Our Hardy Herald Contribution 2010

     We aren't going to make it to the Hardy family reunion this summer since we are having a baby.  But we still wrote a contribution to the Hardy family newsletter, the Hardy Herald.  I thought I'd go ahead and post it to our blog as well, although it is much more abbreviated and repeats some of the things I've already talked about.

THE DAREN HARDY FAMILY:

What is a family reunion?
Natalee Hardy- 8 years old: A family reunion is when someone dies and you take and go to the reunion. Wait, no! A family reunion is when you hang out with your family for a day or more.
Haylee Hardy- 7 years old: It's when you go to a party to remember who died.
Mackenzie Hardy- 5 years old: I think they're to celebrate your families. (What do you do at a family reunion?) Have fun. They teach you good stuff.
For some reason, our kids seem to get funerals and reunions confused. Whenever Daren or I go to a funeral, they keep saying that we went to a reunion. Just an explanation of Natalee's and Haylee's answers. :)
The Daren Hardy family has been keeping busy just going about life as usual. Our biggest news is that we should have a new addition to the family sometime around the reunion. Our fifth child and our first boy is due July 21, 2010! We are very excited, but unfortunately this means we will not be attending this year's reunion.
News since the last reunion:

In March 2009, our family became goat people. Daren had been wanting goats for a long time, and he finally succeeded in talking Lisa into letting him get a few. We bought 3 miniature goats-Nigerian Dwarfs. Daren's long-term goal was to milk the goats, so we bought 2 females and one male. Then a month or two later, Daren bought a full-grown, pregnant female. Our first experience with goat birthing did not go well. The goat, Luna, was due June 21, but did not go into labor until almost a week after her due date. Daren tried to stay up with her but it was taking a long time so he left a monitor out with her and went to bed. We went out to check on her an hour later and the baby was born but was already dead. It was hard to have such a negative experience for our first goat birth. And we were so obsessed over when this goat was going to have her baby that we both forgot our anniversary on June 24! We probably wouldn't have remembered all day except Lisa's brother called to wish us a happy anniversary.

Well, things got better with the goats. We ended up breeding all 3 females in the fall, and this spring we had lots of baby goats at our house. The two first-time mothers each had one baby girl, and Luna had 4 boys! It was so much fun to watch the girls play with their babies. It almost makes me want to let them breed the goats again, but we have decided to retire from the goat farming business. It turns out that it is difficult to hold a full-time job and breed goats at the same time. Luna's babies were born on a day that Daren had lots of important meetings and it was a very difficult labor. There were so many babies and they were turned the wrong way. Thankfully our neighbor came over and delivered them for us. Daren realized that he really couldn't be there for the goats. Also Lisa is not a big fan of milking. It's very hard to go any distance from home when you have to milk morning and night every day. And it's a lot harder to find people to take care of your pets when one of the jobs is milking! So it was a great learning experience. We still have 4 pet goats that are incredibly affectionate and the girls love them dearly. But our goat-breeding days are over.

We had a very fun family vacation in March of this year. We took advantage of Disney's Give a Day, Get a Day program and we gave a day of service for free tickets to Disneyland. Mackenzie and Kelsey were the only ones too young to participate, but Kelsey was only 2 years old anyway so she gets in to Disneyland free. For our service project, we went to Bakersfield, CA to make blankets for Project Linus. We made our first ever no-tie fleece blankets. It was great and Natalee and Haylee really worked hard. Daren and I cut the blankets, then Natalee and Haylee tied them.

Because we live in Southern CA, we were able to upgrade our tickets to 2 day park hoppers for only $20 more. So we spent one day at each park. We went right in the middle of the week so the lines were fairly short and we were able to go on so many rides. We hadn't been to Disneyland for 5 years and the girls really didn't remember the last trip. It was so much fun to watch them have such a good time.

Here's what's going on with each member of our family-
Natalee Hardy:

Natalee turned 8 years old in August 2009. On September 5, Natalee got baptized. She's our oldest daughter so this was a first for us. It was such a sweet experience. Now she attends activity days and is working towards her Faith in God award. Natalee started taking gymnastics in August 2009. She enjoyed it but her real dream is to take riding lessons. This summer she is doing a riding camp for a week and she is in complete heaven. Hopefully someday we'll be able to make her dream of owning her own horse come true. Natalee also played basketball for the city league from January to March of this year.

Natalee did really well in 3rd grade this year. She was on the student council, she participated in Battle of the Books, and she worked in the library as a library helper. Our school participates in the accelerated reading program and Natalee met her accelerated reading goals all 3 trimesters, which earned her a trophy. She also won a writing contest at the end of the year and got a $20 Wal-mart gift card for a prize.
Haylee Hardy:

Haylee turned 7 in March. She was in 1st grade this year and was also a fantastic student. She earned her first reading trophy as well. After the reading awards assembly, the librarian told me that Haylee had earned more accelerated reading points than any other first grader. So she did a lot of reading this year!

Haylee also did gymanstics with Natalee from August 2009 to April 2010. I think she loved it the most. She got very good at cartwheels. She played basketball in the city league and really started to take off at the end of the season. She made her first basket in the second to last game and then made two more baskets in the last game. She decided that she wanted to do basketball camp for her summer camp.

Haylee has gotten really into cooking recently. She decided that she wanted cooking stuff for her birthday and has really enjoyed using her own tools in the kitchen. She likes to make us muffins for breakfast. We also like it when she makes us muffins for breakfast.
Mackenzie Hardy:

Mackenzie turned 5 in March. She is going to be starting kindergarten this fall. She also really enjoyed gymnastics class and decided that she would like to take an extra morning gymnastics class instead of doing preschool. Her favorite part of gymnastics was climbing the rope and ringing the bell at the top. Mackenzie is excited because she will finally be old enough to participate in city league basketball this winter. I'm not sure if she's more excited about playing basketball or the snacks that the players get after the games. But she also decided to do basketball camp this summer to get ready for the city league.
Kelsey Hardy:

Kelsey has changed the most since the last reunion. She's now a big 2 year old instead of a 4 month old baby. She LOVES to sing, and it is so fun to listen to her. I really enjoy it when she sings the songs she learns in nursery. She's just at that fun age where she is learning new things all the time. It is very fun to see the thrill her big sisters get when she does or says something new. They love to help her do things, sometimes more than Kelsey wants the help. Unfortunately they also fight about who gets to sit next to her for EVERYTHING! (every meal, prayers, car, etc.) It will be interesting to see how Kelsey takes to being a big sister herself. She loves baby dolls and always seems to be carrying one around. So hopefully she will love having a real baby to help take care of.
Daren Hardy:

Daren is still working as a school psychologist. We've been in Ridgecrest, CA for 4 years now and really like the small town, the conservative atmosphere, and the excellent schools. Daren has been serving on the high council for a little over 3 years. He is over seminary/institute and relief society. He just finished seminary graduation which is probably his biggest assignment each year. It also gives him opportunities not just to speak in the wards in our stake, but also to speak at the local nursing home every once in a while. When he speaks at the nursing home, he likes to bring the older girls with him and they help the elderly people find the right pages in the song book when singing hymns. Natalee and Haylee really enjoy going with him to do that.

Daren has really enjoyed being a goat man-and no, we have never seen the movie "Men Who Stare at Goats" although we probably would if it weren't rated R! He made goat cheese several times before Lisa cruelly forced him to stop milking before the baby is born. Sometimes it turned out pretty good. He made mozzarella, cheddar, and chevre. We actually had pizza with goat mozzarella cheese for dinner one night and it was quite tasty.

Daren also spent some time this past year volunteering at the local animal shelter. The problem with that was that every time he came home from volunteering, he would tell me about this great dog or super sweet cat that was there. It also eventually became too hard to keep up with all his goat things so he decided to stop for now.

A fun thing Daren got to do this morning (it's June 8, 2010) was help the missionaries teach a discussion in Chinese. He hasn't had very many opportunities to use Chinese since his mission, and he's been home for almost 18 years. He said it was a little stressful but a lot of fun. And they invited the investigator to be baptized and he accepted!
Lisa Hardy:

Lisa is busy, busy, busy staying at home with 4 little girls. She also works as primary president at church and helps with the PTO at the girls' school. In her free time, she complains about having goats, teaches Natalee and Haylee and a couple of their friends piano lessons, and has recently started blogging.
Well, that's the news from the Daren Hardy family. We are sad to miss this year's reunion but plan to be at the next one for sure! We hope this finds everyone well and we can't wait to hear everyone's news.
 
The following pictures are the ones I sent to Aunt Louise for the newsletter:

Our family at Disneyland

The four girls at the zoo

The four girls at the temple

Natalee at riding camp

Haylee at a basketball game

Mackenzie climbing the rope at gymnastics

Kelsey holding a baby goat

Best April Fools Ev...Well, in a Very Long Time

     The girls started talking about April Fools pranks tonight at dinner, which reminded me of the April Fools prank we tried to pull this year.  So I thought tonight would be a good night for a catch-up blog.

End of March 2010:
     We were talking about April Fools coming up, and Daren got this idea that we should do something to our very good friends, the Cannons.  We started tossing ideas around, and finally came up with a really good one.  Brent was on travel so this was really going to just be on Ronelle.  We decided that we were going to try to make Ronelle think that she had eaten goat meat.  Now, how were we going to pull it off.  I started by posting in my facebook status that "goats stink!"  I believe my status was, "Goats stink!  And by the way, if you play with them, you will smell like them."  Something along those lines.  Ronelle made a comment that night so I knew she'd taken the bait.

April 1, 2010:
     April 1 happened to be on a Thursday, which is the day I teach the girls piano lessons.  So I decided that I was going to make stew for dinner and have it simmering on the stove during lessons.  When Ronelle picked up the kids, I would tell her I have a huge amount of stew and send some home with her for dinner.  I thought about having her taste a bowl full at the house and maybe make some remark, but I just knew I couldn't do it with a straight face.  Unfortunately, as Daren and I chatted after lessons while the kids ran around, somehow (DAREN!!!!) the conversation turned towards April Fools jokes.  I was convinced that now she would never fall for it, but we still had to try.
      I enlisted the help of our other good friend, Dawn Farrell.  Dawn posted something about my stew on her facebook status.  Something like, "A friend gave me some goat meat stew tonight.  I was too scared to try it but Chris loved it."  So then I commented, "You chicken!  I gave some to Ronelle too but didn't tell her it was goat meat.  I'll ask her tomorrow if she could tell the difference."  The original plan was to make her think we had butchered one of our own goats and used the meat to make the stew.  So Dawn commented back, "Oh my gosh, do you think she'll be upset that she ate Casper?"  Well, that was the basic facebook conversation.  (I looked for the exact one but apparently Dawn deleted it.  She was getting a lot of posts from her friends that were horrified to hear about the people who butchered their pet goat and ate it.)

April 2, 2010:
     I knew that Ronelle had been on facebook the night before because I saw that she commented on something someone else had posted.  But she didn't make a single comment about Dawn's post.  Later that evening, the Cannon's showed up at our house with a special gift- a tombstone that said RIP Casper.  They also left us a lovely message on our car.  Ronelle told us that she had read the post and believed it for about 2 seconds.  Especially because Brent had commented at dinner that the meat seemed extra tender and they should ask what we do to get it so tender.  She said she screamed but then read the next part and knew we were lying because she knew we would never butcher Casper.  So we had taken it just a tad too far.  But it was a lot of fun planning it and carrying it all out.  The Cannons then offered to take our kids home with them so we could have a date night.  We were very excited for a night to ourselves so off the kids went to spend the night with the Cannons.
      Daren went out to feed the goats before we headed off to dinner.  Unfortunately, that was when he noticed that Andromeda (one of our goats) was in labor.  Dinner got put off for a few hours while Daren delivered a baby goat (but that's part two of the Year of the Goats and I'll have to finish that story another time.)  We were so hungry after that baby was finally born, we took off in Daren's RAV4, completely forgetting the message that was on it: I fed my friend my goat.  Yummy.  OOPS!

End of the School Year 2010

     Natalee and Haylee had a wonderful school year.  Haylee's first grade teacher was Mr. McDiarmid.  He did so many fun things with the kids and he is musically talented so he taught them lots of songs throughout the year.  Haylee really excelled in her reading this year and was so excited to earn her first AR (accellerated reading) trophy for meeting her AR goals all 3 trimesters.  After the AR assembly, the librarian told me that she was so impressed with how many AR points Haylee had and that she had more than any other first grader.  I knew Haylee did a lot of reading at school but I had no idea she had done that much!

     Natalee also had a great teacher, Mrs. Worley, for 3rd grade.  Mrs. Worley really helped Natalee set some goals and meet them.  She really excelled throughout the year.  She also earned a trophy for meeting her AR goals all 3 trimesters.  Natalee also participated in Battle of the Books this year.  For 3rd graders, there is a list of 15 books for them to read and they have to have read at least 12 on the list to go to the Battle of the Books competition.  Natalee read 12 books and had so much fun at the competition at Richmond School.  She was also a member of the student council this year.  She was one of 2 student representatives in her class.  She really seemed to enjoy planning school spirit days and school fundraisers like the canned food drive and "Pennies for Haiti."  She says she definitely wants to do student council again.
     Both girls got excellent report cards.  At their grade levels, they receive scores of 1, 2, or 3 (3 being the highest) instead of A, B, C, etc.  Both girls had almost all 3's with maybe only 2 2's for everything.  They also both participated in a writing contest sponsored by the Inyokern Chamber of Commerce.  Either way, they both did a great job and I love their stories.  Natalee even won for her class and got a $20 gift card to Wal-Mart for her prize.
     Congratulations Natalee and Haylee!  We are so proud of you both!

Natalee's story:

     My Favorite Day.  In the morning, my mom told my sisters and I to clean our rooms.  We did so she said we could have a sirprise.  In the late afternoon, She said we could get kittens.  We were looking at the pound website when we saw our cat Rosey.  So insted of getting kittens we whent to the pond to get Rosey.  Who had been there for a hole week.  At the end of the day, we got our waterslide out.  It was fun when we played on it.  Surely that was my favorite Day.

Haylee's story, which also includes a cute picture of Daren and the 3 older girls riding the goats:

     My Favorite Thing is goats because they let me ride them all the time at home.  They like me so much.  Casper oy(?)  I love them so much too.  I wish I had my own Baby goat.

Haylee with her many, many reading awards!

Natalee with her reading trophy and certificate

Natalee got a medal and a certificate for being on the student council.

Natalee's writing contest award and gift card-she's saving for a Nintendo DS so very excited to have more money to put towards it!

And last of all, Battle of the Books participation certificate

     Now it was time for class parties!  Natalee's class had a finger foods party in their classroom but Haylee's class of first graders was heading to the Inyokern Park for a water party.  I decided to donate food to Natalee's party but to attend Haylee's party since they needed extra parental supervision.  Aside from forgetting the sunscreen and getting a little burnt, we had a wonderful time!

They played musical chairs with soaking sponges on a couple of the chairs.  At first they tried to avoid the chairs with sponges, but by the end of the party, they were all trying to get a chair with a sponge.

Next station: Slip 'n slide!

Haylee with Samantha Rodriguez and Erynne Rey in the "baby pool."  :)  She thought it was going to be a real pool but was very disappointed when she found out they were small pools and told me there was no way she was getting in the baby pool at the party.  She was pleasantly surprised when she saw that they weren't the tiny plastic baby pools she had been imagining.

For lunch, barbecued hot dogs and chips.  Cookies, cupcakes (to celebrate Bryce Hill's recent birthday) and rootbeer floats.  Yeah, a little bit of sugar.

A sponge relay race after lunch.  Our team won!!

What a wonderful year!  Here's Mackenzie at the awards assembly, but next year she'll be sitting with the kids as a big kindergartner!

Piano Recital and Memorial Day Fun

     Yesterday, May 31, 2010, was Memorial Day.  We decided to pair an end of the year piano recital with a Memorial Day BBQ.  Since last July, I have been teaching piano lessons to Natalee and Haylee along with their friends Katie and Grace Cannon.  We did a little recital here at our house and each of the girls played 3 songs.  Natalee played Popcorn Popping, I Need My Heavenly Father, and The Juggler.  Haylee played Firefly, Sailing in the Sun, and Happy, Happy Birthday.  All four girls did great!  My parents and Grandma Poetschlag were there, the Cannons, Ronelle's brother Thomas, and us.

Grace Cannon

Haylee Hardy

Katie Cannon

Natalee Hardy

Haylee giving a curtsy after one of her songs

A final curtsy from the girls

Me and my students

     After the recital, we started our Memorial Day festivities.  We started to set up the water slide and Dawn Farrell and her two kids, Ryan and Nathaniel, joined us.  Her husband Chris came later after he got off work.  The kids all had a blast going down the slide.  We brought out some sodas and started the BBQ.  We had hot dogs, hamburgers, deviled eggs, macaroni salad, chips, corn on the cob, and some of Dawn's famous peanut butter pie.  This morning, Haylee said to me, "Did you know that Mrs. Farrell's pie is FAMOUS?"  She was quite in awe that we have a friend with a famous pie. :)

Kelsey and Grace (Kelsey is too scared to go down the slide alone)

I think Nathaniel loved the slide the best

Haylee

Ryan Farrell

Katie Cannon

Kelsey didn't get to go down the slide much so she played on her castle

Haylee and Grace had a great time going down together

Joey Cannon drinking his soda

I think this might be Kelsey's first soda.  She made horrible faces after each sip, but she kept going back for more!

Mackenzie holding her hot dog 'creatively' so the wind wouldn't blow it away while she ate her cheetos

     After putting down the water slide, it was time for some Rockband!  Dawn brought her Rockband game for some evening fun.  It was fun to watch the kids rock out.  Natalee was shaking her hips to the beat while she played guitar.  Before we started, Kelsey had some fun playing on the drums.  It was very hard to keep her away from them the rest of the night while we played.  We even got my mom and dad to take a turn on the guitar.

     It was wonderful to spend Memorial Day with our family and friends.  Thanks to all the soldiers who have fought and sacrificed for our freedoms and to the many who continue to do so!

Temple, Beach and Barf

Natalee, Haylee, Mackenzie and Kelsey in front of the Los Angeles Temple

      Yesterday (May 29, 2010) was Stake Temple Day.  About a year and a half ago, we started spending the night at the temple apartments to be able to attend the temple with the girls.  We get there in the evening, and one of us usually does an evening session and the other does a morning session.  Then we take the kids to do something fun.  Unfortunately, we were about 15 minutes too late for the last session.  It used to be at 8:30pm and we didn't realize that they had changed it to 8:00.  So Daren kindly got up and did the 5:30am session in the morning and I did the 8:30am session.  We slept (mostly) while Daren was in the temple.  While I was in the temple, Daren and the girls walked around the temple grounds and took LOTS of pictures.

Natalee and Haylee started fighting so Daren snapped a picture-they stopped immediately, horrified that he took a picture of them fighting at the temple!

   

      Natalee then got a turn with the camera.  She loved taking pictures of the beautiful temple grounds.  And I must say that she did a great job!  These are Natalee's temple pictures:

     We decided to go to the beach for our after-temple fun for this trip.  We went to the Santa Monica Beach, nice and close to the temple.  We hadn't been since last summer and it was such a difference.  Mackenzie was a brave one this time.  Last year she wouldn't even let the water touch her feet if she wasn't holding hands with either Daren or me.  Kelsey didn't like to get her feet wet but I think that's because the water was FREEZING!  It didn't stop Natalee, Haylee, and Mackenzie though.  They had a lot of fun playing in the water, while Kelsey stuck to digging in the sand.

     Daren made Haylee into a mermaid, but she was the only one that got to do that this time.  Just as Natalee was asking Daren to dig her into the sand, Kelsey started throwing up.  Luckily, it isn't that big of a deal to throw up into the beach dirt.  We immediately packed up and headed home for a very LONG drive.  Kelsey threw up several times on the way home.  I sat next to her so I could help her and keep it contained.  We just felt very blessed that we were able to get to the temple before Kelsey got sick.  Since my due date is July 21, we aren't planning on traveling again until after the baby is born.  We're much more careful about that ever since Kelsey was born almost a month early.

    We did get some cute pictures at the beach before the barfing began. :)

Hard to tell that she's about to get very sick, isn't it?

Getting cleaned up-she had to borrow my sunglasses since we'd already taken down the shade.

Sound asleep most of the drive home.

     Daren would be 'bummed' (hahaha) if I didn't mention the part about the hobo.  A beach hobo walked past us and I was feeling sorry for him.  We had brought so much food, a lot of it individually packaged.  He stopped not far down the beach from us.  I told Daren that we should give some food to him, but he was nervous about having me go up to a beach hobo so he said he would do it.  He walked over to the guy just as the waves started splashing all over his sleeping bag.  He pulled his sleeping bag a few feet higher up the shore and offered the man some food.  He said, "No thanks," so Daren walked back with the food.  He wasn't sure if the guy was annoyed that he'd touched his sleeping back because then the guy kept walking down the beach and left the sleeping bag behind.  Anyway, to make a long story short, I sort of put Daren in an uncomfortable situation and the guy didn't even want the food.  So he teased me about it when he came back but I don't think he really cared.  And it's always better to have offered and been denied than to wish you had offered.  If only Daren hadn't touched the sleeping bag! :)