February

Saying Goodbye to Grandma Greats:

Our month began with Grandma Great's funeral.  All of Matt's siblings were able to make it and all of his Hatch cousins.  We sure do love Alice May Hatch and we are so thankful she was a part of our lives.  What a blessing it has been to live in Utah so our children could know her. We are happy she has finally moved on to be with all of her loved ones and out of the physical pain she was in.  Grandma was 97 years old...soon to be 98.  Lucky for her, her brain never faltered. Her quick wit was there until the last.  Here are a few of my favorite photos of her.

Nathan LOVED going to visit grandma greats when he was younger

At Jacob's mission farewell

At grandma's 90th birthday party

Grandma and Grandpa Hatch with baby Jacob

Her funeral was nice, but it was very difficult to be back at the same funeral home and with similar people as we had with Neal.  A very different funeral, but it was just too close to the difficult one. The family dinner was also at the same church where we had our family dinner after Neal's funeral.  That's what made this celebration of life more difficult than it otherwise would have been.

Grand-kids and great grand-kids singing

Jacob, Mike, Tristin, Tyler, and Phil

Grandma was buried at the Springville Cemetery next to her husband and next to several other Hatch family relatives.

Matt and his 22 Hatch cousins and 11 siblings

Natalie, Andrew, Maggie, and Mae--another generation of Hatch cousins! 

Miranda's cousins dividing up her DI pile

At the luncheon-Jacob, James, and Jaxon

Nathan turns 17! 
The next day started birthday celebrations for Nathan.  On the 2nd we had a family birthday/superbowl celebration complete with hot fudge brownie sundaes.

Monday morning, Nathan's birthday, we woke up to snow.  By 6 am many schools had called it a snow day, including Summit Academy. YAY! At this point we had not gotten more than 4 or 5 inches, but some other parts of the valley had obviously gotten more.  Jordan School District called it a delayed start so I told Nathan he could sleep in for a few more hours.  Well lucky for Nathan, that late start turned into a SNOW DAY for him too.  What a great birthday present! I let Nathan sleep and when he finally woke up sometime after 11 am he was pleasantly surprised with the good news.  Of course his first words to me after hearing he had the day off was..."mom, you know what I call snow right?  Drift Dust!"  He was excited to go play in the snow...with his car.  The school parking lot made for a great place for him and his friend Jake to practice sliding and drifting in the snow.  He was pretty excited to show me the cool photos and videos they took.  

After having fun with his car in the snow it was time to meet up with dad to go have fun on the slopes in the snow. I can't believe they went when it was SO COLD! Feels like -14? Crazy!  But they had a great time skiing regardless of the temperature. It did keep snowing throughout the day.  I think by the end of the end of the day we had a good 8-10 inches or so maybe a bit more. In our old neighborhood they got about 18-20 inches.

Day 3 of celebrations finally brought the birthday dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse.  Nathan got his huge steak and enjoyed every bite of it.  So, now my baby is officially 17. Crazy!

And the rest...
That is it for the photos for the month, but there were a few other important things that happened. Here's a recap:

• Jacob moved into an apartment with Tristin in the Millcreek area.  They love that their front room is large enough for a ping-pong table.
• Matt and I got to spend a night up in Logan so we could go see the play "She Kills Monsters". Callie designed and made several of the costumes for the play. It was great and her costumes were amazing!  We took Tyler and Callie out to dinner to a yummy pizza place before the play.  Saturday morning we were able to meet up with Andrea Lythgoe, Callie's mom, and go out to a yummy breakfast with her, Callie, and Tyler before we headed back home.  It was a quick trip, but pretty fun.
• On the 27th, Matt had his first ever surgery.  He had a tear in his meniscus repaired.  He handled it like a champ.  He is recovering well and handled the pain with only Tylenol.
• Our bonus leap day was spent doing...nothing much. Being lazy and letting Matt recover. I guess you could say we got a bonus lazy day. 

So, if you add all that to the usual monthly activities of book club, card nights, temple trips, date nights, movie watching, family dinners, etc. it was a pretty good month.