California Day 2 - Hunnington Beach

In keeping with the theme of visiting our old haunts, we hit the beach for fun in the waves, BBQ Hot Dogs, a bond fire, and smores.
We used to meet Grandpa at Hunnington Beach Lifeguard Station #4.

The weather again was perfect.Even though the water was cold, the kids still got in and had a blast.

My whole extended family was there and we were the only group. We had the beach to ourselves. It was kind of fun being related to everyone at the beach!

Meagan with Jenna and Matthew.

Tyler spent alot of time playing with my cousin Christopher in the water.
Tyler and Bryson
The kids spent a lot of time digging in the sand as well. The weather was perfect, the company was perfect, the water was fun, the food was good, and we even saw dolphins playing in the water. We could not have ordered a nicer day.

As Grandpa would say, "It was a terrible day at the Beach!"

After the beach we went back to the hotel for pizza and some fun in the pool. Then again, after we put the kids to bed we met down in the room off the lobby to hang with my siblings and cousins till midnight. It was another fun day of playing hard.

California Day 1 - Knott's Berry Farm

I knew our trip to California for Great Grandpa Hatch's funeral was going to be more fun than sad when we ran into my cousin Melissa and her family at breakfast. We thought we were the only ones at the hotel that morning and that the rest of the family would be arriving at various times during the day. Melissa and her family thought the same thing. So it was a fun surprise to come around the corner and see them there! Let the fun begin . . .

and we did! We started our fun by taking the kids to Knott's Berry Farm. My family went there many times when we were kids and so it was fun to take our kids there.

We arrived at 10 am and Brett, Tyler, and Rebecca jumped on the first roller coaster they came to. Grandpa Hatch, my siblings, and their kids all stayed the night in Las Vegas so they were at the park by noon. We didn't stop until the park closed at 6pm. We went on the perfect day. The weather was perfect and we hardly had to wait in line. We started in Camp Snoopy.

This was Meagan's absolute favorite ride.

Brandon, BJ, Meagan, Jenna, and Brittany.

She went on this ride so many times we lost count.

It was so fun to see them have fun with their cousins. It was so fun to see them be brave together or encourage each other or reasure each other.
I loved it.

Meagan and Brittany with Ethan and Matthew looking on.

Meagan loved Camp Snoopy. After a little time in Camp Snoopy we divided up. The Dads took the older kids on the faster rides around the park; and the Moms stayed in Camp Snoopy with the younger kids (which is why I don't have as many pictures of Rebecca and Tyler).

After awhile we swapped!Rebecca and BJ

Go Justin Go! Keep Pumping Justin! Keep Pumping!

The kids had to pump with their arms to move their train along the track. That is why Brittany was in the back. She had the strength and the endurance to bring the others home.

Meagan, Me, Rebecca, and Grandpa Hatch

We ended the fun on the log ride. I think the kids rode it about 8 times.

You can do that when there is no line.

Waiting for the train. When we were kids, our hometeacher worked here as a stunt man in the wild west show and he also robbed the train. Some of the boys: Spencer, Jayden, Matthew, Tyler, Brandon, and BJ.Some of the girls: Jenna, Aunt Andrea, Melissa, Brittany, and Rebecca.

(who knows what Andrea is doing) Tyler missed our family picture with Snoopy. He was on the roller coaster with Uncle Blaine.

This was one of the funnest days. After the park closed we got dinner and went back to the hotel. After we put the kids to bed, we met down stairs in a room off the lobby and hung out with my siblings and some of my cousins till midnight: chatting, catching up, snacking on goodies, and laughing like we were little again. The Hatch clan had 18 rooms at the Residence Inn on Katella near Grandpa's old house. It was SO FUN to be together.

It has been a while...

...since I posted pictures to this blog. I guess that I have just allowed life to happen and get the best of me. It's not like I've been busy for the past few months, right? Other than to try and recap everything that has happened since the last time that I posted, I figured that I would just start with what happened most recently.

Michelle, Rebecca and I went to see Wicked. It came to the theater at the UofA for three weeks. We went to a Saturday afternoon show. The theater was sold out. We got the tickets clear back in October when they first went on sale. We didn't know anything about the story, other than it was about the witches of Oz, set before the original movie. We are glad we went and that we took Rebecca. Tyler was pretty bummed that he didn't get to go.

Here is the view from our seats.

I am glad that I didn't have to sit behind this guy. He eventually lowered himself into the chair, but we thought for a while he wouldn't fit any lower.

Tonsils Part III

Yes, Tonsils Part III. This time it was Meagan. She got an ear infection while we were in UT this summer and it took a long time to clear up. The pediatrician suggested that she go see the ENT and have her tonsils and ears looked at. He decided that she didn't need tubes in her ears, but just like with Tyler, took one look at her tonsils and declared that they needed to come out. So, Wednesday they came out. She did really well and was really brave to go off to the operating room on her own. Here she is modeling the finest in hospital gowns and her special bracelet.
These are her tonsils just before they were taken out. She wasn't sick then and look at how large they were. I will spare you the after shots, these are bad enough.

Just like with Tyler, after he was wheeled away they sent us to the waiting room with a restaurant-like pager that would go off when she was in the recovery room. When the pager went off we had to drive down to the other end of the building and go in the back door to meet her.

She did really well the first day after she got home. Since then, she has had her ups and downs. Today was her first day eating something other than popsicles and Jell-O. We are hoping that she will be on the up-swing from here on out.

Erin

It was brought to my attention that I never posted any pictures of Erin when she was born. I wasn't keeping the blog up to date and I was too busy with life. So, seeing as how she is almost 9 months, I thought I would give you a few pictures of her as she has "grown up".

1 day

6 weeks

2 months

3 months

4 months (eating rice cereal for the first time)

5 1/2 months

7 months

8 months

9 months (almost)

Pest Control

Every home in the desert has some sort of problem with bugs. Most people have the bug man come to their home to spray insecticide to kill the bugs. Not us, we use a more natural approach. We leave the front porch light on which attracts all the little bugs. Then the bigger bugs come and eat the smaller bugs, and so on and so forth until you get to the top of the insect (or arachnid) food chain. Here is our form of pest control. We have a tarantula that comes and visits our front porch and gets his fill on all the little bugs.

Unfortunately there is nothing in the picture to give a relative size comparison. If I were to judge, he is slightly smaller than my flat hand. It is the biggest of the tarantulas that I have seen on our front porch over the years. I didn't tell Michelle about him because she made me kill the last one that she saw.

Monsoon

On Saturday evening we were just getting ready to run some errands. We had eaten dinner, got the kids ready, shoes and socks were on. We were just about to walk out the door. Then the rain came. And it came hard. We decided to wait until the storm passed to go run our errands. We all ended up sitting on our bed looking into the backyard through the window. We started to count the seconds between the flash of lightning and the thunder and it was getting closer and closer. Then came the 3/8 inch diameter hail. Then there were a couple of times when the thunder and lightning were simultaneous. The whole time the wind was blowing. The kids got to see the effects of a good windstorm as the tree fell over. I love the monsoons in the desert.