Cool off

It's been hot this summer!  

I think we've had an entire month of near 100 degrees every day.  

Jackson figured out his own air conditioning method. 

Isn't Sadie the cutest puppy ever? I don't know if I have ever introduced her here in BlogLand. 

She is a first generation English goldendoodle.  Her mom is a black and white poodle, her dad is an English Golden retriever.  She will be a great mom for us in a year or two when she has her own adorable puppies!

Speaking of puppies...all the puppies have been gone for a couple of weeks and I must admit it is nice not to be a resident doggy day care!  They ended up all over the country--from New Jersey to San Francisco! We have been getting the nicest reports about the puppies we sent off.  So far they are all very mellow, easy going little guys.  And smart.  We get lists of tricks the new owners have taught their pups. 

 It makes me happy! My goal has always been to raise dogs that I would want to live with. 

Tomorrow begins our last week of summer break.  I'm handling it really well this year.  Sometimes the end of summer really, honestly gives me anxiety attacks.  I like having everyone home and I hate the crazy cycle of homework and constant activities.  I always feel like we didn't accomplish enough in the summer. This year I am excited for everyone and their fun activities.

Dallin and Landon have been busy with two-a-day football practices.  They are playing the SAM and MIKE positions this year.  That is strong side linebacker and middle linebacker.  I looked it up on the internet so I would sound educated! 

They come home and drink a gallon of milk and eat all the bananas and pineapple they can find.   It seems to be helping with the painful leg cramps that both boys were having at the beginning of the week. 

Dallin was released from physical therapy for his knee this last week.  Yea! So far he is totally healthy and doesn't have any knee pain for the first time in a long time.  He actually wrestled all last year (5th in state!) with the meniscus torn so I think it is a relief to practice without knee pain!

Of course Dal finished just in time for Landon to start therapy for a shoulder injury.  

Actually, it is not so much an injury as shoulder instability.  Apparently the humerus slides around in the socket more than expected. They think he is having subluxation rather than full joint dislocation so we are hopeful that physical therapy will help.  Lan first injured the shoulder when he took a really hard hit in rugby last spring.  It has been kind of 'popping' randomly during swimming etc., but this last week of linebacker practice really exacerbated it to where he doesn't want to move his arm and he is telling us about the pain.   Based on past experience,  if Landon complains about something hurting then it is usually injured...not just sore. So I have good reason to be paranoid, right?  

Anyway we have some fun plans for the last week.
 Actually they are just fun for me!  I'm going to make the kids help me with a bunch of projects.
Can't wait!

Checking off our list...

We went camping this weekend. 

Though I'm not sure it counts as camping if you get to stay in a cute little cabin...

 

It was built in 1946 and it has a cool wood cook stove and an ice box.  There is still a type written paper of instructions on the wall about how to start the stove and where to find the coal oil. 

 "And don't forget to empty the pan under the ice box..."

It was cute.  

Dallin and Landon came up late Thursday night after work. 

Just in time to stoke up the fire after the 'youngers' were asleep.

Can I just mention?--I started that fire with one match and NO PAPER.

Thankyouverymuch.

The kids reluctantly saved them s'more stuff. YUM!

 Friday we took the 4-wheelers and motor bike and rode down to Ross Falls for a hike.  It is more like Ross trickle this time of year but we all had fun on the hike up and climbing around on the rocks.

Afterward this cute girl learned to drive a 4-wheeler all by herself.

I am the official sit-behind-and-teach-the-kids-how-to-shift kind of mom.  Probably because the slow speed of the learners is right up my alley!

Benson also moved up to the driver's seat.  He has a harder time shifting--especially when he is wearing his big sister's sandals (because his are MIA...). He will be a great driver though. No doubt!

Paisley didn't like being left behind.  She followed us on a couple of short rides.  

She is one athletic dog!

 Of course the dogs had plenty of play time in the dirt.  

Sheesh. 

So. dirty.

 Saturday morning we all loaded up to go to the hummingbird feeders.

 We actually put Austin and Benson behind Rustin and Jenna and I rode little Red.  I suppose we need another 4-wheeler...
Landon's bike lost one of the pins that holds the handle bar to the frame just after we headed out, (Rustin went back to check on him when we all stopped and he wasn't with us...)
so Landon stayed behind at the cabin.
We were so grateful he didn't lose it while riding! 

Someone started this hummingbird feeding area 20+ years ago and now there are dozens of different kinds of hummingbirds buzzing around at any given moment.  We could hear the thrumming of their wings.

We went on a great ride up to the top of the hills.

The view of the valley was a patchwork of fields and little towns.  

We could even see the temple way off on the horizon.  

Beautiful. 

When we got home Jackson cried and cried to have another ride on the "mow-tow-cy-ko." 

I think he was mostly just tired.  As were we all.  

And we definitely gave our hot water heater a workout--I think we had a tub full of sludge 

after every bath (dogs included!)!

A perfect weekend for sure!

Fourth of July

Parade in  Lewiston

The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays.  Actually every holiday is one of my favorites but I especially love summer!

This year we had our Hatch family reunion over the fourth.  Jotham and Jamie were in charge. We all met at Darren and LoaLee's house where we did service projects.

Aren't Jot and Jamie creative?!  Such a fun family picture!

We did some great projects.  And true to the Hatch heritage, the kids worked and worked and worked!  I was truly impressed!  

We built a riding arena.  

With very. heavy. fence. panels.

And then we painted...

We hauled rocks.  And more rocks.  And more rocks.  

Franklin has no end of rocks!  

We put them in the flower beds and it looks great!

Did I mention that we all got dirty...

Then of course we had some time for fun: 

Parade in Lewiston in our matching t-shirts (and we got enough candy to last the rest of the weekend!)...

Fireworks in the driveway...

Swimming at the lake...

 We also drove tractors and played games...

 We enjoyed some beautiful scenery...

And most of all we spent time together. 

It was a great weekend.  With a great family!

Look who's grown up!

I kind of think it's awesome to be forty.  I can't really explain it except that it feels like a new beginning.  Maybe I only say that because I still have another year in my 30's...

I called Rustin's office and got his Friday afternoon schedule cleared and I whisked him away to the Sun Valley lodge.

It was beautiful.  So nice to see some snow!

 The lodge wasn't busy so we sat by the fire...

 And remembered one of our first dates--almost eighteen years ago!  We skated and twirled and held hands and laughed and talked for hours and hours without ever running out of things to talk about.  We can still do that today.  Except we aren't so good at the skating and twirling part...

 We went window shopping at all the little shops in the Village.  I'm serious about the window shopping part... This lovely coat and handbag cost over $6000!  Whew.

 There were lots of cute toy stores and fun Christmas window displays and Christmas lights in the Village Square.

 We ate one of our most memorable meals ever at the Ram at the Inn.  Delicious. Food. 

We climbed under the covers and watched Sun Valley Serenade which plays continually on the TV's in the lodge rooms.

.

It was a great weekend and reminded me of how lucky Rustin and I  are to have found each other. And how lucky we are to be able to do all the great things in life together.  With many more still to come!

Happy Birthday.

Crash, cry and play

We are in the midst of Spring Break.  Yea!

I love it when all the kids are home.

Free labor.

Actually it's not free.  I have paid for it a million times. I have to make lunch for eight people every day.  I can handle breakfast and dinner but lunch just stinks.

Today I'm having a hard time convincing the kids that my plans to spring clean the back yard count as an awesome break activity.  I just keep repeating my favorite vacation mantra--"this is a break from school not from life."

We just  got home from a trip to Wyoming to visit Jim and Heidi (Rustin's sister) and their seven awesome kids.

Our kids love each other.  It is so fun to be able to turn everyone loose.  The weather was perfect.  Sunny with no wind. Everyone was happy and none of my kids complained a bit about cleaning up leaves from their cousins' lawn.  Go figure.

Jackson had a few complaints about the 19 hours spent in the car.  It definitely could have been a lot worse.  We discovered a few tricks while driving.  Jackson likes grape pop in a sippy cup.  Yes.  I'm an awesome mom.  He also likes to play (look at) a Nintendo DS--he cried almost as much as Austin when we tried to take it away from him.

This weekend Dallin discovered that he is indeed mortal.  He wrecked on the motorbike.

He wasn't injured any more than usual but I think he realized that the bike can fall over and he can get injured.  He admitted to me that he said a lot of prayers on the ride back.  I think it was totally good for him.  I'm hoping Landon and Austin can learn by watching Dallin's wreck rather than from personal experience but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Albion 'Normal' School

I am slowly but surely working through all the pictures of the last few weeks.  As soon as I get my camera that I left at the Hatch's in Franklin I will finish the month of December!

Our Patterson family spent a great weekend the week after Christmas at the Albion Campus Retreat in Albion, Id.  The house was part of the old Normal School College campus that has been abandoned. 

It has 16 bedrooms and tons of beautifully restored space. The halls are super wide with corridors of beautiful doors and the old brick is exposed through the plaster every once in a while. It is a beautiful house.

Each bedroom has an attached bathroom which was important because  we had a nasty case of the stomach flu running through the house--Rustin threw up all the way from Twin Falls to Albion and Ashlee was hiding a barf bag behind her back in most of these pictures.  I think every single member of the family had varying degrees of stomach sickness that lasted from 12 to 24 hours.

While we had everyone home we took pictures for the first time in years!

This was the first time we had all seven siblings home (from Ohio, Australia, Utah and Idaho...) together for a couple of years.

We missed Jeremy who had to work but the rest of us had a blast--little ones went skiing for the first time (I spent the day hiking up and down the bunny hill...), Lindsay made a bunch of 'Minute to Win It' games, we made pretty crafts, played games and of course we ate a ton of food.

 It was a great week and a perfect start to the new year.