Hatch Happenings: August 2014

Demolition Derby

Sunday, August 31, 2014

We went on a fun date with Mike and Allison and some of their friends a couple weekends ago. Last summer we went to the rodeo and this year we checked out the demolition derby down in Spanish Fork.

Having never been to a demo derby, I was looking forward to the smashing (said smashe-ing). It did not disappoint. Mike had everyone pick their car before the derby started so you had a car you were rooting for each round.

David was really good at picking cars each round. He had a car each round go to the finals.

This round there was a crazy car crash and fire.

This car's driver needed help getting out because the car was so smashed up.

It was fun to have the rodeo atmosphere with a different kind of excitement. It was funny how people really cheered for the scrappy cars that literally had tires rolling away from it.

We had a fun summer and now we're gearing up for fall and hopefully finishing up the house so we can have more fun times :)

Hatch Family Reunion 2014

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

This was David and I's first year together at the Hatch family reunion. This year it was held at an awesome cabin at Brian Head in southern Utah.

I didn't take a good picture of the cabin, but this is the view of the side of it from the archery range.

If you could see further right in this picture, you would see a grass area with a bunch of yurts everywhere. The cabin had 12 bedrooms with attached baths for the older families/parents and then a room on the opposite end of the cabin with bunk beds where the boys all stayed. Young couples were assigned yurts.

David was the only one who snapped a picture of the inside of our yurt. It had a bed, carpet and a space heater. We enjoyed being yurt-mates and it was fun to hear the rain on the yurt without having tent walls that got wet.

On Friday, we went to Brian Head lake and played and fished there for a while then we came back for lunch and more activities.

During the trip we also enjoyed meeting the two newest family members; Sterling and Adeline. Adeline's main fan club is pictured above. As oldest grandchild, she's enjoying her grandparents full attention.

Sterling won the award for most amiable baby. He was passed from cousin, to sibling, to parent, to aunt, to grandma, to uncle and he was cool with all of it. And every crazy face you make at him is worth the gummy smile you get back.

You can see some people sitting at a picnic table working on decorating tee shirts. Customizing reunion shirts was probably the most popular activity of the whole trip. Everyone got to put their own spin on their shirt and it was fun to play and talk in the beautiful weather.

One of the saturday activities was trying out the archery range. It was fun to try the different bows and arrows the Clark Hatch family had brought.

Even the little kids had fun trying their hand at archery.

David had his turn and helped Noelle take another turn.

On Saturday, we also took traditional family pictures. Here's our clan with Grandma Hatch.

I found this picture on my phone with the family pictures- I don't remember taking it but it's a funny one of Noelle.

Here's Clark & Quenta's group.

Sandra and Larry.

Here's a paparazzi picture I took of David. He looks so good I can't resist :)

Couple pic!

Sometimes I succeeded at getting super cute pictures of the nieces.

And sometimes I just got hilarious ones. As I took this one I was thinking," I can't wait to show Tara this when she's older." I must have done stuff like that with my family when I was little too, haha.

Aunt Brenda and Aunt Carol hanging out, enjoying the picture ordeal.

Here's Eric & Angela's cute family.

Other highlights included Tara eating an entire plate of cherry tomatoes. This was her second serving.

The owners of the cabin had a pet baby dear named, "Thunder."

On Saturday we also roasted marshmallows, played volleyball, and just talked and played games. The next day we caravaned to church and stopped at a gorgeous, rainy look-out on the way there. Once we got there, we discovered we had missed the branch because we thought they had two times.

But it turned out to be a positive thing, because two nice older men stayed to preside and we got to have our own family fast and testimony meeting. After we got home we had dinner and played games for the rest of the evening.

After minute to win it games, David introduced the family to the bag game. You have to grab a paper bag in your mouth, with only one foot touching the floor. After each round, you cut an inch or two off the bag so it gets shorter.

Even Uncle Clark lined up to try it.

Younger kids were pretty flexible, but the balance part was the challenge.

Tara got some help from Colleen- haha.

Later that day, David and I introduced the younger kids to fly swatter bubbles with a gallon of bubble solution. It got pretty slippery, pretty quickly.

Cove Fort Utah

On our way back home, Colleen's family, and mom and Larry, and us stopped at Cove Fort, Utah to check it out.

It was funny we were visiting another church history site with Colleen and Nathan.

Another paparazzi pic :)

Yep, yet another historical setting picture. I'm having Nauvoo flashbacks.

I'm pretty sure Gideon had a ball running around there. It's fun that even the kids got engaged in the history of the place.

Here's the fort entrance in comparison to these guys.

Here's Nathan wearing his most effective and becoming fashion accessory

The reason Fort Cove was built was to protect the telegraph, stagecoach and mail.

The gun ports on the inner wall were a big hit with the kids- each one was inspected.

They call 29 senior couples to the Cove Fort mission. They tell them it's missionary work, but it's really tending a ginormous garden with some missionary work thrown in- haha. Now I know where my parents should serve.