JUNE PICTURES

JULY 2020

4TH OF JULY

We had a very memorable 4th of July.  Nothing went as it usually does.  We drove out to Daybreak for some fun with Grandma Ruthie, Becky and Meg's family at Fishhook Park.  That was fun.  Becky taught us how to open the stubborn pistachios and our lives all changed.  Meg shared her yummy pebble ice with Sadie- made her day.  Just being out there and that park is a lot of fun too.  There was a little neighborhood kid bike parade while we were there.  Nate got to play basketball, so that was fun too :).  After that we came home, dropped off the kids, and headed over to Heidi’s apartment to begin moving her. Nate and I had a lot of fun walking back and forth to the car, talking about the cute little birds in the stairway, and just spending time together, but it was a pretty somber omg thing to try to help Heidi pack up her life and move again. This has been hard to watch. Breaks my heart for this little family. Satan really is running rampant these days. And he aims to destroy the family for sure. I have no doubt that Heidi and her kids will be okay though. She’s such a good mom and always puts their needs first. It will be nice to see her happy someday. 

After we loaded up the van, we came home and the kids, almost single (or however many hands were involved) handedly, unloaded it all! Really fast! I was impressed. We had a little time to unpack a little. Then we had dinner and our amazing fireworks show!! I couldn’t believe how many fireworks we got to see this year!! We combined with Maughans- they came over w chairs, and Clark’s did too for a little while, and we had Heidi there w us as well. We were able to see the big ones from several really close neighbors! It was amazing!! Went on for quite a while! Then Nate let off the four 1 quarter sticks of dynamite! Those were so loud!! I took a bunch of the kids inside and they totally rattled the house!! One of them went off with the door open because someone had come inside and WHEW!! It was probably even louder that way! So crazy!! But fun night! 7-4-20

WELCOMING BABY ALYSSA

Being chosen as Heidi’s birthing partner for Alyssa’s birth was pretty surprising! Heidi asked me the day before ツ. I was pretty excited and everything was so new and different for me, but rather than give play by play I think I’ll just mention highlights/main points ツ. 

1. I had to hurry and sort produce not knowing when they were going to have her come! 

2. They had her call at 6:00 then 8:00 then 10:00 when they finally told her to be there at 11:30. 

3. The hospital was being super strict about who could be there- she was only allowed one person in the hospital the entire time, no swapping out, just me. I worried about that because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to be there the ENTIRE time. 

4. I stayed through the whole delivery and night. Came home to shower in the morning, then went back until about 6:00 that evening because Nate was working. And then she didn’t want me to help her the next morning- and John picked her up so that he could meet Alyssa and watch Porter meet her. Always so fun to see the sibs meet I think. 

5. Heidi is amazing!! She was a million times braver than me getting her epidural and then just laid there on and off with pain, waiting patiently for her baby to come!! I was super impressed! And that delivery! I don’t think I’ll ever forget that! It was so amazing! Alyssa’s tiny little head was such a surprise! For some reason I’d imagined it being bigger ツ. But then the crowning moment (for me at least ツ) I got to cut the cord!!! Very special! Pretty sure that makes me her favorite aunt for life. Just kidding. Sort of 😉. I loved witnessing that beautiful miracle though. So special!! 

6. Alyssa grabbed her mommy’s face first thing ツ so cute!

7. McKinlee- the male nurse we thought we were going to hate- ended up being one of the best I’ve experienced. He was really good! Did everything Heidi needed, right away, even some weird random stuff we asked for ツ. Pretty awesome- the gay guy delivered ツ. (Well not literally, although I think he would have if Heidi hadn’t wanted her doc there so bad) 

8. 7-7-20-20– Heidi didn’t get the birthday she wanted even though we all tried so hard 😉. We were so crazy close!!! But she did deliver at 12:12 am? Does that count?!

9. The lame nurse when they moved her upstairs- actually hers and the baby’s were pretty lame. Not giving her the meds she needed because she’d “have to wake up the doc at home in bed” 🙄. Sorry but that’s his job!!

10. I enjoyed getting a lot of time to talk with Heidi. That was one of the best things during those two days. 

11. Holding Alyssa was a definite highlight! Nothing beats that! Made me totally baby hungry!!  I had to keep holding back the tears, wishing I could have one more of my own.  I know it's silly, but that's really how I feel.  

12. I had a new found respect for Nate.  It's different to be in the possition of the helper.  I don't know how he's done that nine times.  

It's so fun to have a new niece and even more fun that she's living in our house :).  I just love all the snuggling!

SADIE'S 1st BIRTHDAY

Sadie's birthday was great!  When I got her out of bed, I sang Happy Birthday to her :).  We had fun talking about her birthday to her all day and spoiling her with some treats and a few gifts from the kids.She came with Charity, Kelly, Erika and I to Bailey (Jaxson's fiance)'s bridal shower and got spoiled with gifts and loves from Becky, Ruth and Jen.  So that was fun too.  We weren't able to have her party ON her birthday because of Nate's work schedule, but it was a good first birthday!  We got Slurpees that night- unfortunately, they were not free because of COVID, but they were yummy!  7-11-20

SADIE'S 1st BIRTHDAY PARTY

We did a watermelon theme for Sadie's party.  I made her a little water melon smash cake and some cute watermelon cupcakes.  I had fun making a watermelon pinata that day as well.  Kelly and her friend went and got a cute bouquet of balloons, a giant one and some red and lime green balloons.  It was pretty cute as far as themes go :).  I was proud of myself.  We had her party at "the baseball park" in Farmington.  She had a pretty good turnout- Grandma Ruthie, Aunt Jen, Grandpa Hatch, Grandma Hatch, Simon, the three older Hatch kids, and us (minus Kelly who went on a date with a guy she's been into lately :).  I gave her permission to miss since she liked the boy :) ).  Her party was great!  We had a lot of fun even though it was super hot!  She didn't love her smash cake.  Probably shouldn't have put so much frosting on it, that cake struggled, so it was necessary. We had fun trying to get her to eat it.  The pinata was kind of a fail.  Nate got a little overzealous buying the candy for it and put so much in there, it just completely bottomed out!  Faulty craftsmanship for sure.  But it was dang cute, so it's all good.  I loved spoiling her!  She and I spent some time on the swing and playing around on the playground, a highlight for me.  She was so brave on the playground!  It's been a while since she played on one so it was a surprise, but so much fun!!  She got lots of fun presents from everyone.  It was a fun time.  7-13-20

OREGON WITH HATCHESOREGON WITH HATCHES

We had such a great trip to Oregon!  This was a much needed break from life!  I've heard several of the kids talk about how much they loved this trip even weeks later.  So, I've already documented this and it was lost by my dumb laptop, so excuse me if it doesn't sound as heartfelt. 

Friday was our driving day.  We had Charlie with us so that was a lot of fun.  We actually got on the road only about 45 minutes after the time we'd planned- that's gotta be like some kind of world record.  We had a nice pleasant, uneventful drive!  We stopped quite a bit, to feed Sadie, to eat meals, bathroom, and an extra stop when we saw some men stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. They needed oil and somethingelse. We were able to go a few miles and call their AAA and get someone to come get them.  That felt really good to be able to help them out.  I loved that Charlie was sitting in between Charity and Kelly and that they were having so much fun together, the three of them.  Our new favorite line, "I have been holding in my farts and pee for the past five hours, of course I'm in pain."  He's hilarious.  He was the perfect buffer between the teenage girls.  Our lunch stop was in Winnemucca at a "River View Park" oddly named for it's view of a river, but there wasn't much of a river that you could see from the park.  Funny.  My notes say, "big black wasp things in Winnemucca" so hopefully that rings a bell with someone.  They did seem like they were all freaked out by something while we were sitting on the grass.  That night we made it to our Rogue Elk Campground just before it closed. We got all our stuff set up, ready to go, and settled down for the night pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, Sadie was on onboard with the whole bedtime thing.  She cried, loudly for a good half hour.  Not sure how the other campers felt about it, but this played into my dreams that night, wondering if people were trashing our tent or going to burn it down because they were mad about her crying.  HAHAHA!  Kinda funny.  Although, the constant flashlight, talking, laughing, big loud "BAH!" in the middle of the night were not condusive to sleep- I think that was one of the worst night's sleep I've had in a long time.  Not my favorite night.  And let's don't forget to document the disgusting port-a-potty with the myriad of flies and syringes and bags.  Kind of educational.  Luckily they cleaned that in the night or early morning, it was mostly clean when we were getting ready to leave.  

Saturday was Charlie's birthday!  We tried to make it kind of special and sang to him.  It was our day to meet up with the Hatches at Crater Lake so we wasted no time getting all packed up and out of that noisy campground.  I'm glad we didn't have to stay there again.  The drive wasn't too long, just kinda frustrating that we didn't have service enough.  We were glad we Nate was able to communicate to Sarah where we were.  We looked around a little while we waited for the Hatches.  Then the memorable lunch in the parking lot with Brent parked perpendicularly to all the RVs :).  He's just that cool.  We went on the Sun Notch walk again because we loved that view of the lake so much.  It was fun to talk with the Hatches and get to spend that time together there.  I love how the kids just pick up where they left off and had fun together.  They all found some volcanic rock to draw on the parking lot with as the adults chatted and babies were nursed before leaving for the Redwoods.  We stopped at a cool ledge and played in the snow and then got pictures of the cool view with the shades of the mountains doing the Ombre thing... perspective... love it!!  There was a lot more driving that day than we'd planned, not that we could complain- the Hatches had been up since 2:45 taking Sarah's uncle to the airport!  I'm still impressed that they made it all day and didn't lose it at all patience-wise, even though they had every reason too.  We drove through a lot of Redwood forest and got to enjoy their majesty.  I just love that place.  Probably one of my favorite marvels.  We made it to our cool camping site at the Klamath River RV park on the banks of the Klamath River.  We were right by where the river meets the ocean!  So cool!!  We didn't know how cool it was that night though, it was almost 10:00 (we were lucky we'd made it in time- this RV park had a gate!).  We hurried and set up camp and then we were out!  

Sunday was a really nice day!  I loved having Sacrament meeting together.  I had originally wanted us to go find some secluded spot somewhere to be all on our own and hadn't wanted to do anything in front of strangers at the campground, but I am so glad we did it how we did.  It was actually really peaceful and I kept hoping that the campers on either side of us got to feel the beautiful spirit that was there.  It was really neat sharing that experience with the Hatches.  After sacrament meeting we drove in to the Redwoods and explored a bit.  We got to go on this cool hike that never seemed to end.  Which was okay, but I wish we'd figured out that it looped before turning around :).  Funny stuff.  There were a lot of cool things on that hike though.  The big trees tipped over on their sides were fun to climb on and take pictures.  The stump with the "twisty stairs" around the outside.  I loved hearing all the kids' conversations with each other as we hiked.  And another highlight was watching Jack swing his long thin stick, slicing through the shrubbery like he was bush-wacking :).  He had a lot of fun on that hike.  Sadie took a little nap on my back.  Thankfully Nate took her during the last 20 minutes or so though.  Poor Kelly broke her shoes- I think this was the second pair that broke on this trip.  It was a lot of fun.  After that we found a cool little field (not within the visitor's center area because they charge an arm and a leg- and the grumpy toll booth guy who lectured Nate for how Brent didn't stop at the stop sign) we had our lunch there.  It was a nice little spot.  We tried to see one more thing with the Hatches but it was closed, so instead we parted ways with them.  They had to get home for Brent to work in the morning.  We chatted with some strangers about their Vizsla dog and then made our way back to the campsite.  The fog had totally rolled in and the wind and cooler (much cooler) temps.  It was kind of a rotten time trying to get warm most of the evening.  The fire Nate had built helped, but the wind was blowing all of the heat away.  Pretty memorable time, huddled around that fire though.  I was glad when the wind died down and we were able to relax a little before bed.  I was so relieved that the temperature didn't get any lower and we were all able to sleep just fine.  

Monday morning we got up and loaded up quickly.  We were anxious to hit the beach!  We found Harris beach right away and played there for quite a while.  The beach is such a fun place for our family.  Everyone loves it so much.  Nate and Kelly went on their traditional walk up the beach.  Erika, Noah and Luke had their swim suits on and played in the frigid waves pretty much the entire time.  Looked so fun :).  Wish I wasn't a wuss, but it was SO COLD!!  Brad and Jack played a lot and then went crab hunting for quite a while.  This mom doesn't love wondering where her kids are in these kinds of places.  Very unsettling, but it's nice to know that Brad is a safe kid and doesn't do stupid things.  I was happy to see their silhouettes coming out of the fog as we were getting ready to go.  Charity stayed by Sadie, Molly and I and played in the sand.  After a short time, Sadie got brave enough to crawl down to the water.  I would go down, grab her and let her stick her feet in at the end of the foamy waves.  Then I'd haul her back up to where we were sitting and let her start over.  She was so brave!  She also ate a lot of sand.  As we were ending our time there Charity and Kelly volunteered to go up and start on sandwiches for everyone!  So nice!  This was a really fun time.  Molly didn't have much fun when she leaned too far in her seat (I think she was used to being able to do that with her seatbelt on) and fell out of the van face first!  Right on the concrete!  It was so sad!  She scraped up the left side of her face pretty good.  We cleaned her all up but I was glad we were headed to the Hatches assuming they had some neosporin to make it all better.  Which of course they did :).  Luckily we had plenty of time to dry and lose all the sand we'd collected at the beach before heading up the Hatches.  It was so nice of Sarah to offer to pick up our grocery order and then lead us to their house from the town.  That worked out really well!  We never would have had room for all that food on the way there!  I was glad it worked.  We were SO excited to see their house and all the renovations they'd done!  And it did not disappoint :).  They have worked so hard and it showed!  I LOVE their house!  It's so beautiful!  I love the openness of it and all the white trim!!  It looks SO NICE!  They put us up in their master bedroom which they use as a toy room- it was beautiful as well complete with brand new paint and carpet!  With our own bathroom to use while we were there. I was blown away by their hospitality and how much space we had.  We had originally thought we would camp in their yard while we were there, but once we slept one night in that room, we were sold.  Nobody said another word about camping in the yard until the last night.  I slept surprisingly well on the air mattress even!  It was fun to have all the kids around us in there, sleeping on the floor- very memorable!  I do think it's funny that when Molly talks about this trip she says, "When we were camping at the Alvin's house" or "Camping at the Hatches"... cracks me up!  But if sleeping on the floor in their house counts as camping- good :).  That first day was a lot of fun, just talking and catching up.  It was fun to watch the kids doing their gymnastics off the ottoman all night long.  We stayed up really late every night- it was just so hard to go to bed!  Didn't want to miss out on a minute with the Hatches.

Tuesday was mountain biking day- for the boys minus Jack- we stopped at Face Rock Creamery for some ice cream and to trade cars and then we parted ways.  From what I heard the boys had a blast riding bikes and wish we had a place like that to ride bikes here.  The girls (and Jack :)) stopped at the fancy chocolate store for some chocolate- wish I'd just gotten one of the big ones like Sarah got, but I was trying to be frugal and then ended up spending more than I would have... duh.  But we had Sarah's later in the week- she's so nice to share!- and it was AMAZING!!  The pieces we were had were great too, just not big enough :).  Then we went to the cute candy store.  This may have been the same store we went to when we came four years ago.  It was on the same pier.  On our way back to the house we took a little detour to see a cute little lighthouse.  I love lighthouses!  It was adorable.  I wish I hadn't been having such horrible cramps and would have gotten a better picture of it.  That evening was one of my favorites, just hanging out at the house, watching the girls+Jack all play.  Sarah took a bunch of the kids out in their truck to ride through their property.  Which ends up being much like a roller coaster ride!  SO FUN!! The pinnacle of the evening had to be Molly and Savannah riding in Izzy's car!!  They were SO HILARIOUS!!  "I'm good at driving!" and "Oops! REVERSE!? (with a huge smile!)"  SO STINKING CUTE!!  I love that Savannah rigged it with the bungee cord (from our car- HA!) to pull the skate board!  SO FUNNY!!  So ingenious!  I really loved getting to know her better.  And I loved how sweet she was with Molly most of the trip.  They did seem to get a little worn out of each other by the last day or so, but cute cute cousins!  I loved it.  That night we watched Rocketman which was a blast with Brent, Charlie and Jack laughing their heads off at all the funny parts.  

Wednesday was the boys' fishing on the ocean day, which they LOVED minus the barfing.  They brought home SO MUCH CRAB AND FISH!!  It was awesome!  I was very happy to enjoy the fruits of their labors that evening.  The girls (plus Charlie and Jack)'s plan was to go to Hall Lake- I renamed this Verticle Beach Lake (I'll tell you why later).  On our way to the lake we got to go blueberry picking!  That was probably one of my favorite activities that week.  It was so fun!  And the blueberries were so amazing!  So plump, so sweet!  We snacked on them the rest of the week as the five gallon bucket sat in the Hatch's kitchen!  Charity blessed us with blueberry pie two of the nights as well!  SO AMAZING!!  Definitely a highlight for me.  Funny: when I was trying to talk Jack into coming to pick berries and telling him that he was going to miss out, Charlie interjected his two cents, "Jack, I've been here several times and it's not that great- you're not missing anything." HAHAHAHA!!!  I was glad that Charlie was there in the car to keep track of Jack for me :).  We only picked for about 45 minutes, so not too long.  Charity kept Sadie happy for me.  Then Hall Lake!  This was SO incredible!!  I was in awe of this beach the entire time we were there!  These HUGE dunes in the middle of beautiful forest!  Who woulda thought!  Oregon is so diverse!!  It was so beautiful too, which seemed strange to me.  Piles of sand never looked so pretty!  It was really soft amazing sand too.  Not quite like ocean beach sand, possibly better! I was having some pretty bad cramps most of that afternoon, so it was nice to be able to lay down on that warm sand and just relax.  The kids had so much fun playing in the lake and running up and down the dunes.  It was a lot of fun!!  We did get kind of anxious for the boys to get back, they were meeting up with us there, but we really had a good time!  It was fun keeping track of Savannah's unicorn tube floating all over the place- her tricking us and running the trail to go back and get it before Charlie could swim to it.  Made us laugh.  I was really happy this whole trip to have with my big girls, being able to chat with them a lot, as well as with Sarah!  Lots of long drives just chatting it up.  Like the good ol' days.  I don't think Sarah and I will ever run out of things to talk about :).  It was a lot of fun to hear about their lives and see everything as well.  We grabbed some ingredients for that night's dinner on our way home.  That night was SO YUMMY!!  Fresh crab in our alfredo sauce!!  The fresh crab was SO AMAZING!!  I've never had crab that fresh before.  I loved that my kids got to experience that!  Brent hyped it up for everyone and made it even better being such a novelty!  He spoiled us rotten really!  I LOVED that food!!  Too bad we can't have that in Utah!  I started a list of all the things that could make me move to Oregon.  The Hatches, the blueberries, the crab... Charlie! HA!  He's seriously hilarious.  That night they invited their friends (I'm drawing a blank on their names) over for dinner- that was cool to meet them.  They were really nice and fun to talk with!  I enjoyed that.  

Thursday morning we headed out pretty early to get to our tide pools before low tide was up.  They took us to the coolest beach for it!  The rocks were beautiful!  I only wish I'd had different shoes, or a different experience with the walk out to the pools.  My flip flop broke which was a huge bummer and then walking out there in bare feet with my dumb wart on the bottom of my foot--- not ideal.  It was still a lot of fun though!  I loved hearing random shouts of, "Oh! Look at this!" " You guys! come see this starfish!" and all the crab holding and finding.  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed watching Brent with Izzy- they make a cute couple :).  She is one tough little two year old and I love how Brent is with her!  Made me smile.  Jack really loved this part of the trip.  He got way into it.  I was happy when we got out of the rocks, on the way back and was anxious for the next thing :).  We drove a little further to Bastendorf beach for a day on the beach!  This was another fun part of our trip. We sat on this beautiful beach for most of the afternoon after stopping for some yummy seafood at a fun little mom and pop restaurant.  I loved visiting with Sarah and even got to talk with Charlie a little.  He was trying to talk himself into getting first his mom's, then his dad's swim shorts on to get in the ocean.  He'd underestimated how fun this was going to be and did bring a suit.  Erika and Nate took a long walk down the beach and found thousands of star fish along some rocks.  I wish I'd just ventured down there to see it- I wasn't feeling 100% so I lazied out of it.  But a couple of the kids got to see them and have pretty fond memories of this part of the trip.  Brad and Erika were down there for quite a while and even got separated for a bit, which was kinda scary for Erika.  But all was well.  Pretty cool experience for them.  The rest of the kids played in the sand and the water and had a really good time.  This was the night of the amazing Fish Tacos!!  Unforgettable for sure!  Sarah's slaw was AMAZING!!  We tried to recreate this when we got home and while they were still yummy, they just weren't quite the same.  Hopefully we will get these again someday :).  

Friday was our day to kind of take it easy and hang out at the Hatch's.  Of course this didn't mean Brent was going to relax :).  He was a busy little bee, buying supplies and then in record time assembling a state of the art slip-n-slide for the kids to play on all day!!  This was a highlight for sure.  I can't get over how creative Brent.  I loved just sitting there and watching the kids play together.  All the tricks they tried, all the soap suds and then boogie boards!  Funny kids!  They entertained us pretty well.  Even a week or so after, Sarah sent us one of the funniest videos I've seen of Charlie and Alvin playing on it and Alvin's successful attempt of Brad's hurdle move and then Charlie's attempt... less successful, but probably more entertaining.  This was a fun relaxing day.  I started getting sad about having to leave the next morning.  That night Brent made a firepit in his driveway and we got to roast the marshmallows we had missed while we were camping and then everyone's favorite part, turning off all the lights and looking at the stars!  This was really special!  I loved sharing this peaceful moment with everyone.  Can't believe how quiet it was! 

Saturday we had a hard time saying goodbye.  It was a mad dash to get all of our stuff into the car and hit the road.  I really hope we didn't leave too much mess behind!  We were so grateful for the Hatch's hospitality and love and all the fun they provided.  We loved getting to know them better and rekindling those relationships.  I loved being with Brent again, it has been so long!  I loved watching him as a dad again, he really is a great dad!  And SO FUN!  And of course all the chats with Sarah- we still got it :). Poor Nate had to spend his birthday driving.  Although, I loved Brad and Kelly's cute idea to shower him with gifts all the way home. Every hour (or so) they would pass up another gift.  Some of them had sweet letters from the kids with them.  That was so much fun!  I loved watching them spoil Nate. 

What a fun trip!  If only we could have made the drive home a little shorter!  I am not sure why, but it ended up taking us about 18 hours to get home!  Several stops.  Lots of driving.  It was pleasant at least, nobody complained, just really really long!  We were very happy to get home and go straight to bed.  

So since I asked and made a note of some of the memories, I am just going to list them all out right here:

Molly falling out of the car

Dad barfing in front of Brad

Being besties with Charlie- Charity

The Hatches and getting to know them better

Riding in the truck

Holding Alvin's chickens with him- Erika

Trying to sleep outside- Noah

Spikey ball things

Looking for sea shells

Little tiny lobster

Life lesson: treat your mom with respect- Brad

Looking at the stars

What About Bob

Cooking the crabs

Eating the crab

Meeting their neighbors

7-17-20--7-25-20

NATE'S 41st BIRTHDAY PARTY

We had Nate's party a few days late, but it was still fun!  He had wanted to feed everyone again, not sure why he enjoys that so much, but we all enjoy it too, so I guess it's a win/win?  He smoked some delicious chicken!!  We had Grandma Ruthie, Jen, Becky (who didn't crash the party!!!), my dad, mom and Simon, as well as Heidi and her kids!  Charity left early for her friend's party, but it was a full house here!  I was glad Nate was good and spoiled.  He even splurged and had some of the German Chocolate Cake I had made him. He just needs to go pick out his knives! 7-27-20

PORTER'S BROKEN ARM

Earlier in the day Porter had fallen down the stairs and seemed to have really hurt himself, but after some Motrin seemed mostly fine.  But as the night went on, he seemed more and more bugged by it so Heidi took him to urgent care towards the end of Nate's party and sure enough, it was a buckle fracture!  Poor little guy!  7-27-20

"I DO" BARBECUE

Nate, Sadie and I got to attend the fun little family dinner the Harris's put on for Jaxson and Bailey's wedding.  It was decorated so cute!  Nancy really went all out- I loved it!  I took pictures of everything there.  Even the place settings were really cute.  So fun!  I loved learning a little more about Bailey and Jaxson and how they met and stuff.  It was a lot of fun.  Nate and I took turns with Sadie- Jen too- she was kind of a handful that night.  But it was a good time.  Nate had made the pulled pork and it was amazing!  Always so yummy!  7-31-20

AUGUST PICTURES