Migrating West

Sunset in Payson, Utah.

The Utah Exodus is what my bishop calls July in Dallas. The congregation evaporates and a few sparse bodies dot the chapel pews. We left too! No reason to stay in Dallas in August. Huh uh.

First, we spent a week at Dad’s house in Payson. Dad and Susan planned a big Hatch family get-together the Sunday after we arrived. It was so fun to see cousins I haven’t seen in years, married and with kids. Breckan and her new husband, Stacey, Katie and Dallas, Matt and Haley, and most of Jenny’s children. Susan made 8 homemade lasagnes for the event. A lot of work! It was wonderful to reconnect with everyone. Dad and Susan were so amazing to do so much for us. I really enjoyed talking with each of them and just getting to know them more.

That weekend we went camping. Freeman flew in for the event. Uncle Stephen took Tyler out on the lake for 4 hours! fishing, and Tyler couldn’t get enough. Ty loves spending time with his uncles. I threw up that night, so camping ended a little early.

Ty enjoyed a date with Grandpa building a catapult, and Anslie enjoyed a date with grandpa creating jewelry from pop beads (pretty sure she enjoyed that more than grandpa did ;). We swam and watched movies. It was fun to spend an afternoon with Freeman’s cousin Emily at BYU. What a tremendous girl!! I just didn’t want to have to stop talking and say goodbye! We had creamery ice cream and wandered the bookstore.

I spent a day with my dearest college friend and mission companion Laura. Again, didn’t want to drive away or say goodbye! She is so much fun and so faith filled. The same day I spent a couple hours with my Grandma Hatch. She is more faded each time I see her, but can still make me a laugh. I loved looking in her eyes and connecting again.

We spent the next 10 days at my Moms. One of our very favorite days was spent at Pioneer Village at This is the Place Heritage Park. We went the day before Pioneer Day to avoid the crowds. The village has a train that transports you to the attractions. We saw an authentic farmhouse of Brigham Young’s, had homemade donuts, enjoyed the petting zoo and riding ponies, loved playing water games with the boys in pioneer clothing, tried pioneer candy, panned for gold, traded it in at the bank for MORE candy, and watched some absolutely incredible Native American dancers. I mean amazing. 18 month old Tucker was mesmorized for an hour by their performance. My sister Denise came with us and kept me sane!!

This IS the place!

Ans at Brigham Young's PINK house, it was pink back in the day too!

My Ty.


Panning for Gold.


Water games!





Tucker lovin on a goat.


This is what 6 hours of Pioneer Village does to ya.


Denise and I also enjoyed a long dinner …. we’re talking 3+ hrs…. at Kneaders one night. That’s good stuff, the food and the company.

We also enjoyed the Pioneer Day festival at Bountiful park, totally geared to young children and inexpensive. The kids played on bounce houses, sat in a real teepee, and enjoyed the rides. That night we watched Bountiful’s Pioneer parade, complete with a full 2000 young men dressed like stripling warriors! Pretty cool! And only in Utah, my friends.

We spent a day on temple square, touring the sights while Freeman was with us. The flowers were spectacular!

Lunch at Lion House Pantry.
Tuck just curled up and gave up.

We also spent a morning touring Bountiful. I showed the kids the house where I grew up, my favorite ice cream place, and we took pictures at the temple where we were married. Ah,Nielson's Frozen Custard.
Bountiful Temple where this family began!

On Pioneer Day we played in the stream near Mom’s house and made butter and pioneer taffy from scratch. The taffy was delicious but turned out too runny. Boo. Street players.
Making butter.
At Grandma's "pond".

We spent the next few days with Mom at her house. She retired at the end of the school year (Woo hoo!! Way to go!) and had lots of stuff from school that needed sorting and cleaning. Her pain has been high, and she couldn’t tackle the piles. It was good timing.

Next we were off to my brother Stephen’s house. He and wife Tanya recently bought a fantastic house in Saratoga Springs. We loved on their little guy Trevor, affectionately called “bubba nugget”, and the kids loved playing with 3 year old Zach. We all enjoyed the zoo, threw Steve and Dad a birthday party, and threw Mom a retirement party. We had SO much fun with them. Sweetest family in the world. We are so lucky that you are family!
Happy Birthday, Steven and Dad!


Matching toes with Aunt Tanya!


Mom's Retirement Party! Congrats!


And then it really was time to go home. So hard to go back to real life!

Just for fun, because there aren't enough pictures in this post.


Dressed up for church at Grandma's.


The baby boy.

July Family Reunion Time

This is how we do it in Texas.







Family reunion time! Most of Freeman’s siblings and their families gathered at Mom and Dad Lintons for a major party. That’s the only way the Lintons do parties. Major.

The first day we played at a nearby lake, with boats and waterskis. The kids were in heaven. That afternoon Mom and Dad arranged for a portable pizza oven to come to their house and bake pizzas for us. So fun!

The next day was a county fair at the farm. Mom and Dad own a small ranchette an hour north of their home. Freeman’s brother Isaac and his family live there. They had face painting, fishing, haystack hunting, snow cone making, a chicken rodeo (!) and a pie eating contest.
Grandma the prize lady.

Wowzers! For the chicken rodeo, all the kids lined up and we let all the chickens loose. The kids scrambled to catch chickens and toss them back in the pen. It was mayhem!! Kids laughing, kids crying, chickens crying, wings flapping, the whole bit.


Look out you poor chickens.


Get it, Ty!


Now the men take a stab at it.


Go Dad!






Tyler won the pie eating contest. That’s my boy.

Other highlights included a service project at the farm, lots of cousin play time, family pictures, birthday parties, fourth of july parade, bbq and fireworks, and lots of eating yummy food. Mom and Dad are masters at creating memorable events.




Alas, all good things must come to an end. If that wasn’t enough stimulation, three days later we got on a plane!....

June

Oh what a fun few weeks June was. The summer heat was already pressing upon us. Instead of getting out in the afternoon, we've been hopping on our bikes immediately upon waking to catch the cool of the morning. We come back hungry and ready to settle into a routine.

A few fun moments of the last two weeks include a movie at a real movie theater!, having the missionaries over for dinner, LOTS of swimming, and several visits to the local assisted living center.

In January I started a Power of Moms learning circle. If you're unfamiliar with learning circles or Power of Moms, click this to check it out. I and 6-8 women get together once a month to discuss an essay on motherhood that we've read. The attendance has waxed and waned, but I've really enjoyed spending time with other moms to talk about our most important work. This month there were only five of us who attended. Thanks Jaimee, Emma, Jenny and Audrey. It felt good to laugh and feel the spirit together.

We spend Father's Day afternoon home, with cinnamon rolls for lunch! Tyler wrote and illustrated a book for his Dad called "Peter Dragon and his Daddy" based on bedtime stories Freeman makes up about Peter the dragon. We printed it through Walgreens, and he was thrilled to gift it to his Dad. Anslie made Freeman a big tub of chocolate chip cookie dough. We spent the evening at Mom and Dad Linton's.Father's Day Table.

A couple Anslie quotes:
- I showed the kids a basil plant and explained it can be used to make pesto. They wanted me to explain what pesto was, so I did, several times. Anslie’s face suddenly brightened and she exclaimed, “Oh YEAH!! Like when you say ‘pesto-chango’!”
- Tyler went with Daddy, which upset Anslie. I told her that she got to stay home and play with girls, but Tyler was going to have to do work with Dad at the farm. She stopped whimpering and smiled. “So…..I get to play with the girls. And I don’t have to work! Great! Pink and cheese, pink and cheese, pink and cheese, I love pink and cheese.” She cracks me up.

Tyler and Anslie who?


I do love this delightful stage of food art at every meal.

June 5, 2012

June 5, 2012

One of my many weaknesses is my desire to live in a “planning,” not “living” world. Planning is so freeing because you can imagine everything happening so perfectly. You have complete control. “Living” your plans is fraught with changes, rain, burnt toast, and tantruming children. And though I say I like to plan, in the past even that has been frustrating to the perfectionist within me because I obsess over too many tiny details, waste too much time, and find myself in a frenzy after hours of drilling too deep into one idea and researching every scrap of information or creative idea on the internet in that vein. Exhausting.

Sometimes I let all the voices on the internet and in my life fill my head with so many ideas that I forget to consult me, who does have some experience with herself and this family. And to consult Him, who knows all.

For the last couple weeks I’ve been working on a summer plan for me and the kids. I can’t say every moment of my planning was effective, or that I didn’t *start* to obsess about things that didn’t matter. But I did try to tune into what I feel my family needs, and let that direct the fleshing out of the plans.

Another weakness of mine is overinvolvement. However, in the last year, the Lord has sent me several walls. Walls so high that they are impossible to climb, with 20 feet of barbed wire on the top. Making it literally impossible for me to keep going at the rate I’ve been going. Sometimes that’s what it takes. I have made drastic cuts in my commitments. Its been humbling. Embarrassing. Disappointing. Relieving.

Our summer plans are simple. Very very simple. I just want to remember how good it feels to tune out the noise, and listen to what I know my family needs. And how simple joy requires lots of space to happen. At least that’s how it seems to work in my life.

Today we woke and immediately hopped on our bikes. The bike ride happened at 7:45 am because the temperature was 75 degrees, which became 95 in a few short hours. An aside -- I got a bike last week!!! We also got a trailer for Tucker.
I never learned how to ride a bike until Freeman spent an entire DAY in our early marriage teaching me. That was 5 years ago, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to stay up. But I did. We rode to a pond in Lantana, and ate our cream of wheat in Tupperware containers.

Lantana is a funny place. It is clean, safe, and beautiful. But people don’t do things like eat a Tupperware full of cream of wheat on a bench by the pond that was meant to beautify a neighborhood, but never really intended for someone to nature adventure around it. Oh well. I like to nature adventure, and I’m getting used to feeling like I do most things differently than the rest of Lantana.

The kids were in heaven. We mooed at the cows in the pasture behind the pond, and tromped around like we owned the place. Biking home, we passed several homes being built. One was having its foundation poured. One was being framed. And another was being bricked out by a band of workers. We parked between the foundation and bricked home and the kids watched the homes come together, one tiny piece at a time. We were there for 10 minutes. We were in no hurry. Then home to scriptures, “fun list” (chores for the day), and free time.

We were headed for the pool when we got a call from a friend, and had to run an errand for my calling.

After that we packed up and went to swim. Lantana really does have lovely pools. Our favorite has a beach entry, is small, and at its deepest is only 4 feet deep. A delightful family visiting from California armed us with waterguns and challenged us to a fight. We were a little rowdy. Tucker toddled around the beach entry, thrilled. He kept bending over and exclaiming "Laler!" (water) and then planting his face in the water and slurping it up. Gross. None of my "Yucky, Tucker, yucky" chidding stopped him. He probably drank half a gallon over 2 hours. We ate an entire pound of pretzels, and large tupperware of watermelon. We only left when we began to drag. We showered, combed our hair, clipped our nails. We had chips and guacamole for dinner, did our big 5 for nighttime, and read a few books. That wonderful heaviness that only comes after lots of physical exertion settled over us, and an hour before bedtime, not one of us could rise from the couch.

I nagged and spoke sharply several times today. I felt whole-body exhausted after swimming and showers. My rice cooker broke and ruined my planned dinner. Two friends from the ward walked through my lovely home that looks like a bomb went off in it. Anslie tantrumed more times that I can count.

But. It was a perfect day. What more could I ask.

It feels so good to feel grateful. I have wasted too much time not allowing gratitude to lift me. Sometimes life seems too hard, to ugly, and I think joy can't possibly exist. That's a lie. Joy is always possible because gratitude is always possible.