Tennessee bound

Each year we take a trip to see my mom's side of the family for our annual Hatcher Family Reunion.  Now, I know family reunions aren't usually fun because you go see people you only see once a year and you sit around and eat everyone's cooking and you hear everyone say how good you look and you put your best smile on and keep thinking when can we leave.  

Well, this reunion is not that way at all.  For as long as I can remember I have been to this reunion and since Jason and I have been together for about 18 years we have only missed 1 of them.  However, it is sad to say that out of the 11 brothers and sisters my Grandmother had, there are 2 remaining (and 1 isn't doing so well).  So, this year we decided to go closer to where my Aunt Yvonne lives since she is the one remaining Hatcher that would be attending.  Off we went to Pigeon Forge since she lives in Oak Ridge, TN.  This was the first time Brody and Trevor had ever seen the mountains so it was going to be an experience as well as the 9.5 hour drive up there.  

We decided to leave Wednesday afternoon and drive up half way and stay in a hotel just to break up the drive.  We ended up driving a little longer than we had originally planned (6 hours) and stayed in Commerce, GA.  It was so nice to be able to stop over and get a good night's sleep before arriving to Pigeon Forge.

Thursday morning after eating breakfast at the hotel and then off to CFA for us to eat breakfast while the kids let off some energy on the play area (what a great idea Jason had), we were off on our remaining 3 hours through the mountains.  I was so excited for them to see the mountains that they slept right through Cherokee, Smoky Mtn National Forest and Cherokee.  I thought about waking them up, but then they would be grumpy and that wouldn't be a fun ride.

We stayed in a very nice 3 bedroom condo with my parents.  Brody was so excited to see his cousins (these are 4th cousins that he only sees once a year, but they have quickly bonded), so they were off for a quick swim before we went to dinner. 

Trevor and Samantha in the lazy river

Dinner at the Old Mill Bakery and Cafe

Samantha and Rachel - Brody and Trevor's 4th cousins from Oak Ridge, TN

The restaurant was FREEZING so it gave me a good excuse to take Trevor out and we went next door to the Old Candy Mill

Trevor was in HEAVEN!!  We ended up buying a pound and a half of salt water taffy.  This is some of my favorite candy ever so I couldn't pass it up.

By the time we finished dinner it was around 9:00 but we still had plans to go go -cart riding so off we went.

Summertime, Summertime

To help us stay cool this summer - and not go crazy with boys in the house - we are spending a lot of time at mom and dad's pool.  Talk about some fun times when 6-8 boys are in a pool.  WOW!!

Here are 4 of the 8 boys - Jude & Tate weren't there and the Trevor and Tucker were off in their own world.

They have so much fun playing water guns, running to the play house, eating, and of course swimming.  It also gives us mom's some time to talk in between making sure the boys are being good.

These 2 are quite funny.  Just floating around in the middle with no cares in the world.

Usually after all of that swimming all of the boys are ready for a good long nap, which is an added plus for us!

Girls Night Out

Once a month (we would love to go more often) for the past several months I have been going off with 4 ladies for a girls' night out.  I am so thankful for a husband who encourages me to go and have fun and doesn't mind watching the boys.

We girls have had the best time.  What is so funny is that 4 of us have 2 boys each and the other girl doesn't have any kids.  Poor Cathy has to hear all of our funny and not so funny parent stories.   And we have some stories since we all have boys and we can all empathize with each other as well as help each other feel that we aren't alone with this crazy boy life.

I was the lucky one to drive this time so this is what my vehicle looks like with no car seats.  My car hasn't been this clean in awhile.

We are so desperate to go out we really don't care where we go or what we do as long as we don't have any kids with us we are happy.  Now don't get me wrong we all love our boys but we just need some girl time.  We have eaten Japanese, fondue, Italian, and this past time we ate Caribbean.

We ate at Bahama Breeze and it was pretty yummy.  After our great food and entertainment with Tara (she is always the life of our group - no telling what she will say), we headed out to get pedicures.  Our first stop, the sign on the door said closed but according to the time they should have been opened.  Maybe they could see our desperately needing toes and feet and said no way could they take us.  Oh well, we headed to a different place and they were more than willing to help our feet out.  They were closing in about 10 minutes but were so happy to help us out.

We had so much fun laughing and being pampered and boy were our feet thankful.

Our beautiful feet.

We ended our fun night with ice cream and Starbucks - now that's a great way to end the night!!!  My goal is usually to arrive home late enough so the boys are asleep - I failed this night and I actually walked back outside and told the girls we needed to go back out because we arrived home too early.

Love these girls and can't wait until we go off again - I think it's time!!

VBS - Backyard style

Last week our church held Vacation Bible School - VBS.  Now this isn't the typical VBS you may recall from when you were young - at least it's not the kind Jason and I went to when we were young.  The VBS was held at 7 locations around our town in order to try and reach kids who may not come to church.  Praise the Lord we had over 130 kids each night.  

The closest location to us happen to be at Doug and Janan's house, which their boys Tyler and Tucker are the same age as B & T and are good buddies.  I was also helping out a little - registration, crafts, wherever help was needed.  Brody was excited to go even though he really had no idea what VBS was.

We had about 20 -25 kids each of the 2 nights I helped out.  The agenda each night was to eat dinner, make a craft, dance, listen and participate in a Bible lesson, and recreation time.  Of course Brody's favorite time was recreation but what little boy wouldn't enjoy slip n slides and running around with his buddies?

Craft time in the garage.  God had his hand on VBS that week because it was supposed to storm every night, but God held the rain off or it rained before every night.

Making a Prayer Log.  Brody loves this because he carries it with him everywhere and writes down things he wants to pray for.  He took it with us to run errands one day and carried it with him into Wal-Mart.  I told him to just leave it in the car but he said he might think of something while we are in there and he didn't want to forget what it was - so sweet.

Jude coloring his rocket

Rocket time

Dance time.  We had the high tech VBS location since Doug had speakers, microphone and some loud music.  Hope we didn't make any neighbors upset because our music was loud and I'm not sure who had more fun dancing - the kids or the workers.

Alex showing off his making a PB&J moves.

Walker and Brody lasted for a couple of songs - Cupid shuffle and electric slide and then they were off to the back yard to play.

Janan taught us all how the Peanut butter and jelly dance. 

Story time by Kasey

Recreation time.

 Day 2 of recreation was a giant water slide on the mound.  Yeah where we live most of us have the huge mounds for our drain fill.  This is a good way to make the most of it.  These kids had a BLAST on it.  Brody must have slid about 30 times.  Christian and Alex pulled them on the slide so I'm sure they got a workout as well.

Even little Tucker wanted to join in on the fun.

Cousins Clay and Jude having a blast.

Brody and Walker - doesn't it look fun?

Tyler had his turn.

Then Brody and Jude.

A little airborn coming down the hill with Greyson.

So the kids were having so much fun it was then time for Janan.

Janan wasn't going to have all of the fun, so Doug joined in.

A fun night of VBS for a bunch of boys.

We are so blessed to be part of such a great church who does things like this for the kids.  On top of the 150 kids we had each night, there were lots of kids who asked Jesus to be their personal Savior, which is what it is all about.  Thank you Jesus for such a wonderful week.

Advantages of being a youth worker

Jason and I have worked in our youth department at our church for about 8 years now.  We currently help in our 12th grade boys and girls.  This is such an interesting age because they sometimes feel too cool to do some of the things that the 6th graders do but aren't quite ready to hit the real world (even though they think they are).  Most of them seem to really enjoy coming to our class because this is the first time since 6th grade that boys and girls are in the same Sunday School class.  We have had some years where they didn't really know each other and have become great friends.  I love how God works.

Jason and I are almost the only helpers that have small kids.  Sometimes this can be hard but most of the time our youth kids enjoy being around our kids and Bro. Todd is so cool in letting our kids join in on everything.  It's like they're part of the youth department.  

Last Sunday evening our church had a huge go out and invite everyone to our upcoming Vacation Bible School event.  Afterwards, the youth had a giant waterslide, basketball, cornhole and pizza event.  We were asked to "watch" the waterslide before everyone got there.  We told the boys we had a surprise but as we drove towards the church - they weren't too excited especially since we told them they had to sit in church for 2 hours (we love to kid them).  Well, as we arrived closer to the church they could see the HUGE waterslide and were so excited especially when they found out they could go down for a little while.

Brody was so excited to have the WHOLE slide to himself even though he wanted Trevor to join him.

Trevor didn't want much to do with the actual slide but he did like the pool area at the bottom.

Don't get too excited because Trevor just ran up part of the slide and slid down - that's how he rolls.

Once the big kids showed up, it was time for Brody and Trevor to come inside so they weren't trampled.

Time for some cornhole

And when Trevor wasn't playing hide and go seek around the gym he was playing with my phone.

Of course they loved the slide and were very sad that they didn't get to go play on it again.  However, they went and jumped in the pool at mom and dad's - that counts as a bath right?