The Hansen Family: Our 2022 Adventures...

❅ JANUARY ❅

Our 2022 had a very sad beginning. On January 6th, my dad died from complications from covid.

I don't think I've ever cried that hard or that much. It was such a hard thing to go through.

I'm SO thankful to have the knowledge that his time on earth is over but his spirit lives on and he's really not so very far away. We traveled to Idaho Falls for the funeral and enjoyed being able to see so many loved ones as we all shared in the grief of losing this great man. He lived a great life and has left an incredible legacy. He will be missed and we love him so much.

My sister-in-law April made this wonderful memento for us - it has a piece of my dad's shirt with "I Love You" in his own handwriting. What a treasure.

And to add a little more heartache to the start of our year - our nephew Skeeter had committed suicide at the beginning of the year. So sad. His funeral was held the day after my dad's. Wow, that was hard.

💜FEBRUARY💜

Our February began with a little trip on a ferry out to Bremerton where we toured an old warship.

Jacie and I attempted to make homemade nerd ropes - so messy but we got it to work!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

The twins are learning how to play the viola this year - they're pretty good!

Our ward had a family history activity and I learned that Matt is actually my cousin - haha!

No wonder our kids are so weird....😏

Jolly Rancher Suckers!

Carly is learning how to parallel park!

Our 3 teenagers enjoyed a temple trip to do baptisms for the dead with our friends the Jungs.

We found a fun "Bug & Reptile Museum" in Bremerton - found a feisty gator there - haha

Alissa and Carly got to spend a weekend at the beach with some friends - those are some lucky boys!

🍀 MARCH 🍀

Matt finally finished our "gym" - he'd built this shed from scratch with scraps from work! We opted to turn it into a workout spot so he has added some exercise equipment, a TV, a sound system, LED lighting and soft floor mats - it's a pretty great workout space!

The youth in the ward had a fun pinewood derby car race for an activity. These 4 made some pretty creative cars and they won prizes too!

One morning, I walked by Alissa's closed door and heard her and Carly talking and giggling in the room. I thought, oh, how nice that they're spending time together. About an hour later - Alissa walks downstairs with much shorter hair! Carly had cut her hair!! She did a fabulous job of it, too!

This little guy is head over heels in love with HEDGEHOGS! Here's his current collection...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

One of our neighbors started letting his chickens out - highlight of Reid's daily walks with Alissa! (She's his nanny)

We got a new basketball hoop! I taught everyone the fun game of "Lightning"

Look at this pretty hairdo I invented for Jacie one Sunday morning...

My brother Bryce created one of these beauties for all his siblings - I love it!

My mom's health hasn't been good for the past year or two - she has been put on hospice care and needs someone with her 24/7 to help. I have the majority of my siblings living close to her and they spent a few months taking turns in shifts to be with her. A few of us that live out of town were able to come spend time with our mom - I was reading a book to her in this picture. Good memories.

🐇APRIL🐇

6 of the 9 daughters were visiting our mom one day!

My brother Bryce and his wife Kim help a TON around my mom's house - they were burning weeds and Mom wanted to go out and watch - we snapped a cute picture of us all.

My sisters Teresa and TeraLyn joined me over the weekend to take turns helping our mom and stayed at her house. We had a great time. We worked on my mom's personal history and laughed together and enjoyed yummy food Bryce & Kim made for us and loved listening to General Conference.

It was my first time flying by myself and I was a brave little soldier. I flew home in a smallish plane and was happy to be with my family again. Matt's sister Sandy and her family came to visit for a week!

We took them on a ferry ride and got some cool pictures of Seattle with stormy skies above it.

We had fun searching for little crabs at Ruston Way

...and made sure we took them to the Bug & Reptile Museum!

We also found this cool little bike that has been eaten by a tree on Vashon Island!

...and visited the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium - Sandy's last name is Seals now so they made sure to get a family picture by the seals!

One of our ferry rides was pretty windy - haha!

Their trip ended the day before Easter so we had fun dying eggs.

Alissa got her 4 wisdom teeth removed - chubby cheeks. She was pretty funny on the heavy pain meds.

Cameron's 13th Birthday landed right on Easter this year so he opted for an Easter themed cake!

We've been seeing more bears digging into our garbage lately.

💮 MAY 💮

May brought PROM! Alissa had fun at her Senior Prom with a big group of her good friends. It was at the MoPop Museum in Seattle near the Space Needle. Then our stake held another type of Prom for all kids 16 and older - they danced the night away on a boat that left from a Seattle dock - a big group of their friends got together for dinner then rented a big party bus to take them to the boat.

Our twins turned 11! Super cool cakes again - if I do say so myself!

It's almost Alissa's Graduation time!

Jacie took 2 friends to Old McDebbie's Farm for her birthday - the camel was a fun experience for them! They all went fishing and had a great time together.

Alissa's Mission Call Came!

She's going to serve in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Mission!

💖 JUNE 💖

The beginning of June brings my birthday! I like to go hiking or camping for my birthday. This year we opted for camping. We went to Ensign Ranch and tried out a family cabin - pretty nice! We had fun on the lake, at the river, fishing, and having fun together.

I'll just put this right here...

ALISSA GRADUATED!

Matt's parents came to town for Alissa's graduation and did a quick service project for Grandma Sandy - chopped up a big old tree that was in her yard.

Alissa has a great group of friends ready to take on the world.

We had a fun graduation party.

Alissa's Grandma Hansen made her a beautiful quilt with matching curtains

and a fun Captain America apron

June was a big month for Alissa - she also graduated from Seminary

and went through the temple with 2 friends.

Carly painted a cool missionary picture for her end-of-year project in Seminary and we had a fun Minute to Win It ward activity

Matt needed to fix the lawn mower so Carly decided she wanted to learn about small engine repairs. And Carly has her Driver's License now!

Alissa and her two best friends have been planning a girls trip to Disneyland for a year - right after graduation they made it happen and had SO much fun!

We went to Idaho Falls for our Judy Reunion. The first night we were there - my mom was doing SO great! She even wanted to play corn hole with us and was so energetic and happy. We loved it. There was also a Kid's Store that our kids happily spent their money at and loaded up on goodies.

I love my mom!

💥 JULY 💥

This was our first Judy Reunion without our Dad and we don't know how much longer we'll have with our Mom so everyone made an extra effort to be there. We happily had all 14 kids attend!!

Enjoying some fireworks with Grandma Judy

This is a rare occurrence - we had all 14 kids plus spouses!

And here is our big family group this year - what a legacy!

These are some of the best things to ever happen to our Judy Family - all the spouses that have joined our family and made it even better than before. What a great group of people right here. I especially love that handsome devil on the far left in the gray shirt! ;)

Mom now has a great sitting area that is her Rose Garden.

We opted to stay a few extra days so we could enjoy the 4th of July festivities.

We stayed with Matt's Uncle Terry and were happy to get to spend time with his Grandma Turner too.

My Dad's headstone is now in place. It is beautiful.

I've always loved the big fireworks display that Melaleuca puts on in Idaho Falls and I'm so glad our kids were finally able to enjoy it. We found a great spot to watch them.

Back at home - Alissa and I loved to go to the temple together as often as possible

And Matt got a bow and arrow for the boys

This cute little guy is babysat by Alissa at our house - he cracks me up!

And our July ended with visitors! Matt's sister Kaeli and her family came for a nice long visit.

We loved getting to know their kids better - they are so fun.

Alissa is getting fancy with her acrylic nails kit

and she got to ride in a helicopter with her Dad and Carly

Carly, Cameron, Trevor and Jacie all got to ride in a small airplane too.

Another family picture

🌞 AUGUST 🌞

We decided to get a small pool. Our backyard is on a bit of a slope so we had to put in a lot of dirt and hard work to make a flat spot for it. By the time it was ready - summer was coming to a close so we opted to try out the pool next year!

And Alissa and some friends plus Matt all had a grand adventure when they went SKYDIVING!!

Trevor's stuffed animal collection - he has hit the 100 mark and counting!

This month, we had a special opportunity to hear from Elder Holland and other area authorities.

All the youth in the ward gathered at our house for a luncheon then

carpooled over to the church to hear the messages.

🍂 SEPTEMBER 🍁

Back to School! This year we opted to try out an online version of school for the kids. Cameron, Trevor and Jacie joined the Kent Virtual Academy that started this year. The district provided new laptops for them and they have 3 classes twice a week via video. Carly is doing Green River College online and is thinking of finishing her required credits and graduating early. It is really nice having all of them home with me while I work!

The kids haven't ever really seen a rodeo so we made sure they got to see one when it was at our fairgrounds this year. Those bareback bronc riders are crazy!!

Our new school setup. So far so good. The kids are finding that you can easily power through all the required school work and have plenty of extra time when you're not stuck in a school all day!

Alissa turned 19!!

Liss decided she wanted to go to Zion's Camp overnight as part of her birthday weekend. We had fun in a little cabin there and playing in the lake. We even tried out the tomahawk range this year - so fun!

Alissa and Carly are old enough to attend some business functions with us.

They were pretty thrilled to meet Mara Duncan.

Enjoying the fresh air, sunshine, and walking trails near us as summer draws to a close.

🎃 OCTOBER 🎃

Alissa's Mission started in October. She's so excited and will do great things.

I've been working all year to complete my Mom's Personal History. She has kept great records and pictures over the years and had a big portion of the history already written. I went through to proofread and add more details from her diaries and pictures to complete it up to where her life is now with help from some of my siblings. It turned out really great and shows what a great life my mom has had. I printed a copy for her and made a thumb drive with all the files to give my siblings.

Alissa was set apart as a missionary at the beginning of October and started her online MTC training for one week. She then gave her farewell talk at church and we invited friends over for a farewell party.

Then we rented a nice suburban and loaded up her 3 orange suitcases and headed to Utah to the Provo MTC so she can do some more training for 2 weeks then off to Pennsylvania for a year and a half. We visited as many grandparents and family along the way as we could! Matt's parents drove over from Wyoming and brought Alissa's great-grandma Turner to Taletha's house where we were staying.

As we dropped Alissa off at the MTC - she was smiling and ready for an adventure.

Matt and I were brave little soldiers and tried not to cry too much! Our first baby bird has spread her wings and flown out of our nest. We're growing up so fast!

As we started our journey home, we made sure to stop at Scheel's Sporting Goods and remake this great picture!

We spent some time with my mom and she was pretty happy about her Life History being put together. We had a great visit and lots of laughs with her. That's time I will always treasure with her. My brother Bryce and his wife Kim live next door and have moved in with their 2 teenage sons to care for my mom. They are doing a fantastic job and we are all so thankful for their loving care.

As soon as we got home, the kids were quick to rearrange their bedrooms so they could all have their very own rooms finally! Jacie decided sharing her room with my office was worth it! Alissa's stuff has been boxed up and stored under Carly's bed and our bed for now.

Before we knew it, the end of the month had arrived. We had some fun Halloween activities.

I made some fun Halloween themed meals and we enjoyed our new norm of video chats with Alissa every Monday morning. She loves the MTC and is learning a lot.

🦃 NOVEMBER 🦃

At the start of November - Alissa flew across the country to Philadelphia! She was able to tour the city a bit, saw the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, saw the beautiful Philadelphia Temple and tried her first authentic Philly Cheesesteak sandwich! She met her Mission President and his wife - the Hardings - and her new companion that will train her - Sister Boswell from Utah. Her first assigned area is in Burlington, New Jersey!

Jacie revealed she has some amazing skills at painting designs on her own nails and the kids invented what I like to call "redneck weight lifting" devices - a big old stick with string backpacks full of water bottles.

Trevor made a pet rock he named Rocky and created this amazing house for it!

Carly and I enjoyed a Super Saturday event at church - we learned how to make cake pops too!

Matt found some big pants that he and Cameron both fit in!

For Thanksgiving, we decided to go on another adventure. This time we tried out Ocean Shores. We had fun on the beach with some great sunset silhouette photo ops and stayed at a hotel that had a warm swimming pool and big breakfast. We had a makeshift feast in our hotel room and had lots of fun.

Alissa was able to call us on Thanksgiving! She's really enjoying her mission.

Carly was way behind on homework and Trevor got a stomachache the day after Thanksgiving so they stayed in the hotel room while the rest of us went out to explore the town - we found some fun souvenirs and a Sharky's souvenir shop too. We also found fun go cart tracks and an arcade. It was a fun and memorable Thanksgiving for sure.

🎅 DECEMBER 🎄

Beautiful picture of my mom at the temple and Carly is 17!

SNOW! ❄

Alissa's mission is going well.

We visited the Fantasy Lights at Spanaway Park this year - so cool!

Our tradition of decorating sugar cookies on Christmas Eve - yum. This year Matt made an a-MAZE-ing cookie and Carly made a hairy leg. Hmm.

Alissa's friend Jane got baptized!

A big wind storm came through and Brother Reeves in our ward asked for Matt's help to remove a giant tree that was falling down near his house. Matt borrowed a crane truck from work and gathered an army of chainsaw wielding helpers for a big service project and they made a day of it. They may or may not have had a branch fall on power lines and knock out power for hours that day...

The boys built these cool robots! Our little elf friend Jingle has retired and gets to stay with us as a toy. He has had a lot of adventures at our house over the last 8 years!