Whirlwind leading up to the move

The Saturday before we were to move was crazy packed.  We had a swim meet in the morning, a baptism for the kid's friend right after, Brent had an errand to run up in Murray, and I was bound and determined to get the leaves out to the road before it rained that night.  Somehow we got it all done and even squeezed a few pictures in there and the kids got to have a playdate with their friend who got baptized.  Don't know how we did it. :)

The kids did great at their last swim meet.  Our last time at the Civic Center.  That place was good for us emotionally and physically.  We'll always have a special place in our hearts for the Civic Center, even if the pool was dirty and the lifeguards didn't pay attention. Anyway, pictures from the swim meet!

Griz's goggles broke right at the beginning of this relay, luckily his teammate's mom had an extra pair on hand right when we needed them.

Can't wait until Sanna can join in on their swim meets!

The kids LOVED raking up the leaves.  They helped a bunch and played a bunch in them.  They had the time of their lives. Wish I had done it more throughout autumn instead of procrastinating until the end... like always.  It sure did make for a giant pile which they jumped in and swam in once I got it by the front porch.

Oh man, going through these pictures is making me really home sick.  I know we're technically "home" here in Utah but I miss having our own place... and I'm missing that non snowy weather!

Sanna and Brent left to go shopping up in Murray for something while the boys and I finished getting the leaves into the front. We got some fun videos of them "swimming" and "diving" through the leaves.  Such cute guys.  They played until they were too cold to continue and it was almost dark. Then I went out and finished getting it down to the road for the leaf sucker truck to get it.

I literally got it done right as it got dark and it started raining half an hour after that. So crazy.

I dropped the boys off for their playdate then met Brent and did more errands with him. 

The next day was Sunday, time to say good bye to our Branch Family.  That was hard but not as hard as it was when we went up to Sister Newtons to visit her one last time and say goodbye to her. She's so sweet and dear to us.  A kindred spirit. We wished we could have taken her with us. She and my Grandma could be roommates. I think they'd get along so well. :)

That night Brent and I stayed up late working hard to get ready for the moving truck.  There is always so much more to do than you realize when you're moving.  Around 12:30 we finally collapsed into bed and then I was up again by 5:45 telling Brent it's time to get working again! We got the moving truck picked up nice and early right at 8:00 am in Union City.  The missionaries and a few guys from the Elders Quorum came to help.  We didn't get Patrick in this picture but he stayed most the day and helped with a lot of things and helped entertain the kids.

Elder Olsen was awesome to have in our Branch, we sure will miss him!

It took all day to get everything out of the house and crammed into that truck.  We were so grateful to the Roses for taking our washer and dryer. Those 16 foot trucks are sure smaller than I remember when we moved OUT to TN.  Somehow it all fit pretty much, we had to leave a few children behind but that's all. ;)

A few minutes before 6:00 pm we were all packed and ready to go and completely exhausted.

Family Pictures

We tried to find time all autumn long for our own family pictures. We kept putting it off because Brent was so busy. Finally right after RTC on the Friday before we moved we brought our tripod along with us to one of our favorite places in Paris... the Eiffel Tower Park. We would go on walks and bike rides at this park a lot. It was such a beautiful place to take the kids or go work out. I really wanted a nice picture to remember the beauty of this place. If we had taken the pictures a couple weeks earlier it would have been even better but luckily there were a couple trees that hung on to their leafs a little longer for the procrastinating Hatch family.

This first one was the winner shot... okay actually it's 3 pictures merged into one but we all look good and that's what matters.  I mean we were using a tripod and a 10 second timer, what do you expect!?

This next one kills me, Sanna is the queen of silly faces.

The rest of us trying our hands at silly faces.  Griz nailed it in this one.  Lol.

Kinda weird taking a "candid" shot with a timer on a tripod but we gave it a go, these next two are the ones that turned out....

The kids were awesome and really well behaved during our family pictures (which shocked me). Then we tried to take pictures of them alone and lost them.  They were running all over the park.  Somehow we coaxed them all into this next shot though and it turned out so adorably adorable:

November

November was a busy month! We started out the month with Chico getting a big gash in his arm while playing on a chain swing. We had to take him to the ER and that story is on Instagram.  Sad part of the story is he didn't get to participate in swim team that month.  He didn't seem devastated by that at all but it bummed me out.

Griz did the swim meet solo that weekend and he did awesome.  He's so funny, he can swim really fast if properly motivated but often lacks the motivation.  He's only 6 so that's okay I guess. Ha ha.  I had to go to that meet by myself so I didn't take the nice camera so that is on Instagram as well.

I tried to keep up with homeschool with the kids during the month.  I was quite stressed with packing for the move so it wasn't happening quite as much as I'd like and when we DID do it I wasn't a very good/nice teacher so it was better that we skipped days than force it.

We had one of Brent's classmates, Rachel, staying with us for the month.  She was really fun to have around. The kids loved her and she even tended for us occasionally.  It was nice especially because Brent was gone for long hours again on this cardiology rotation. 

We went on a lot of walks at the park where the boys were on their bikes and I was pushing Sanna in the stroller.  Those were the really good days of November and kept us going through the stressful month.  It's amazing how being outside and using your body positively can do that for you!

If I could describe MY November in a few words it would be:  packing, working out, and eating healthy.

If the kids could describe it in a few words it would be: playing, snapchat, playing with Rachel, and staying out of mom's radar 

If Brent could describe it in a few words it would be: Cardiology, Studying, and Driving

These pictures are from a particular day that Brent had off. I was packing up the game cabinet and the kids wanted to play with the puzzles. They were being really cute so Brent got out the camera.

Then a little later they started a fire in the grill.  They love doing that.

The day before Thanksgiving the kids decided they wanted to do some lego building tutorials. There are a bunch of videos they created but they and I took a few stills too. Cute kids.

Thanksgiving day came! Brent went and played some football with the boys.  They had a lot of fun.  Chico got into the game halfway through and helped out his team a lot.  They won the game! The Branch members that were playing were really fun with the kids.  I wished I could have gone and played but somebody had to make the turkey! :)
I hate dealing with raw meat but I'm willing to do it occasionally when the need arises.  Wrapping bacon around a turkey is so very delicious.  The oven isn't the best but it all worked out in the end.
I made brussel sprouts, asperagues, sweet potatoes (my favorite), and homemade cranberry sauce.  I also made super delicious rolls.  Only thing I didn't make this year was the pies.  I didn't have the energy and I didn't want to be tempted by them.

 We had the Taylors over for our Thanskgiving feast and that was fun.

 Brent had the boys do ALL the dishes.  It was amazing to sit back and relax after cooking all morning.

The day after Thanksgiving is one of our most favorite days of the year. This years was no exception!!! Our friend from church Chad agreed to tend for us from 2:00-9:30 or so.  He was so awesome to do that for us. It's such an important day for us, remembering all the feelings of falling in love and the goofy fun we had on our first date is so good for us.  Especially good for me to remember how I was before I had children and became a stressed out mommy. (Pics on Instagram) Since we couldn't recreate it exactly like we did it in Salt Lake we did the best we could in Nashville! We saw an art museum at the Parthenon.  The Parthenon was cool but there were only a handful of paintings that I would consider gallery worthy, kinda disappointing but still a fun time.  Next we went to the Cheesecake Factory which was really yummy.... I got Salmon on this really awesome salad, and then we got a chocolate hazelnut slice of cheesecake, oh man it was good.  Next we drove up to the Cumberland river in Clarksville and walked along the river looking at the lights.  That was really fun.
Then we went to Cold Stone in Clarksville and shared a little ice cream (since we had already had cheesecake).  We couldn't skip Cold Stone though, it was such a fun part of the original date 10 years ago.  It was a wonderful 10th anniversary.

The end of the month was busy with packing but Sanna forced me to slow down a bit here and there for cuddles.  She wasn't feeling well on the night Rachel was going to take us out to dinner to Jasmines up in Murray so Rachel and I took the boys and Brent stayed home with Sanna, though we took him a sushi roll home at the end.  Rachel was great to have at our house, I was worried it would be a little extra stressful having someone stay with us the month that we were getting ready to move but it really turned out to be great.  She is so laid back and non judgmental about the state of our house that it made it nice.  She was also fun to talk to for me, ha ha, probably should have let her study more.
Anyway, that was November! It was a beautiful month which made it harder knowing we were about to say goodbye to this home that we had of our own (not that we owned it but you know what I mean, we weren't in an apartment).  It was also hard to say goodbye to our friends we have loved and grown so close to out here.