Christmas 2012 

Dear Family and Friends, Well it's time for another Hacking family Christmas update from the great city of Naperville. We started the year with a great night at Chicago's Trump Tower. Kathi's work held their holiday party in January at the Trump Tower. They offered a great room discount and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend a night at a 5-star hotel. A wonderful night to be pampered in a way we could never afford at full price. Chocolates, ridiculously expensive water, and nice, fluffy towels - we had a lot of fun. 

Erick's BBQ judging started with a trip to Springfield, MO. He likes to judge at the competition there so that we can visit Kathi's brother, Tom, and his family. On the way we took a detour and went through Kansas City to attend the Kansas City Temple Open House. It was a wonderful experience and the Temple is beautiful. While there we did try out a few different BBQ joints. One was average, but LC's was amazing. If you are ever in KC, stop at LC's, you won't be sorry. 

During the Election Primaries we made our television debut at the Mitt Romney Victory Rally the night he won in Illinois. We had no idea we were on TV until a friend texted Erick and told him to smile (and then he texted him again and told him to stop looking at his phone while he was on TV). It was our 20 seconds of fame. 

Over the course of six summers Erick has judged 54 competitions and cooked in one. Those competitions have been everywhere from Vermont to California, and Missouri to Minnesota. We have had a great time traveling and meeting new people, and eating some pretty great BBQ. In August we went to a competition in Door County, Washington Island, Wisconsin. We took our bikes and spent a few days riding around various areas in Door County. It's a wonderful and relaxing place. 

In July we finally made it to Galena, a quaint little community in Northwestern Illinois. We stayed at a nice little B&B and rode our bikes, shopped, took in a dinner cruise on the Mississippi river, and rode down the mountain on a sled. We ended our anniversary weekend with a wonderful dinner overlooking the Mississippi River. 

Our big vacation trip took us to Washington DC in September. Kathi's nephew got married and we were able spend a few days with family before taking in the wonderful sights. Some of the highlights included a tour of the White House, watching money being made, taking in a show at the Kennedy Center, learning the DC subway, seeing the monuments and Erick's tooth extraction. Our vacation ended with a trip through Gettysburg, with our own private driver tour guide; seeing how chocolate is made at Hershey World in PA; and then visiting friends in Carlisle before heading home. 

Our year ended with our little Chihuahua girl, Kaysye, passing away. It was very sudden, and it really blindsided us. She had a complete physical the first part of November, and ten days later a heart murmur was detected. Within 24 hrs she had congestive heart failure and slipped quickly to heaven where she can now run, play, and bask in the warmth of the love we will always feel for her. She was our special little girl, and is truly missed. At this wonderful time of the year we wish all of you the best in life. May the Lord bless and keep you. May you remember His love and His sacrifice for you as you go through life. 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

All our love, Erick and Kathi

 

Erick and Kathi on the steps of the White House 

 

River Boat on the Mississippi River at Galena 

 

The Romney Rally, where we had our 20 seconds of fame on TV

 

Kathi getting ready to slide down the side of the mountain on the Alpine Slide near Galena

 

Erick & Kathi at the Lincoln Memorial 

 

Bike Riding on Washington Island 

 

Erick at George Washington University 

 

Kathi wading in Lake Michigan on Washington Island

 

Kaysye poking her nose out of her blankets. She loved to hide. 

 

Kaysye chillin' in her bed. She loved to relax. 

 

Kaysye begging to be picked up. 

I think a little boy wanted to pet her. 

She was very nervous around children. 

 

Kaysye relaxing in the sun. She loved to bask in the sun.

Christmas 2009

December 2009

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to our Family & Friends,

Here we are at the end of another year. I’ve come to the conclusion that the older you get, the shorter the years become. Why is that anyway? We had our first snow fall of the season today so I decided it was time to sit down and write the our family Christmas letter since Christmas is only a few weeks away (it only took us four weeks to get this sent out). I was thinking of some of the things that we did this year and came up with a few of the highlights.

Our travels started in April with a trip to Virginia for the wedding of Kathi’s nephew, Jeff, to his wonderful wife, DeAnna. Despite the rain and chilly wind, it was a great trip to be with Kathi’s family in the Washington, DC Temple.

Erick’s BBQ season started in April this year and went through October. His first judging opportunity took place in Springfield, MO. We drove down and visited with Kathi’s brother and his family. While at the event, the skies decided to open up and it rained & rained & rained. We were fortunate to step under a tent of one of the competitor teams, who shared with us some of their yummy BBQ, so I guess it was worth it. BBQ pit masters are typically very anxious & willing to share their creations. Throughout the summer we traveled to many different competitions, and Erick ate lots of great BBQ. One of the goals of a Certified BBQ Judge is becoming a Master Judge. This is accomplished by judging 30 competitions, cooking with a team, and then taking a test. Erick completed his 30^th competition in October when we were in Kansas City at the American Royal, a very big event with about 500 teams. The following week he cooked brisket with Joey Mack’s Smoke Stack, in Arthur IL. It rained & was extremely cold, but overall, Erick had a wonderful experience. He learned a lot and concluded that he was grateful to just be a judge. He is currently in the process of completing his test, and we have no doubt that he will pass with flying colors, he just needs to put it in the mail.

In May, we took Kathi’s mom, her friend Scarlett and Erick’s mom & step-dad on an action-packed trip to Alaska where we began an 11-day land tour and cruise vacation. Alaska is a very beautiful state and fortunately we had very nice weather most of the days. Unfortunately it was chilly and very foggy the day we were in Denali and therefore we did not get to see Mt. McKinley, due to the cloud cover. A few of our highlights are below:

• Glass-domed train ride from Fairbanks to Denali – saw the beautiful landscape and a few animals
• Denali National Forest – traveled deep into the forest and saw lots of caribou, a few bears, some moose and even a wolf, the trip lasted about 8 hrs, very long but very worth it. The next morning Erick & Kathi went White Water Rafting down the Nanana River. That water is a constant 38 degrees (are we crazy or what?)
• Zip Line in Icy Strait – zipped down a mountain over a mile with a 1300 ft drop, going about 60 miles per hour (this was one of Kathi’s favorite things) – it was such an AWESOME experience that Erick did it twice. We need to go do it again now that Erick has learned how to operate the video camera.
• Hubbard Glacier – the ship went within about a mile of the glacier; the blue colors of the ice were amazing, and we even saw a few glaciers calve into the water – SPECTACULAR. We also celebrated Kathi’s birthday while cruising Glacier Bay with a special dinner.
• In Skagway we took a train ride down the Yukon pass from Canada. We also panned for gold in an old mining camp.
• We did lots of shopping and wandering the towns

Overall, we had a fabulously wonderful time and would recommend Alaska to everyone.

We traveled to Utah over the Fourth of July and were able to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house, Erick’s 30 year High School reunion, and see the Jonas Brothers at the Stadium of Fire. Although we really aren’t big fans of the Jonas Brothers, we were only about 10 feet from them and had a great time with Erick’s nieces who are BIG fans. It was quite the experience to be up close and in the moment.

On Thanksgiving morning, Kathi ran in the 5k Turkey Trot race again. She did a great job, considering it was cold & windy. Erick smoked a fabulous turkey in the Big Green Egg. We then went over to some friends and enjoyed the rest of the day. We are grateful for our friends here in Naperville.

For Christmas we took an unexpected trip to Utah. It was great to be around family. It was a long drive out, but worth it to see family.

May you be filled the Spirit of our Savior during this Christmas season. We love all of you and hope that you had a very Merry Christmas.

Love Erick & Kathi Hacking and Kaysye

ehacking@sbcglobal.net

khacking@sbcglobal.net

I'm terrible at this

Yukon Pass
Icy Strait Point Zip Line - over 1 mile to the bottom. I did it twice. Yahooooooo!

Hubbard Glacier

Okay, so I'm just terrible at posting to my blog. Here's a picture of Kathi and I in Alaska. We have a blast on our two week vacation. I did not want to come back. Here's what we did:

Fairbanks

Denali National Forest

Talkeetna

Anchorage

Seward to board the ship

Day 1 - Boarded Radiance of the Seas

Day 2 - at sea - Hubbard Glacier

Day 3 - Juneau

Day 4 - Skagway

Day 5 - Hoonah - Icy Strait Point

Day 6 - Ketchikan

Day 7 - at sea - Inside Passage

Day 8 - disembarked in Vancouver

Okay, Kathi and I started with a Personal Trainer at LA Fitness today. It is time for me to get my act together and loose this weight and get healthy. It was early this morning at 5:00 when Bill (my trainer) started working with me, but I think this is going to be awesome.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Family & Friends

2008 started off with a bang, or at least a big snow storm. Several inches of beautiful snow fell on New Year’s Eve. We spent the evening at our friends, playing the Wii; I don’t remember when we laughed so much. If you want to see videos, let us know. When we returned to work, Erick decided to take a slip on the wet floor (inside the office building) and he ruptured his hamstring – ouch!! Fortunately, he was able to work from home for the next 3 weeks while he recovered. We had some really crazy weather during the month. I believe that January was also one of the coldest months that Chicago has had in a very long time. There were several days with close to zero or negative degrees, then it warmed up to close to 40, then it was back down to almost zero again, this month was just one big roller coaster in the weather department. The end of January continued to bring us about 10-12 inches of newly fallen snow. Kaysye never has really liked the cold or the wet, and you can bet that she really didn’t like to go outside when it was close to zero, but she was a good sport.

February also came in with a bang! On the first we woke up to about a foot of snow. Thank goodness for our handy-dandy snow blower, it has gotten a lot of use this year already. The exciting thing that happened was that we had several big snow storms and really cold weather. Several times it got down to zero – and why did we move to Chicago? I think Chicago broke several snow records this year.

March came in a little quieter than the first few months of the year. I think we had a day around 40 degrees, then it got cold again. Erick was in charge of the Elder’s Quorum Chili Cook-off this year. We had our biggest turn out ever, over 100 people. It’s pretty amazing because just a few years ago when they started having this annual event, we only had about 20 people show up. Oh, and Erick won again, for the last time (see July).

April began to see the beginnings of Spring. Erick participated in his first BBQ judging competition of the season. It was held down in the St Louis, MO area. It was a bit cold, but the 'Que was wonderful.

May is quickly upon us. Kathi went out to Women’s Conference at BYU again this year. She attended with her mother and mother-in-law and had a great time. Erick ran in his first (and only) 5k with Kathi in downtown Chicago. At the end of the month we took a road trip up to the Mall of America in Minnesota. Erick had another BBQ competition that he judged, and Kathi was able to shop at the Mall of America (biggest mall in America) on her birthday. Isn’t that every woman’s dream?

In June Erick purchased a Big Green Egg (see http://www.biggreenegg.com/). He also judged a few more BBQ competitions. He was released as Ward Clerk and was called as a Family History Consultant. Look out family, here he comes for your information. We also traveled to New York for a seminar that Kathi participated in. Erick went along for fun. We saw a lot of Manhattan, and even got to spend time with Cynthia Ballentyne (one of Mom Hacking's Exchange Students). This is a pictures of us in Central Park.

July brought Girls Camp for Kathi. Our Girl’s Camp is held up at Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. They have cabins, showers, mess hall, lodge & of course the lake. The weather was pretty nice, which helped. She completed a 5 mile hike with the girls and was glad when it was over. Erick was ordained a High Priest, so no more winning the Elders Quorum Chili Cook-off.

August brought visitors from Vernal, Utah. Two of Erick’s cousins, Debbie & Jeanne, came and visited us for a week (we always have room for visitors J). We spent a few days in Nauvoo for the Pageant and then headed to Chicago to see the sights. Later in the month we took a trip to St. Louis to visit family and Erick judged another BBQ competition. Are you catching the theme of our summer? Barbecue!

In September, Erick tried his hand at smoking a pork shoulder on his Big Green Egg. Erick got up early (2 am) to get things going. After 10 hours of smoking, the pork was ready to come out and boy was it delicious. Kathi took a colored pencil drawing class at the local college. Kathi was release from the Young Women organization, after over 4 years. She is back in the Primary, playing the piano and was also called as a Family History Consultant and now works alongside Erick.

October took us to Kansas City, MO for the American Royal, which is the Grand-daddy of them all when it comes to BBQ competitions, with about 500 teams. Erick judged & Kathi was able to volunteer at the turn in & clean up tables. All in all, Erick judged 13 BBQ competitions this year. Next year he should be able to make Master Judge. He can not wait. Now that BBQ season is over, we are able to get back to doing a few things around the house. We planted a garden this summer, and had a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers, Habanera peppers, and yellow peppers. Our zucchini didn’t fare too well this year, but next year will be better. Erick was able to bottle about 45 pints of Grandma Hacking’s Tomato Soup, which he is very excited about.

November took us to California to spend Thanksgiving with Kathi’s mom. At first we dreaded the 4 hour flight (plus airport time) with Kaysye in her carrier, but she did quite well. She might even become a frequent flyer. We fully enjoyed the warm weather in California. Kathi also bit the bullet and decided to cut her long hair. It is now above her shoulders and she is still trying to get used to it.

December came in with a bang. The 1st brought us about 4” of beautiful white snow (sounds a lot like January!!) and it’s been cold ever since. In fact, we've seen snow, ice, freezing rain, below-freezing temps, and more snow (Erick shoveled 13" off the deck on Christmas Eve). Looks like a white Christmas for us. This is a picture of the smoked turkey in Erick's Big Green Egg for Christmas Dinner

May you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season
Love Erick, Kathi & Kaysye