Dear Shon and Juli,

You have been gone away from home for a long time so I thought you could use an update...

How is Australia? I'm sure you are exhausted from all the travel (wasn't it like 30 hours?).

A house of 12 cousins is surely a ton of fun--for the cousins! We will have to show you pictures of the AWESOME water park we created on mom and dad's lawn.

Your kids are giggly and very happy. (except for Bryce--he's definately happy but I wouldn't use giggly--unless he is playing Mario brothers with Austin... And he and Austin definately didn't giggle when I told them they had to move a big pile of rocks to earn some video playing time...)

The kids made a giant parade of toys this morning. I'm pretty sure I heard something about going to the prom... I'm sure you can guess who thought of that.

Then they built a jump so they could "play" spirit. Very fun.

Anyway--be safe and enjoy the 26 hours of quiet solitude at 20,000 feet while you have it!

Love, the best aunt in the world (okay, there are a few others who get that title too...)

Ahhhh--heaven (except for mosquitoes!)

A photo journey through the wind river mountains of Wyoming with the entire Hatch Clan...



We went on long hikes (with treasure at the end),



took naps in the sun,

(Jenna and Hannah in the "flower beds")

met new cousins,

and Great Grandma (and pa) and all the great heritage that we have received.
We also had canoes, swimming (brrrrrr), games and 4-wheelers.



I won't mention the Mosquitoes. I think we discovered a new species. We are sure they were hanging out in the lab with spiderman. I think our skin must neutralize the bug spray.
Or we are extremely sweet.We had lots of time to relax and reflect which is exactly what we have been needing. Now, back to laundry and bills--with new perspective. And Gratitude.

Deeper Still

At some point I am sure we will laugh at all of this but...

Yesterday we found that the door of the freezer had been propped open (a giant roast fell out) and the entire contents were ruined. Not just thawed but completely warm. Filled the big garbage can. Sigh

Then at the boys' regular yearly physicals we discovered that a bony growth behind Dallin ear has grown quite a bit so a CAT scan is in order. For the bargain price of $800 or so!

Then the electrician called to inform us that a bunch of the wiring and fuse boxes in the 'For Sale' house have to re-done to be up to code. I'm sure that will be totally cheap. ugg.

We are looking forward to a relaxing Hatch Family reunion. Maybe we can leave our curse home this time and come back totally reinvigorated. Hopefully.

Deep Water

Our High Council speaker today used several analogies that talked about being in 'deep water' spiritually and physically.

He said that if we find ourselves in deep water we shouldn't fear because we are in good company. There are many, many examples of modern day and scriptural people who were 'rescued' from the water by a loving Father in heaven.

It felt extremely applicable to me today. Our basement in this home has flooded three times since we moved in. Each time was caused from a different source of water. We fixed the carpet and the water damage after each flood only to have it repeat itself. It has been expensive and discouraging for us and for the missionaries who live in the basement. This last time we finally got our contractor in here and did every possible fix we could come up with--deeper window wells with lots of drainage, new metal liners and completely new windows as well as newly replaced dry wall. Of course it is not covered by our insurance.

You can imagine the joy we felt last night when we went over to check on the house that is for sale and found the basement completely flooded. Oh Yes. Are we doing something wrong here? This leak was caused by a pipe in the wall that burst. Thankfully this one will be covered by insurance so we don't have to do all the clean-up labor ourselves. But still. It feels like pretty deep water.

Other than that we are well. Benson seems to feel a lot better today. He hasn't needed as much pain medicine. It helps to keep things wrapped up really well. He sleeps pretty well in his little nest with Austin.


Dallin took it upon himself to teach Austin to play chess this afternoon (ie totally beat him...). Austin thought it was fun though.


We had our last swim meet of the summer as we will be gone for the rest. The three boys did really well and improved their times dramatically over the summer. The best improvement was from Dallin in butterfly. He is really getting it down.

We are looking forward to some time camping with family and enjoying each other without any distractions over the next week. I'm definately not ready for summer to end!

Benson's bones make their photo debut

Yeowch...Here we go.

Our family is not a stranger to injuries but I had hoped maybe we were over that accident prone stage. sigh... Benson broke his collar bone this last week while we were down visiting Juli and her family. They say history repeats itself but I am seriously hoping "they" are wrong.

Last July was the gateway to a bunch of medical ouches.(in every way...) From July to October we had two sets of stitches (Dallin and Jenna), a broken hand (Landon) a broken ankle--with two months of crutches(Dallin), surgery on the ankle and a tonsillectomy (Benson). I am seriously hoping history won't repeat itself this year but we aren't off to a great start.

Just for fun,(and hopefully to help ensure my rewards in the life to come...) I would like to remember our past ER visits. At least I think this is all. We have had a ruptured appendix (Rustin), two pumped stomachs (twins--claritin), eyebrow stitches (Dallin), broken forearm (Landon), split open toe(Dallin), complete hole through the entire soft palate with a repair (that was Austin--snorkel mask tube and a fall--eek!), and a few major illnesses (pneumonia, croup, asthma etc.) and sprained ankles in addition to the previously mentioned lovelies from last fall.

I have to say, without doubt however, nothing has been as painful as this broken collar bone. Well, Rustin's appendix maybe, but no injury or surgery can hold a candle. I think it's because there really isn't a way to stabilize the bone so every movement jiggles it around. Benson really isn't a complainer. I can see when the pain medicine wears off by the look on his face and then he will just burst in to tears. And he cries in his sleep when the medicine wears off. Once the medicine kicks in he'll say "it hurts a little bit" but that's it. Unless someone bumps into him then he cries. Poor kid.

He never took any kind of narcotic with his tonsillectomy. He didn't seem to need it. He never complained that his throat hurt after the first day. He wouldn't eat 'pokey things' (his words) for a while but that was it. Motrin was enough to take care of everything. This is different. I hope it doesn't last long but they say a good three weeks before the bones form a good patch and six weeks until it's really better.

This all happened down at Juli's in New Mexico. Shon and Juli are preparing for their big move to Australia and they had to fly to Houston so Becki and I drove down to stay with the kids. It was fun except for the violent stomach flu for Emily and Benson's broken collar bone and the $1300 repair to the fuel tank, fuel sensor (or something?) and new brake pads for the suburban. Man, when it rains it pours. Juli's kids are cute and we did really have a good time. Glad Beck came!

Oh say can you see...

We escaped the normal routine around here and went to Franklin for the holiday. We haven't left town on a weekend for seven months. It was great to see everyone and enjoy the beautiful summer weather. For anyone who doesn't know, Franklin is just north of Logan in the beautiful cache valley mountains.

We went up to Franklin Basin to spend the day with Jotham and Jamie and their family.


Dallin and Landon built a giant fort complete with fortifications and a stash of every pine cone that could be confiscated within twenty yards.




Benson thought it was awesome, however, his brothers' fortifications did not protect him from the swarms of mosquitoes. We stopped counting at around forty on his head.


Altogether we were well over 200 bites between all of us. Jenna had a swollen eye too. And I sprayed everyone several times. I have been looking for an excuse to have a sick day--maybe a little West Nile Virus? :)

We rode the 4-wheelers and ate tons of marshmallows, (Hannah is sure Benson got so many mosquito bites because he 'ate four marshmallows at a time'--is that possible?) we played hide and seek and sardines and had pine cone fights (thus the fort...).


Dallin and Landon started their horsemanship merit badge with Darren (who is a Silver Beaver Scout). Here's a bit of Dallin (and a few seconds of Landon) on one of Darren's beautiful Arabian horses---



We had our own fireworks display with no burns or other injuries of note. The favorite was the "flash dance" fountains. Dallin and Landon quickly had everyone acting out battle scenes in slow motion with the strobe effect. Very fun.

Of course the fun ended quickly when we came home Sunday night to find three rooms flooded in the basement. This is the fourth flood and I have to admit it brought me completely to tears. Sometimes it feels like I am on my own during the week. It seems like just about every night brings something that takes Rustin's time either at the church, on the phone or at home. It hasn't been as busy the last few weeks or so but I am still trying to figure out how to cope with everything.

The missionaries had tried to move the carpet out. (this time the sprinklers were the culprit--watering for 120 minutes total instead of 10 minutes total--courtesy of the lawn guys that laid the new sod. woops...) We called in some great friends and our awesome boys, and once again drug all the carpet out and vacuumed out the floors. We discovered the root of the problem in the window wells this time; a cut through the walls (from when the windows were put in) and no gravel for drainage. So the boys will get to do some digging this next week.

The kids are still busy with swimming everyday and I have more projects than time or money. We are happy and healthy though. And growing more and more everyday.