Snow Day

So this was our first snow day of the year.  It definitely lived up to it's name!  There is a ton of it out there, so much that it was hard for everyone to keep up with shoveling it!

I enjoyed myself. This is what I worked on on this fine winter day!

 Come on in Christmas.....it's warm in here!

Just a mild indication that my children will NEVER drink coffee

So Mykie had her first experience with a Starbucks today.
It all started last week at middle school in one of her classes. Mykalyn is working on a clay sculpture illustration from one of the pages of her favorite books. She needed some clay which her teacher provided. Well, Mykalyn was doing a terrific job with the clay provided (that's a different story, but she's really good at sculpturing), but needed a little more to complete the job, so she went back to the teacher for more. Unfortunately, he was out of clay.
Somehow they got into a discussion about clay and if Craft Warehouse did or did not have any. So both wanting to be right, a bet was made. I know what you're thinking, "A bet? Isn't Mykie a Mormon?" The answer is YES she is and that life lessons are always being taught. Our job is to learn from the lesson being taught!  Mykie was going to learn that betting could be not enjoyable.
So she bet. The bet was that Mr. Tolkey would buy Mykalyn a soda if she was correct about clay NOT being at Craft Warehouse and on the flip side, Mykalyn promised to buy Mr. Tolkey a COFFEE if he was wrong. Sometimes we are so blinded by wanting to be right, that we don't know what we are doing!
Long story short.....Mykalyn LOST the bet. So she needed to pay up. Mr. Tolkey wrote down exactly what coffee she needed to purchase and she brought the paper home.
This morning, she told me that we needed to go buy him a coffee. I informed her that I would not be buying any coffee. I told her that she would be buying the coffee herself. Originally, I had given her $5.00 to buy more clay at school. She asked me if she could use the $5.00 I had given her for clay to purchase the coffee. I said, "Sure, Mykie. Take the money I gave you for school supplies and use it to pay off your bets." She looked a little pleased with that statement so I clarified that I (unsuccessfully) was using sarcasm and that there was no way that I was going to pay off her bet. She'd have to use her own money.
So I was nice enough to drive her to Starbucks this morning before driving both Jeremy and Mykalyn to school. She asked me to go through the drive thru. I told her "NO! I am not ordering the coffee." I told her that she'd have to go in the store herself, order it herself and purchase it herself. She wasn't too happy, but did it anyway. Jeremy and I sat in the car being happy, Jeremy didn't want to have to go in and "smell the coffee"!
Soon she came out holding the coffee like it was acid. She did spill some on her and the way she acted, you'd have thought she was picking up dog poop with her bare hand! She put it in the cup holder and started to complain about the smell of the coffee house - she was all worried that she smelled like coffee.
So then we have Jeremy in the car who has THE MOST SENSITIVE nose ever created. He had to have all the windows rolled down and he "can still smell it! Gross!" He was worried that he also was going to smell like that "evil substance" all day. All the way up to his school, she and Jeremy were talking about the smell and the way it makes one's breath smell, and wondered VIGOROUSLY why anyone would ever drink something that smelled so bad. It was a little comical, really.
Although it was funny, I have to conclude that coffee drinking will never be an addiction for either of those kids.

Ouch!

So I have been laid up on our couch since last Friday morning. Mykalyn and I went to the gym and did a weights workout on the new Club Max equipment. Then we met Bill Hollenbeck for a little tennis lesson at 10. After about 45 min I was reaching for a ball that bill was sending my way, but my new tenny runners that had about 2 cm more sole on them than my old, beat up tenny runners stuck to the court because I didn't pull my foot up quick enough. As I reached for the ball, my foot stuck and I heard my ankle pop. I thought I could walk it off, but I was wrong. One step and I had to go down. It really hurt. I was trying hard not to cry because I don't think it would have helped and it defiantly would have made Bill feel un-comfy. Mykie was running to get me some ice.
When she came back, I iced it for a few minutes and then decided to head out to the car before I couldn't drive. I came home and was helped into the house by my hard working husband and here I've sat for days.
On Fri and Sat I really only sat on the couch icing it on and off for hours. I will tell you right now that there is nothing on TV.
By Sunday my ankle was doing a bit better and Pam had brought me some crutches on Saturday so at least I could get to the bathroom without crawling or hopping to it. I wasn't going to go to church on Sunday because it was hard just to put my foot down with the blood all rushing to it and causing me some great pain in my CANKLE because it looked like my calf went right down into my foot with no ankle, but Jeremy and Mykie were both speaking on Sunday and I couldn't miss that.
Mike brought me right home after Sacrament Meeting where I feel asleep for about 1/2 hour before everyone else came home. Sunday I just hung around with ice.
Monday was a killer. I was still hobbling around with crutches, but mostly hung out on the couch. My precious children surrounded me on the couch for way too long. I was wanting to wish school back in session. Poor children. It's not their fault that I can't even climb up or down stairs to get a level away from them for just a minute!!!! I just know that being laid up is no fun. And when Mike went food shopping for me (which I really appreciate) he didn't buy me any bon bons for me to eat while sitting on this couch doing NOTHING! I can't wait for my ankle to get back to normal!

Happy 9th Birthday, Brigam!

So we celebrated Brigam's 9th Birthday the day before his actual birthday. He loves the Army right now. He wants to be a soldier when he grows up. That is today, we'll see what happens in the future. But for today, that was the theme. We had some great games for the kids and Mykie and I made the attendees their own Tye-dye army t-shirts with their name on the back and ARMY on the front. Brigam loved them.

Here were some of the games we played.

Boy's playing "Drill Sargent Says". Mykie got to be the Drill Sargent. You know she loved that!

Some participants of the game "Mine Field".


Brigam in the "Mine Field". Watch out!!!!

Photo finish of the game "Rescue Me". The games were so creative for this Army Themed Birthday Party of Brigam's.

Brigam got some great gifts. Most all of them were guns, go figure! He got 3 guns cut out of wood from Eli. His dad cut them. They were so cool. Grampa Mike made Brigam a rubber band shotn' gun. That was super cool.

Hey, watch where you're pointing that thing, Dad!

This boy loves Legos and the Army. What a mix of a gift from Grama and Grampa Anderson. It was perfect!


I had to include this shot of Mykie, Haven and Chloe. They are all three such sweet girls!

Mykalyn and Haven Peterson. She is such a cute little thing (so is Mykie). ;)

Brigam said he had a great time. We had chocolate and root beer cupcakes with airplanes crash landing in them and sweet swamp punch (green Hawaiian Punch). It is the last of my babies to be nine. Next year he will go to double digits. Crazy that they are getting so old. With me still at 28. Hee, hee, hee!

Utah Trip

At the end of June we headed to Utah for a wedding and some R&R. My niece, Shaylei was getting married in the Salt Lake Temple. It was really beautiful. We got down there late, late, late Wednesday night. We left so late on Wednesday, about 10:30 am. Then we went down memory lane in Mt. Home, Idaho. Mike showed us where his work ethic began out on the farm. Then we drove to the sand dunes. This is where Mike thought we'd all want to get out and climb the sand dunes. Um, no, remember we are going to Utah today? We rolled into Camie's house about 11 pm to the waiting arms of Mykalyn who had gone down like 3 weeks earlier to help Camie and Richard with their other children while they were taking care of Xander who was born 6 weeks early.

The next day we went to the Salt Lake Temple for a beautiful sealing. It was an awesome time in there with my brother and sister (in-law).

Shaylei and Steven on their wedding day. Beautiful people!

Beautiful Shaylei and Handsome Steven. The sealing was so special and the reception was absolutely beautiful. I would expect nothing less when my sister in law is in charge!

The next day we went to Lagoon. I don't have one picture to show you. But I will tell you that being an older 28 year old, I was having a tough time hanging on those stomach hurling rides. The water park was really fun as was Pioneer Village. I love Lagoon and it's 1 million times better than Silverwood ANYTIME!!!

The next day we went to Mt. Timpanogas. I was worried because the kids had the opportunity to go to Lagoon the next day for like $10, but they said they'd like to go to Mt. Timpanogas. I was hoping they'd like it and it would be worth it. They had never seen anything like that before, so it was worth it!

My man could pretty much hold up the mountain and everything and everyone on it.

The boys on our hike. We had a lot of fun except when I thought people were getting too close to the edge.


No, it's not what you think. Mykie is actually trying to save his life, not end it off the edge.

OK, this is exactly what you think. Brigam is going to see how loud that slap from his hand will echo.

Cute girls and one geeky little boy. Our way up Mt. Timpanogas.

The Heart of Timpanogas. The camera can never mimic the colors our eyes can see in the cave.

What a beautiful view. Sometimes I miss Utah SOOOOOO much! It was a great hike!

Sunday morning we headed home way early and were home with plenty of time to clean up and relax. I am still confused as to why we leave so late to get there, but return to home so early!

We may never know, but we had us some fun!

Who wants to KANGAROO??? and other stuff.

So this is my Bear. Jer Bear. For those of you that know him, he is UNIQUE. It is true. If you don't know him, you are missing out. He is a great person. At least I think so. I don't know if Chloe thinks so. One of his favorite games with Chloe is "kangaroo". He shoves her up his shirt and pokes her head out his neck hole. Then he proceeds to jump like a bunny or I mean a kangaroo. Poor Chloe, she is such a great sport!!

Here's Jeremy's other new trick. An "Instruction Permit" for my almost 16 year old. He started taking classes for driving. That's a good thing, But about 1 1/2 weeks into the 6 week class, Jeremy was practicing driving in the parking lot with me in my beautiful Pathfinder when he made a mistake. He made the mistake of pushing the gas instead of the break. Not once, but twice. We went up, over the curb and hit right into a light pole at Highland's Middle School.

He hit that thing so hard that the light pole didn't come back on top of us, it was hit in front of us. The arm stayed on the pole, but the light itself broke off and dropped on the top of the car and to the front fender. The glass broke off and some of it cut my arm that was out the open window. I was fine though. Only $2,300 damage to my beautiful Pathfinder. I was so sad. But I was such a good mom. After it was all over, he looked at me and said, "Mom, I'm so sorry!" I said, "Don't worry about it. Are you OK?" I deserve a lot of chocolate for that response. FYI Mike's response to me was not that way. But we won't go into that. Jeremy will have to pay the $300 deductable before he can get his real license when he's 16 in January. He's working on it.

I just had to throw this one in there of Brigam. They had career day at school. They were supposed to dress up as their future career. Can you guess what Brigam wants to be???

Are you stumped? Can't you see that he wants to be an inventor? Yes, this week he wanted to be an inventor. He's so creative, it would be perfect!

Happy 21st Anniversary!

So Mike did something for our anniversary that he has never done before - he surprised me. A few week prior to our June 10th day, Pam called me and told me that Ashley had a doctor's appointment in Seattle. She wanted me to go with her and Ashley. It was supposed to be a girls night out. I was really looking forward to it. A week after that she told me that I needed to bring my swimming suit. That put up a small red flag because I knew from our last visit to Seattle we found out that there was only one hotel in Seattle that had a pool and it was an expensive hotel. I didn't think that we would be staying there! I did ask Pam and Mike about it and they both just thought I was crazy. So I went on believing that Pam and I were headed out Friday morning for our fun girls night!
Friday morning I woke up and found Mike there in bed with me. I was expecting that he would be at work by the time I woke up. I said, "What are you doing here?" He told me that he got me, He had planned with Pam to fool me into thinking that we were headed into Seattle. Instead, he planned to take me to Leavenworth for the night. What a nice surprise!
We left on our way to Leavenworth. It was nice to have one on one time with Mike. It has been a long time since it was just me and him.
So we drove to Wenatchee where our hotel was. We dropped off our stuff and drove on to Leavenworth. This was the first time either one of us had been to Leavenworth. It was somewhere I thought would be a great place to take Mike's Mom since they spent so much time in Germany. Leavenworth is reminiscent of Germany with all the buildings and murals and stuff. Anyway, we showed up in Leavenworth and the first place that we went into was the bakery and we ate THIS!!!

Doesn't that look YUMMY??? It was!



Here's is picture of one of the buildings. They were all like that.
And then they had all these little painted murals all over the place. This one was really cool because the town was saved by a ski jump in the 50's.


I loved these little signs for the bathroom, I just had to include these "his and hers" signs.








So while we were there we decided to do a little hiking. The day was beautiful and not too hot. We hiked where the town's old ski jump was located. We wanted to do a little geo caching up the hill. Mike took us up this "trail". I told him this is a trail for water melting from snow pack. Hello!! This is not a trail!!!

By this point, we were only half way up. CRAZY!!! I found this switch on the way up, but it didn't work.

When we got up there, we did have a beautiful view of the valley. I want to say that it's worth it, I guess I can now because my legs have stopped hurting.

When we got up there, this is a closer view point of the jump. I will tell you that it was crazy high.

Here's my safety man climbing to the top of that rickety old thing!

We had a great time there. After that we went back to Wenatchee and ate some lunch and took a bike ride. It was beautiful out there along the river.

It was such a nice surprise for Mike to do. He knows I like surprises.

Just a little reminder to us all.....

Be your own kind of beautiful!

Multnomah Falls

So for Mike's Birthday we decided to go hike Multnomah Falls in Oregon. We has a great picnic lunch in the car after we drove about two hours to get there. We took Chloe with us thinking that she would love the hike. Well, she did love the hike, but she was trying to be "big dog on the mountain" and barked at every other dog.

The views were beautiful. It was a lot of work. The climb was a little strenous, but with Chloe on the end of the leash, I was able to be pulled up the mountain. I heard a lot of comments on our way up from people coming down saying "That dog's never going to make it." They don't know her too well, do they? She pulled me up and more. She wanted to go faster than she could pull me. By the time we got down, she was one filthy doggie. I decided that she was dirty enough that she needed to take a dip in the stream we passed on our way up. Silly me.

As Mike was looking for a safe way for me to get the stream, I decided to just go for it, which was silly because "safety first" is a good idea. I fell in the stream myself. I am sure that I entertained a lot of on lookers with my atheticism and a fit of giggles. Chloe just thought I was crazy and was in no way doing what I did, but since I was in there, I took her with me.

On our way home, we stoped by the fish hatchery. It was crazy to see how big some of the stergeons were. There was one that was like 70 years old and like 11 feet long or something like that.

Mykie and I enjoyed taking pictures of everything including some pretty flowers.

On our way home, Mike decided to take the "scenic route". We saw a lot of those windmill thingys. Those things were HUGE. Jeremy loved to be like a dog and stick his head out the window. He was really crazy, but that's just Jeremy. I don't know if he was trying to make his side of the car fly or not, but I did get a great shot in the mirror!

Easter 2010

Easter was on Sunday, April 4, 2010. General Conference was this weekend too. It was kind of cold outside and I was really not excited about hiding Easter Eggs, but that's what I have two teenagers for (actually three, but Tyler helping was not an option being in the service of the Lord and all). They were more than happy to hide each other's eggs and each hid half of Brigam's. I think they has so much fun with it!

Here's my cute Briggy with his "golf ball" Easter Basket.

Here's Mykie with her cute little pink ballerina tutu covered basket.

Here's Jeremy. He kind of looks like a hoodlum and all with his hoodie. But look what is in his hand.....it's Brigam's basket......

And here he is showing his true colors. He's running, but at least he doesn't have Brigam's basket in his hand. But look at what is in his hand.....it's Mykie's basket. What is up with that? I guess it's easier to take something already found than to "get your search on" yourself for your own Easter Eggs...

And I had to take photos of these beautiful daffodils in our yard. They were absolutely beautiful! And they were in my yard. Yeah, me with the non-green thumb. OK, I didn't plant them at all, but it's been a year and I haven't killed them yet. Score one for me!

Happy Easter

Brigam gets his Wolf Badge

So our little Brigam was a superstar getting his Wolf Badge in only 9 months. He was awarded his Wolf badge, 1 gold arrow and 3 silver arrows. I am so proud of him. He likes scouts in therory, but the day to day is torture. He wants to do his own thing, like build himself a fantastic wooden thing with nails, hinges, markers and have it count for something (what is it? I don't know). A little bit of that works, but he has to do stuff he wouldn't normally do to make that count as well. Oh well, such is the road to Eagle Scout, right?

This is him. He gives me plenty of affection, as long as there are no eyes watching. In fact, I think he told me on our little errands trip last Monday that he loved me about a gazillion times. One time he told me as I parked the car, as I took the keys out of the ignition, got out of the car and walked behind it that he loved me. That's 4 times in about 30 seconds. I have no question the boy loves me. But showing that physical affection in public is not going to happen without a lot of guilt dished out on my part. Would not kiss me on the cheek even! What a silly billy boy!

This was also the day that I lost my camera. I must have left it at the church house and someone put it into the library. It was gone for about two weeks. I was so sad, but I found it in the library before an early morning Sunday meeting. I was so very happy. This is the first time I have ever lost a camera in my life! But I did finally put all my contact info into the camera case itself. I will NOT go through that again!!! We are reunited and all is good in the photographic world.

Goodbye LOST

So last night was the final episode of one of my favorite (our favorite) shows

LOST

It's the favorite of mine, Tyler's and Jeremy's, although Mykalyn and Brigam watch it with us occasionally.

Our experience with the end of every episode is, "What the heck?! That show is so stupid! I am LOST once again." But each week we come back once again for more and more experience with all those fun characters. I am pretty glad that it did come to an end because I don't know how much longer I could have gone week after week wondering what was up with those writers and trying to figure out what was rattling around in their brains. It was kind of nice because with this show, you really had to think after the show's episode as to what really happened and the fun was to theorize on what different scenes really meant.

Who says TV has to make you brain dead? :)

Now on to the fun stuff - I can't believe that we watched for as long as we did, but on Sunday night, LOST had a 2 hour recap on the previous 6 years of viewing. Then we watched the 2 1/2 hour series finale. We had a great time though (except for when Mykalyn's foot would mysteriously angle over to Jeremy shoulder as he was sitting on the ground and then something would ensue. Complaints and babyishness to be exact.) We had a

LOST Party

Complete with Darma Initiative food. We have photos to boot!

We had Tortilla Chips and Nacho Cheese Dip

We had delicious milk chocolate bars

And Darma Initiative water

My favorite was the LOST cupcakes. They had little cute palm trees on it and Oceanic flight 815 airplanes that crash landed into the cupcake island of LOST. They were yummy and root beer flavored.

It was a surprise for the kids (Briggy knew because we stayed home from Church yesterday because he had a massive ear infection. I needed to tell him something to get the pain off his mind.) They were surprised and were appreciative. That's always a bonus.

It was fun!!!