And they're off!

Scout Camp 2010

The Beverly Hillbillies got nothin' on a couple of Idaho scouts.

Dallin and Landon are off to Camp Bradley for a week of National Youth Leadership Training.  If I had my way they would have had coats (not just a couple of jackets) and a couple more blankets stuffed in there but they were determined to carry everything in one pack.  

Of course the weather forecast says it is going to be 25 degrees tonight with chances of rain and snow.  I'm trying not to worry...

We are definitely missing our 'big boys' around here---there's an entire bag of chips sitting in the cupboard (unopened!!!) and neither Jenna or Benson has been dangled over the window wells in the last three days. And Austin and I have to mow the lawn all by ourselves.

What will we do...

In the beginning

We had organization.

I am convinced that having a schedule may save all of us this summer.

But first we have to have good food.  Job assignment always goes easier when we start with a good meal...

Is that bribery?

We brought back the job chart that has worked great for the last two summers.  Only this year we added Jenna and Benson.  So far so good.  Now if it would stop raining.

Got fairies?

Losing teeth is hard when you're little.  Sometimes it requires a certain amount of incentive to keep the little ones from panicing at the site of a wiggly tooth.  Thus the invention of the Tooth Fairy.  

 Anyone who know me, knows this is a sticky situation in the best of circumstances.  Remembering to remember is not one of my strong characteristics.  

Jenna has ultra organizing abilities and she can remember to put her tooth under the pillow without any prompts from her parents which usually means it takes a couple of nights before the tooth fairy actually shows up.

She lost a tooth on the last day of school and after two nights of disappointment she tacked this to her door.

But alas, the tooth fairy was sleepy, so it wasn't until midnight when a very thoughtful older brother remembered the look of disappointment on her face the previous morning when she realized  she had been forgotten once again. He came up with a very fun plan.  A trail of pennies (his own life savings...) lead from the pillow to the dining room with a note from the Fairy.

 

She loved it!

10 reasons the Hatches have never been to Disneyland...

 In  no particular order and counting only the last two years...

And excluding shoes that last no more than two months per pair, cars that get totaled right AFTER they are paid for and scout uniforms...

10.  Stitches

 9.  Broken Collar bone

  8.  Broken hand

 7.  Flooded basements

 6. stitches (again)

 5. Flooded basement again (x3 actually...)

 4.  Broken Ankle bone

 3.  Stitches (yet again)

 2.  tonsillectomy, tonsillectomy and ankle surgery (see #4)
and our favorite...

  1.  Puppies who eat tiny stuffed animals and have to have surgery to get them removed.

horse hoofs, sunflowers, swamps

We spent an awesome weekend in Franklin.  There's nothing prettier than Franklin in the spring I think...

I don't have most of the great pictures we took--they are all stuck on LoaLee's camera.

The kids had a blast riding horses, trimming horse hooves, and cooking breakfast on the porch.

Beau hung out with Mosey--the best dog on the planet and Clancy  (who thinks he's the best dog on the planet...).  He slept out in the tent with the boys, rolled in manure and chewed on horse hooves.  yummm.  Unfortunately, today Beau is recovering from surgery to remove Jenna's very tiny stuffed animal (what do you do with a teething puppy...) that was lodged in his intestine.  We are glad he didn't have any terrible illness or twisted intestine but this is a seriously expensive chew toy. 

Rustin and I got to sped Friday night in SLC city with my parents.  We went to Utah Symphony's performance of Mahler's 1st symphony--Titan.  It was really stunning.  While (embarrassingly) the Mozart piano concerto in the first half nearly put me to sleep, the Mahler symphony was amazing the entire time.  The symphony doubled in size size from Mozart to Mahler.  The Titan symphony calls for more instruments than almost any symphony (so the program said...)  The horns and tympani were amazing.  We loved it all.

On Monday we visited the cemeteries.  I'll have to write more about that later.  It was a cool, clear beautiful morning.  Sam played  his bagpipes at the cemetery as we visited the resting places of Rustin's fourth great grandparents and down. 

In the afternoon we went canoeing at Johnson's reservoir where the boys "accidentally" swamped the canoe three times.  It wore them out.  Actually I think we are all still tired.

Tomorrow is our first official day of summer so we will sleep in and then get organized.  Positive thinking's important right...?