Uncle Spencer & Aunt Melody

This past weekend the Hitzeroth home was graced with the presence of the newlyweds, Spencer and Melody (aka, Aunt and Uncle Hitzeroth)! And these are authentic newlyweds, having just tied the knot on June 8th, 2007, and visiting us on their way home from their honeymoon! They arrived in Lakewood on Friday evening in time for a lasagna dinner. After food, the evening was spent watching Man Vs. Wild and letting aunt and unlce get to know their niece!

The next morning we all slept in and were then treated to Matt's delicious chocolate chip-pancakes. The rest of the morning was spent mostly relaxing and doing necessary chores until it was time for lunch, at which point we made the fifteen minute drive to the Steilacoom beach town and ate lunch at the local pub and deli!! Heather and Matt have been talking about this favorite spot of theirs from the moment I touched down in Seattle, so it was quite fantastic to finally be able to experience it myself. Awesome food, fantastic ambience, gorgeous view as you look from your table out onto the Pugent Sound. Too bad I didn't get a picture of the view, but anyways, here's Matt and Heather on Heather's first official outing since Georgie's birth! (Accordingly, it was Georgie's first official outing also, but she spent the whole time sleeping in her carseat behind a makeshift curtain.)


We dropped Heather and Georgie off at home after making a quick shopping trip at Trader Joes for the night's featured dinner, then Matt took Melody, Spencer and me on a "recon" trip in the Ft. Lewis base. Basically we went exploring in the vast wilderness-like training area of the base so that Matt could figure out where exactly he was taking his platoon the following week for their training trip.
On the way home from the base Matt decided to treat us all to a coffee from a local shop called Forza. He has decided that, during my time here, we should hop around to several of the gazillions of coffee shops around here and rate them according to our taste. The ambience of Forza was great, the location not so great, but Matt decided that his drink was better than Starbucks times 2. I had to honestly say that my drink was better than Starbucks DIVIDED by two, but after about 20 minutes of sipping at the drink, I realized that my original disappointment could probably be blamed on my fried tastebuds. After my tastebuds recovered a bit from their initial shock, I appreciated my drink a lot more.
For dinner that night Matt grilled a tri-tip, pineapple, bananas (grilled bananas are really yummy, I discovered), I made mashed-potatoes and for dessert we had homemade tiramisu. The feast left us all imitating Georgie in her full-belly grunts.
After a full-round of Oh Hayley, a card game that is a family favorite (and affectionately renamed to make the title pg-rated), we all hit the sack in anticipation of the next morning's church service.
Oh yeah, Georgie had her first sink bath that night!


It was great to go to church the next morning. I especially loved being able to see all the loving people who have been so welcoming of Matt and Heather since their arrival here four months ago, not to mention their bible study's incredible kindness in supplying us with meals every other day since Georgie's birth! Its been such a blessing for us!
It was so funny, as we were walking to our car, one of the people that had been introduced to both Melody and me was saying his goodbyes, and remembering that I would be remaining in the area until the middle of July, he looked at me and said, "Well, Harmony, I'm sure I'll see you here again!" We light-heartedly corrected him, but the rest of the day we kept cracking up at the thought of the blend of the names "Melody" and "Hayley" into "Harmony." Harmony was my nickname the rest of the day.
On our way home from church we decided to try out a local burger place that Matt had heard was pretty good, comparable to In-N-Out. We picked up our lunch and brought it home...wasn't quite In-N-Out worthy, but it was pretty good. And I always love trying out different local places. We all spent a majority of the afternoon playing more Oh Hayley and laughing our socks off because of our slap-happyness. A couple from the church brought us dinner that night, oh man, one of the best meals I've had since I've been here. Homemade chicken enchiladas, mexican rice, caeser salad, fresh-picked strawberries, and cookies for dessert! Why am I forgetting what we did the rest of the evening?? Hmmm, I guess the meal was just overpowering.

The next day, sadly, Matt had to go back to work. The rest of us didn't really do much, but one big accomplishment was that we all took a walk around a nearby lake! Even Heather came, pushing Georgie in her stroller! (So many firsts in this young baby's two weeks of life, and this day added another one: First walk in a stroller!)






After trying to walk in a group for about 50 meters, Melody and I split off from Heather, Georgie and Spencer and had some great conversations as we walked amidst the pretty view (sorry, typical Hayley, I didn't get a picture of the lake). I loved being able to get to know Melody better during this weekend, and the conversations I had with her were so much more than icing on the cake. I feel like I want to say that I'm so happy she's in the family, though when I think about it, I don't think that I'm really related to Spencer and Melody...anyways, I think they'll always FEEL like family to me because both the Hitzeroths and the Hays are big on family time, so I'm sure times when Heather's side of the family are with Matt and Heather will often coincide with times when Matt's side of the family are with them. I certainly hope so!
After the lake, we drove a bit to a place where Heather was sure that we would see a fabulous view of Mt Rainier, because Spencer and Melody had yet to see the sight. Heather opted to stay in the car with the baby, so Spencer, Melody and me climbed a small hill and sure enough, there was a majestic view of the mountain that practically took our breath away. And below is my last attempt at a picture for you taken with my camera (that's not a promise, just a frustrated hasty comment because once again I'm disappointed that my camera didn't pick up the mountain well). The mountain is in the right side of the picture. Can you stinkin' tell?


That evening we had a summer feast. It was a huge, collaberative effort in the kitchen, the preparation of the meal was quite as enjoyable as enjoying the fruits of our labor! We had BLTs on wheat bread, fruit salad made with fruit selected by Spencer's fantastic judgement, tater tots and french fries. I've committed the meal to memory to next year's initiating summer party (if you don't know what I'm talking about, look at the archives on my blog). And at nine o'clock in the evening, Spencer, Melody and me crowded into the kitchen to make churros!!!! Heather had found and bought a churro box-mix from a store in Missouri (there's the thing to be thankful for from Missouri, Heather). I think making them will always be a special memory in my mind. There were quite a few mistakes made in the beginning by all of us, allowing for a lot of laughing, especially when we realized that I had accidently put enough mix together to make SEVENTEEN whole stinkin' servings of churros! Yeah right that we would actually eat all of those at ten pm! As the churros came out of the oil and the cinnamon-sugar was soaking in, we all realized that the effort was QUITE worth while. Churro making is fun and tasty!
Spencer had to leave mid-way through using up the churro batter in order to pick up my family from the airport, and even though Matt and Heather wisely went to bed directly following Spencer's departure, Melody and I decided to stay up and finish making the rest of the churros, thinking that we could save them for snacks in the following days (by the way, the next day the churros were soggy and unenjoyable. No worries, though, Melody and I had a great time making them together!) It was a wonderful time to finish/continue our conversations from the lake, and we also started new ones. I'm just so thankful for Melody and the way God never ceases to place people in your life to encourage you in your walk with Him. Melody and I discovered that we're similar in many areas, particularly our sin-struggles, so she was a big encouragement to me. I'm just so happy about Spencer and Melody. As individuals they're both some of the sweetest, most humble and servant-hearted people I know, so can you imagine the team they make together as husband and wife? I'm so excited to watch and observe them in their years together as man and wife, I believe that God is going to accomplish much through them!

It was sad to say goodbye to them the next morning, but I'm so grateful for the refreshing and fun-filled weekend with the happy couple. :)