sure got covered in snow! 

We had fun. Back inside - kids reading...

playing...

Corey, Joseph, Ethan and Peter arrived a little after 6pm - Yay! You brought my baby!

Adults visiting - 

Ethan asking Mel to give him more time on Instagram on HIS phone...

I'm glad they keep each other in check. 

Ethan and Truman playing chess. "Eth, who is going to win?"

Ethan had been feeling a little sick last night and this morning, but was determined to not miss out on the celebrations. When I passed by him I asked "Eth, how are you feeling?" and as he took a Superman stance he said "Feeling completely normal and healthy!" Haha. Natalie was feeling fine earlier but then felt a bit sick tonight... and threw up. I was very grateful that she made it in the toilet - no clean up, hooray - and with that she was feeling better. (I'll spare you the mess in the toilet)

Cute Peter - 

Wes spent a good portion of his time in the basement playing foosball and ping pong - 

Kids playing Telestrations. They were laughing so hard, it was fun just to watch them!

Kids talking smack playing foosball. Video of one of their games here. 

Joseph scored on Wesley, and then said (paraphrased by Ethan) “In Wesley’s defense, I’m super good.” - Joe. Haha, so funny. Another quotes from foosball by Eth (I think): “As Jim always says, put enough sauce on it and it’ll go in.” Joe: “I’ve never heard him say that.”

Corey enjoys playing foosball. He got really good at it back in his TenFold days. I enjoy watching. I have no skill, but sometimes I have luck when I play. It's not as enjoyable when you're depending on luck though. 

We watched the New York Ball drop at 10pm, and then we all hooped and hollered - the kids and a few adults ran around the cabin for the Polar Bear challenge. I did half of the cabin with toddlers. That video is of the second half. The snow was so deep! I was worried they'd fall in and get lost and no one would see them, but we all made it back inside with hopefully no long term frostbite. Lily was still feeling brave and decided to enjoy her glass of sparkling cider out on a snow couch -  

"It's not even cold! I can't even feel it..."

Corey headed back home with Natalie, the rest of us are sleeping over and will go to church up here and then head home after that. It's been snowing all evening and is forecast to snow all day tomorrow, hopefully we'll make it out! Happy New Year!

Highlights of 2022

We are near the end of another year. We'll be gone tomorrow night for New Year's Eve so I've been putting this "year in review" together today and I must say, I'm pretty amazed at all we did. This has been another reminder to me of the importance of keeping records, cause off the top of my head, I would not have been able to tell you about any of these events or details. Hooray for photos and for journaling. And as I've been having many "oh yeah!" moments as I read old posts, I have to say I'm really impressed. Go team, I'll be sure to give Corey and myself a pat on the back for keeping our kids alive for another year (by the grace of God and with the help of others) and for giving them a few good memories a long the way, too. The biggest and most wonderful thing for our family in 2022 was welcoming our little princess Katharine into our family in May. 

Melodie and Ethan also both returned home this year from being gone abroad serving missions for the Lord Jesus Christ. We are so happy they were able to serve and we're grateful for their safe return (links below - Melodie home in March, Ethan returned in June). We also raised and released 108 monarch butterflies in 2022 - the most we've ever had!

Here is a month by month summary of a lot of birthdays, some traveling, and some of the more poignant memories from 2022 that I now remember I had suppressed (police with Daniel in June):

January -  Joseph turns 22, Peter is 3, skiing in Park City #1, skiing at Snowbird
February - 23 years of wedded bliss, Family Anniversary Feast, Valentine's Day
March - Melodie is home from her mission to Brazil, Ethan is 20
April - Tiff's Birthday, Trip to Florida

May - Mother's Day, Daniel to the ER, Diaper free after 22 years (for a few weeks) and then Katharine born! School is out

June - Park City #2, Ethan is home from his mission, Corey's birthday, Lily is 13, Wesley is 17, Bear Lake, Israelite Tabernacle Experience, Police bring lost Daniel home

July - Natalie is 9, Owen is 7, Salmon River Trip, Hibbert Reunion

August - Hyrum is 19, Wride reunion (Park City #3), Abi and Wes in Nauvoo, Melodie in Vienna, Mel and Ethan start school at BYU, Abi Lily and Daniel start school, so many butterflies!

September - Hyrum has been on his mission for one year, Abi is 15, Sophi is 11, Daniel is 6

October - We love autumn, Fall Bike rides, Trip to Newport, Laguna Beach, Six Flag, Balboa Beach, Halloween

November - Wes YMAD trip to India, Thanksgiving in Park City #4, Synthesis and GMS Performances

December - Mel is 22, Indoor Climbing, Violin recital, Skiing at Alta, Family flu shots, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We are looking forward to all the great opportunities and fun memories that 2023 will bring. We are especially looking forward to seeing Hyrum again at the end of summer after he finishes serving the Lord in San Diego. 

2023 will be a great year!

Approach

Katharine woke me up early this morning (4:30) and I nursed her and after I got her back to sleep an hour later, I left to go climbing. I was able to sneak away from her, but my headphones were hidden somewhere in her blankets so I left without them. Joseph said it was too early, so I went alone and without music or a podcast to listen to for that hour on the boulders, which felt unfortunate, but maybe the quiet is good for my mind sometimes. I didn't really get further on any of the V1s that I haven't sent yet, or the purple V2 that I was hoping I'd complete today. I'll try again next time. I really can't imagine being able to do anything past V2, they all look impossible! I can't believe I could ever have the arm strength to do any of those, but we'll see... Two weeks ago some of the V1s felt impossible but I can do them now, so maybe I will get there.

After I got home, I got Peter and Katharine ready and we went to watch Wesley's hockey game. They are having a tournament, and this would have been their last game, but they won (yay) so they are in the championship game tomorrow. 

Wes with the puck - 

Hockey is a really fast game. Fast players with the skates with longer arms than basketball or football (thanks to the sticks) and a really fast ball flying back and forth. 

Fast game makes for more tired players and shorter quarters. Saying hooray to Wes after the game. Cute Peter, he's our favorite.

Katharine is our other favorite - very cute photo in Ethan's BeReal today.

My BeReal was when we were watching The Chosen. 

Today we watched episode 3. So good, I love it. The Chosen has really helped the apostles come alive, and Jonathan Roumie portrays Jesus Christ so beautifully in my opinion. Just a real, beautiful, and gentle soul, just like I imagine Christ to be. I'm excited to study the New Testament this year with all my fellow Saints! It's so fun for the WHOLE WORLD to be studying it together! 

Here I was about done when I just realized something else that has been making blogging hard - and this started over Thanksgiving - when I try to insert photos, I will have to scroll and scroll and scroll back to the right date, which takes a few minutes for the photos to load, and then I usually have to keep scrolling further (when I'm really behind), and then I finally get to the date, I click the photos, and THEN when I go to add them, it will sit there and load for a while and then say "Sorry! We could not copy your photos to your blog." 

Blaah - so stupid. Technology, you are supposed to work all the time (ha ha I know not really) I don't know why I get slightly bent out of shape when it happens. It's like the miracles of cars - it becomes normal and we just expect it to work every time, and if it doesn't and we have to jump the car or something, it can be frustrating. So the photos part just keeps putting a kink into my productivity - even when I do have a chance to get something done, I can't do it for other reasons. Ok, but I did save this, go to my phone, and upload them from the "computer"/phone/device there rather than via Google Photos, but I did contact google about that, so we'll see if that gets fixed anytime soon. For now I'll try to type here and upload there. Hopefully I'll get caught up before February.

Update - Hello, it is April now. I hope that when I come in here and insert the actual days and dates that it doesn't confuse anyone. It's like time is always present before me, ha. But yeah, it's April 6 and I am bound and determined to finish December tonight. The last post I had to do was December 28, but there were just a few pictures of Wesley for that day, and I've already got six posts for that week (I usually do 5) so I'm going to just add these photos here and then I'll FINALLY be done with December and 2022! So Wesley really loved working on this Metal Earth model of the Salt Lake Temple and he worked on it all day until it was done.

He had a whole system worked out and all the tiny tiny pieces of metal taped to paper and put on cookie sheets. 

He's going to be an architect someday and give me a really good deal on designing my dream home. Sweet.

So, a few last thoughts - I enjoy keeping a blog. I think that I find writing therapeutic, and I am glad to keep a history for our children of some of our family's years. but I'm also struggling lately, cause it seems that I just don't have time to sit down at the computer. Or when I do, like right now, the darn internet won't work or my photos won't unload or the page is "unresponsive", so I don't make any progress anyway. 

Sigh, sometimes the digital world, that is a miracle and a mystery that I don't understand, seems to be working against me. I'm lucky if I'm able to hide in the closet for 15 minutes to read my scriptures. I might need to take a new approach for the new year. Maybe just one snapshot picture? Or just a bullet-point outline of the day's calendar of events. I finally finished blogging September when we were up at Park City for Thanksgiving (haven't blogged Thanksgiving yet...) yeah... November and December are currently lacking documentation representation. I try to do 5 posts a week, so that would mean I still need to do 10 for November and 17 for December, or 16 after I publish this one. Little by little, someday maybe I'll be caught up. 

Gaga Ball

On Thanksgiving in 2021, after a really fun night playing games in the gym, we Hibbert's decided we needed to get together and have fun together more often. We said we should get together again "atleast once a month!" But it didn't happen in December, or Jan, or Feb... well maybe "once a quarter". That didn't happen either. Sad, cause we really wanted it to! We have such fun playing. We had a reunion last summer, and that was great! The ultimate frisbee was awesome, the soccer was epic. Today, we made gym fun happen again - one year and one month after our last gym fun-a-thon. Yay, we finally pulled it off. I reserved our church, got a key to open it, and so it as scheduled. Neil came with the dodge balls and new games, and we had a really fun time! Wesley loves the game Neil taught us - "gaga ball". 

You play it in a walled court (courtesy of the folding church tables) and you hit a dodge ball with your hands, and you get people out by hitting their legs. So you have to protect your legs but also try to hit the ball at others to get them out. When you get hit, you go out behind the table and wait until someone wins, then you can come back in for the next match. The games were fast and fun. The boys were all skilled at it and it was intense as they'd try to get each other out. I played a few rounds too. It was a fun game that big and little kids and parents could all play together.

Fun stuff. We did that for most of the time, then we did chair soccer. I have heard my missionaries talk about chair soccer, but I hadn't played it and didn't know the rules. Today our return missionaries taught us. Everyone chooses a chair, you protect your chair, but you're chair is also a goal to everyone else. If someone hits your chair, you're out and sit down on your chair, until the chair of the person that got YOU out gets THEIR chair hit by the soccer ball. Then you're back in. So that was fun too, and now I know how to play. Group picture after three+ hours of fun. 

Selfie so Mel and Katharine could get in it too! (...and Natalie in the wheel chair, haha)

No Long Winter's Nap

Christmas is over. Abi took down the tree today. 

Usually I'm ok to leave it up though January 1st, but Abi was in the mood to get it done, and I didn't mind. So it's all packed up and put away. My BeReal - 

We vacuumed the plastic pine needles off the floor and the front room has been reclaimed. Christmas is over, but the vacation from school isn't! And we are grateful to have time in the mornings to climb. We don't even need jazz band to get us up and out the door. I went climbing with Joseph and Wes this morning nice and early (6 am during a "break"! Wow, go us). Wes showing Joseph how to send the green V3 that Wes just figured out on Saturday!

And with Wes showing him and coaching him, J got it too. 

We love climbing, it's so fun.

We had to get up and go early cause everyone was going to go skiing at 8. Our desire to go climbing first made them a little slower getting out the door, sorry Corey. They went skiing up at Snowbasin. I stayed home with Abi and Natalie, cause they're both feeling a little sick. And we kept Peter and Katharine so everyone could have fun skiing without the little ones. I was glad Abi felt well enough to work a bit, so that was nice. They didn't take a lot of pictures skiing, but I got this one from Joseph of him (right) with cousin Seth in red, and Ethan in the middle.

Ethan having fun ~

Looks like it was a good day to ski! I've never been to Snowbasin. I'll have to check it out later. The college kids were happy to get a BeReal while skiing. It's with our Mountain Collective pass. So it was a good day - climbing, skiing, tree down, cleaned a bit. After they got home, they sat around adoring Katharine...

And we broke out the Wii. 

Most of the kids did that. Joseph still has school work - studying for the MCAT. Mel was workign on her computer too, Peter eating pizza - 

They give him a fake control so he thinks he's playing, and they cheer for him and tell him good job. 

Wes didn't play video games. He was too excited to start putting together his Metal Earth temple. Working on the spires above. I'm impressed how he can work with tiny things like this. 

We tried a little bit to be lazy, but there's a lot to do to recover from the holidays. Slightly wondering when is the part where we all settle down for a long winter's nap? I guess that's Katharine's job.

It's fun having almost all the kids home!! We are missing Hyrum but are so excited to almost be able to say we'll see him "this year" and he'll finally meet Katharine. Life is so good.