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