November

Jake celebrated his 21st birthday on October 29.  This year he didn't have a member family offer to make him dinner and dessert, so this is what he came up with... a Halloween cupcake and eating out at Red Robin. Soon after his birthday, he got a change of companions, but stayed in the same area. The top right is his new companion, Elder Moore from Gilbert, AZ, and the bottom right is his old companion Elder Boyd from Orem (one of his top 3 favorites).

The WML took these pictures of the Elders to go on the bulletin board at church.  I love them!  The bottom two pics are at a nearby park.

Here is is hanging out in the Seahawk section of the store on Pday.  And this is the suit he found at Goodwill for $1.29!  He was very excited about it.

On Saturday the 2nd, the Weyerts came to town so Jessica could take family pictures of the Hatch's. I got to go watch and try and get Evan to smile.  It was fun (and luckily a nice weather day) and I absolutely LOVE how they turned out.  What a darling family.  We invited Tommy, Jessica and kids over after for lunch. It was fun spending time with them.  Dane amazed us all by naming every NFL team just by their logo.  He's 3....(Evan was mesmerized by a football game on TV...)

The next day we had Evan's blessing.  We did it at our house after church and had all of Brody's family there, plus the 7 of us and the Bundy's. It was such a nice occasion, and Mike did a wonderful job on the blessing.  We served orange rolls and hot chocolate afterwards.

 


Look at him!  Could you just die?  He wore the same outfit that Jake and Cam wore!  I love that (although the bowtie was an added touch).
The Bundy's stayed after Brody's family left and joined us for dinner and games. It was a great day!
The next day, Monday the 3rd, Cam and I packed in the morning then said a sad goodbye to Ky and Brody as they left to go home around 2:00.  It was so sad!  Most of us were in tears...
Tuesday Nov 4th- Cam's last day at home...I started off the day by applying a generous amount of waterproof mascara, and it was a good thing...I spent the whole day with Cam and it was wonderful but bittersweet.  Great to be together, but sad knowing it was our last day.  One thing we did was go to Deseret book to get more garments, and saw this ridiculous sight (bottom left).  Some people!

His setting apart was at 8:00.  Those there were his best buds Jeffrey, Chase, Parker, Tyson and Steve, Jess and Brad, Lin and Ryan, Mike and I, Bishop Miller and President Burns.  It was an amazing experience.  The room was so full of love for Cam as every person expressed their thoughts about him and their testimony.  It was so special. I will never forget it. His friends stayed for about 2 hours after it was over, so I waited up until midnight so we could double check everything and make sure he was ready to go.  We only got a couple hours of sleep as we had to wake up at 3 to have him to the SLC airport by 5:00.

I'm so grateful that after Cam's setting apart blessing, he felt such a calm and peaceful feeling and that lasted him all the way to Mexico.  It was a blessing that he wasn't stressed and nervous and scared like he was before the blessing.  It really helped to be able to let him go, knowing he was feeling so good about going.  But it was still so hard to let him go and watch him walk away.  I still can't talk about it or even write about it without getting a huge lump in my throat and feel like bursting into tears...  Ah- such a mixed bag of emotions.  I'm so happy he's worthy and willing to serve a mission, but I'm so sad to have my baby boy leave me for 2 years.

I had to keep very busy for the next several weeks to keep my mind off my grief, so I deep cleaned the whole house.  That was great therapy.  Freda brought me these flowers and Evan did his best to cheer me up by smiling at me from his framed pictures :)

Seeing new pictures of Evan always makes my day.  He's so adorable!!!


These pics of Cam came the week after he got to Mexico. It was so wonderful to see his happy smiling face.

 We celebrated Mom's 88th birthday by having a progressive dinner at the Bundy's, our house and the Skeens. It was a nice day and a fun way to celebrate. 

I decided several months ago that we needed to make this Thanksgiving a good one so that we wouldn't be missing the boys too much, and so that we'd have another chance to see Evan.  So we picked a destination that was halfway between Logan and Fort Collins, and also someplace Brody really wanted to go since he'd be celebrating his 30th birthday 2 days after Thanksgiving.  So Moab was our destination.  We rented a nice 3 bedroom condo and met the Hatch's there Wednesday afternoon.  We had such a fun 4 days together.  The first night we just hung out at the condo eating a spaghetti dinner and playing games.  On Thanksgiving morning, we did a 3 mile hike to Corona arch. It was a great hike- we all loved it- even Evan! 

We made a delicious dinner, then everyone but Mike and Evan went to the movie "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1"  It was awesome!  We all loved it so much, and Mike loved staying home with Evan and watching the 49ers play.  That evening we had fun playing games and eating a tasty pumpkin dessert. 

On Friday we went to Arches and hiked to Delicate arch.  It was awesome.  Again, a fairly easy 3 mile hike with Evan being such a champ in his carrier.  We drove around to some other places and had a picnic.  Home to watch Elf, eat leftovers and play more games.

Jess and I got up early Saturday to help Kylee decorate for Brody's birthday.  Everything looked awesome. Ky had 30 reasons why she loves Brody in the 30 balloons that say "Brody, here are 30 reasons why I love you"  For our gift to him we hung 30 $5 bills from the hall ceiling. He was very surprised when he woke up.

That afternoon everyone went in different directions.  Ky and Brody went climbing, Mike, Jess and Brad went back to Arches to do more hiking, and I stayed at the condo with Evan so he could have a good nap.  I think I had the best time :)  That night we went out to eat at a delicious Mexican restaurant, played games and had birthday cake and ice cream.  It was a wonderful little vacation!

These pictures arrived from Cam while we were in Moab, so it was awesome getting more pictures.  He's loving his time at the MTC.

This face... I'm so in love.