Hatch Reunion

We went to California for a Hatch Reunion.  It was very fun and all had lots of fun.

The shuttle from the parking lot to the airport was a huge hit with the boys.

Airplanes are always very thrilling in the beginning.

Since we had woken the kids up early Henry slept on the floor and Lizzy in Charles' arms. 

Uncle David and Aunt Laura made us wonderful breakfasts every day.  The first day was crepes and bacon.  We had bacon every day for breakfast.  It truly was a vacation with that much bacon. 

Since the Hatch family is too big to all stay at Grandma Hatch's home, our family (Grandma Sandra and down) stayed at a house we rented just down the road.  They had lots of fun toys to play with in their gorgeous backyard.

Aunt Colleen brought Eliza's next size of clothes.  Elizabeth was pretty excited and she totally posed for this photo in her new dress.

Lizzy wanted to learn like Charlie. 

They had tons of toys!

Elizabeth cuddling with Uncle David who was trying to help Mommy win Settlers of Catan.

Elizabeth and Sterling were our little twins with their same hair and frame.

 They even beg the same.  Aunt Colleen was feeding them grapes.

Charlie and Gideon had fun hoarding grapes in the corner.

Grandma Sandra gave a wonderful lesson on some of our ancestors in our family history.  Adeline, Lizzy's second cousin, found Eliza's umbilical hernia fascinating.

Our kids transitioned to PST pretty well, but were still some of the first to wake up and start on breakfast. 

Doheny Beach was fun.  The kids didn't want to get dirty at first, but kind of got over it.

Elizabeth took a bit longer than the boys.

Mommy and Grandma Sandra

Mommy and Daddy.

Charles helped the boys make sand castles, but they demolished them very fast.

Mommy and Lizzy.

Lizzy tuckered out and slept under the canopy.

We ate and played minute-to-win-it at the church in the cultural hall.

Elizabeth and Sterling had fun being together.

Lizzy being cute!

The kids played with extra cups from the games.

The first game was to get five people, hands tied together, to all eat powdered doughnuts the fastest.  Charlie did great, but Henry didn't want to eat it.  Henry told me afterwards in a very sad voice, "Mommy, I wasn't hungry."  I guess he ate too much dinner.

The second game was to stack the cups up and then take it down again.

The third was to shoot marshmallows through pvc pipes at a tower of cups to knock them all off the table.

Gideon, Charlie, and Henry spent a lot of time together.

 The boys ate a snack in Great Grandma Hatch's kitchen.

Elizabeth helped grandma Sandra play Rage.

Charles grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for everyone.

Lizzy hung out with Uncle Nathan after a nap.  That seemed to be the only time she hung with her uncles.

Charlie chatted with his cousins once removed during lunch.

Eliza scarfed fruit and soaked her shirt.

Four generation photo!

Our flight home was all night.  Henry slept on the floor, Charlie across two seats, and Lizzy in Charles' arms.  There was some bad turbulence so we put the boys in their seats to buckle them up and they just kept sleeping.

The kids were pretty messed up on Monday and Tuesday so they put themselves to sleep around the house.

Cheat Sheet for Helping You to Start Your Family History

I (Annette) am our wards' family history consultant and am loving my calling!  Our ward is not really into family history.  I get many repeat questions so I finally put this together.  I am sharing it so it is available to anyone else.  I have it on a Google doc, so if you would like access to the continually updated version (I still have more to add) I will share it with you.  If you have something to add to it let me know.

Cheat Sheet for Helping You to Start Your Family History

by Annette Martin

How to access your free Ancestry.com, findmypast, and MyHeritage accounts:

https://familysearch.org/blog/en/create-free-account-familysearch-partners/

What is the differences between the family history site:

FamilySearch.org

- LDS church site

- where to request temple ordinances

- anyone can change your tree since it is one world wide tree

- can perform research

Ancestry.com

- NOT LDS site, partnered with the church

- you have your own personal tree

- people can look at your tree but not touch

- can perform research (greatest amount of info)

FindMyPast

- NOT LDS site, partnered with the church

- you have your own personal tree

- people can look at your tree but not touch

- can perform research

MyHeritage

- NOT LDS site, partnered with the church

- you have your own personal tree

- people can look at your tree but not touch

- can perform research (specialize in foreign research)

What to do with PAF files:

Ancestry.com accepts and will easily upload PAF files.  It will convert it to a GEDCOM file which can then be uploaded to many other family history sites.

Where is the closest Family History Center and what are their hours:

You can find the closest Family History Center at FamilySearch.org.

When I am available to help you with your family history:

- After church in the family history room. I will need prior notice.

- Weekdays during the day, at your home or mine. I will have my kids

- Weekdays in the evening, if at your home I get to leave my kids with Charles.

How to Index:

Download the Indexing program from FamilySearch.org and follow their directions.

Explore the program and look at its features.

For more help here are some tutorial movies:

Quick Start to Indexing

Indexing Training - Getting Help

Ways to start into family history without doing research for unfound people:

- sign up for FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, findmypast, and MyHeritage

- learn how to use the websites (I have only really learned FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com)

- upload any trees that you have access to (PAF files can be uploaded to Ancestry.com)

- familiarize yourself with any trees that was given to you

- look at a fan tree (available on FamilySearch.com) and see what family lines are the shortest

- learn about an area your ancestors are from (FamilySearch.com and Ancetory.com have wiki pages)

- if you have a tree uploaded look at the research suggestions/hints

- see what you can find about yourself on the websites (you may find yourself in censuses, yearbooks, city directories, marriage index)

- collect information and photos around your home

- collect information and photos from relatives (if they don’t want to give it away ask for a scanned copy)

- on Ancestry.com find other people who are looking up your same relatives

- on FamilySearch.org put a Watch on ancestors you want to spacifically follow

- interview relatives

- write your own brief history

- ask others to write a brief history of themselves

- work with FindAGrave or BillionGraves to upload photos of headstones in cemeteries

- scan your family history documents/photos and upload to ancestry

- share what information you collect with your family

- learn all you can about a specific ancestor in your line

- look through your FamilySearch.org tree to make sure everyone has their temple work done

- correct any mistakes in FamilySearch.org

- see if your tree on FamilySearch.org goes farther back than you think

- if you find new names on FamilySearch.org, try to contact those people who added them and see if you can learn more from them

- create a way of organizing your documents, both paper and digitally (I use drive.google for my digital files)

- create a way to organize your goals and what you are currently working on either on paper or digitally

- keep a digital document of online sources you have searched and any notes about those sources

- index names

How to start on researching family members:

1. Write down who you are going to research

2. Learn about the location of where the ancestors lived

3. Look to see what records are available and under what municipality they are located

4. Look for the records

What to do if your parents won’t give you family history information:

When parents won’t give you information about themselves or their parents it can be very frustrating.  If you have their name and location of where they were born, you can begin searching for their birth certificate.  You may have to contact the authority over which the birth certificate is held since many will not be digitized for a period of time.  If you are their child you have authority to access their birth certificate which will then give you info on their parents.

Counters, Baseball, & Lake Tobias

Note: If you are going to send us money please only do it in check form.  The USPS system here in PA seems very feeble.  We often get our neighbors' mail and have not gotten quite a few important pieces of mail that were supposedly sent.  We have also heard this same problem from others.  So if you send us money, please do it in a check and we will make sure to always let you know when we got it.  Thanks.

We painted our bathroom counters.  Yes, counters, not the cabinets.  The cabinets are next.  There is this really cool product that you can spray on your counters that gives it a new white coat that is nice and hard.  Our counters were those old type of cheep counters that were yellowing so it was a nice inexpensive way to update it.  Here is the after photo.

Here is what a straight road in PA looks like.  And yes this is actually more straight than other roads which have 90 degree or more turns.

We went to the Harrisburg Senators minor league baseball game with our stake and Charles sang.  Sorry about my bad video ability with the kids.

Lizzy loved dancing to the music between plays and clapping when everyone else clapped.

We went to Lake Tobias and saw all of the fun animals.


Lizzy was very tentative with the animals and had a few blood curdling screams when the animals came to close.

It took her some time but tentatively she touched a baby miniature goat's back when the head wasn't near her.  We obviously don't have many animals.

Mini deer

Alpacas

Pony

The boys pet the camel.

The camel was more fun from afar according to Lizzy.

  

Charles got Annette a new cell phone since he was tired of hearing stories about her phone being dumb.   It has a super nice camera on it.   Here she is using the selfie mode so she could actually have a photo of herself with an animal.

It's a great camera!

Annette thinks Henry is adorable in this photo.






There was a reptile house where there were lots of cool things to touch.  Like the tortoise/turtle shell.

Pythons.  The kids were so brave.  Annette wouldn't touch it, but she made Lizzy.

Alligators.  Lizzy and Henry weren't too hesitant, but Charlie knew what was on the other end and didn't trust it.

Snakes! 

There was a fun reptile show that we got to watch.

Tigers! 

I love that the zebra decided to eat the other one in the photo.  How childish :)

Bears!

Alligators!

We had to stand in a really long line for the safari tour and Charles did a great job helping feed and water the kids with minimal spillage. 

 We went on the safari tour to see many of the animals that you couldn't see otherwise.  It was really fun.

Elk

Scottish Irish cows.  They were super pretty.  I bet they make great cheese.

Texas longhorns and a few other types of cows we can't remember.

Here are all of the male deer.  They don't like hanging out with the ladies.

These are zedonks.  A combination of a zebra and donkey.

Bison.

We tuckered the kids out sufficiently.  Unfortunately the kids got a good enough nap on the way home that they were then awake super late having a party in their bedroom.