My kind of tubing

While we were in Arbon after Christmas, the kids made sure that Grandpa would not leave them in the house when he would feed the cows. The kids would ride on the hay wagon and help kick hay off to the cows and horses. Well, after a couple of days, Grandpa got a little creative and hooked up a sled and inner tubes to the back of the feed trailer. As he drove off to the pasture the kids would ride on the tube and sled until we would start to feed.

After the feeding was done, Grandpa hookedup the tubes and sled to the back of the pickup. I hopped on with the kids. Grandpa went out into the field and drove all over creation doing curves and such. My unfortunate job was to fall off the tube any time the kids needed Grandpa to stop. I don't know how I got volunteered for that!

Sweet Sister

While we were in Arbon over the holidays, Alayna had been bushed with all of our fun activities. She and Aliece were watching a movie in the other room. The movie must have been pretty intriguing because when I came in to check on the girls, Alayna had curled up in Alieces lap and fell asleep. Of course Aliece was loving every minute of this extremely rare event. She spent the rest of Alayna's nap rubbing her face and rocking her back and forth. These two sure are great pals.

A Merry Spokane Christmas

As you all know we spent Christmas up in Spokane last year (I am writing this for posterity's sake). It was pretty amazing that all of the Reeds were all able to be in Spokane for the big day. We had a great time with everyone. However, I have to say that three hours to open 146-ish presents is a little long for this guy, but we sure enjoyed ourselves anyway!

Aliece's first time skiing

Just before Christmas, while were were up in Spokane, we all went skiing up at Schweitzer Ski Resort up by Sandpoint, ID. Grandma and Ashlee stayed behind to watch Alayna and Elyvia. We had quite the experience getting up to the slopes that morning. It was storming pretty badly and so the 80 minute trip took us about three hours. By the time we got to the base of the hill there was a lot of new snow and the roads were really slick. We started up the hill but then we had to stop to let a car merge onto the main road. With the loss of our momentum, we found that the van was going no where. The road was so slick and our tires were so treadless that the van would not advance any further.
Since we were not going anywhere in drive, I put on the brakes. That was the wrong thing to do as we started to slowly slide down the hill. There was a small line of cars passing us, and I was praying we wouldn't slide into any of them. Our sliding trajectory then took a different turn and we began sliding down the road sideways. It was pretty incredible. Verne hopped out of the van and pushed the front end so that we were pointed downhill. Once we were in that direction, we were able to then drive down the hill. On our way down we passed a Sanding Truck. We contemplated going up behind it, but I had had enough excitement for one day. We parked at the base of the mountain and rode the shuttle up to the lodge. One our way there, we were stuck behind a delivery truck that had slid off the road and was blocking traffic as snow crews attempted to free the truck of the slick white snow.
Once we got to the lodge, Reed came and took us to Michelle's parents' cabin where we outfitted ourselves with equipment and gear. Verne, Amber, Adee and I escorted the kids down various runs on the bunny hill. I spent most of my time with Aliece. I was glad that she was able to have her first go at the skiing sport. She enjoyed herself in between the times that she was scared that we were going to "fall off the mountain".
Our little ski trip was made possible by the help of MANY people. It was quite the undertaking. We are grateful to everyone that helped us in various ways to get up there with the older grandkids and play in the snow.

She can sleep anywhere

Aliece was really tired on this day. She was upstairs playing in her room for a while. We kind of lost track of the girl because she got really quiet up there after playing. As I was walking to my room to get some things, something caught my eye. I peeked into Aliece's room to find her asleep on her dresser with her feet dangling over the footboard of Alayna's bottom bunk.

Visit to the Post Office

When we were in Arbon on the weekend of the 16th, to speak in church, Dad had to work in the Post Office. I took the opportunity to have the kids go and mail some letters at the post office in Arbon that day so that they could see Grandpa Andersen at his Desk Job :-).

The kids really got a kick out of seeing Dad there. They each bought a stamp and mailed a Christmas card to Joe (He had sent them each a card the week before).

For Christmas, Aylee made a bunch of feathered quills for Grandpa to put at his desk at the Post Office while he works there.

1st Anniversary!

Well, I know it's been a couple months since Dave and I celebrated our Anniversary, but I hadn't written anything about it yet. I still can't believe we've been married over a year now, but it's been a fun one!

We had decided to stay around close to celebrate our Anniversary so it was decided that we would stay in Salt Lake and do some fun things around the area that we've never done before. So Dave got us a place at the Red Lion for a couple nights and also did some research on the internet and decided to purchase a tourist packet that would allow us free access to many fun places. Even though he had to purchase the tourist tickets, we figured it was worth it's deal within the first day.

We both took Friday off work and started our day by going throught the Museum at Thanksgiving Point. We also took a walk throught their gardens and enjoyed the waterfalls, the hedge maze and the beautiful plants around us. Then we met Dad and Mom in Salt Lake for lunch and enjoyed visiting with them for a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun. We went to the Clark Planetarium and looked around there for a while, watched a 3-D movie and also watched a star-laser show. We walked around the Gateway area and watched people. The weather was just perfect to be out.

The next day we went to the Children’s Museum at the Gateway. It looked like it would be a ton of fun if you were a kid. Dave had wished we had a little kid with us so he would have an excuse to play with some of the fun toys :) Then we stopped by Temple Square and got our free lunch at the Lion House and went to the distribution center in the Joseph Smith Building. We then drove up the canyon to Brighton Ski Area and took a Tram ride up the mountain. It was a beautiful ride and fun to look out over the valley. On the way down we stopped at the Aquarium in Sandy and looked at the sea life. I was a bit disappointed in it but I guess they have plans to make a larger one in the future. We went back to our hotel and relaxed and ordered pizza.

On Sunday we slept in and enjoyed the morning. We had brought the top layer of our wedding cake to eat on our first anniversary. So we had that for breakfast and it was actually really good. I thought it would be freezer burned and dried out but whoever wrapped it did a great job! It was chocolate and so moist and had a great flavor. Then we stopped for church at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building before we headed home. It was a really good meeting and added to our special day.

It was a fun Anniversary and fun to celebrate it together. I still can’t believe the time has gone by so fast!

First tooth

Johnathan FINALLY lost his first tooth tonight. He is one of the last kids in his class to start losing teeth. He has been anxious for this day to come for a long time. He was so excited tonight to have Amber and I operate on his tooth and submit the extracted enameled object to the tooth fairy. We'll see how much he gets from the generous flying tooth merchant.

Filmmakers of the Year

The Reflections assembly took place yesterday. Reflection is a PTA program where kids do creativity projects such as art, dance, stories, film, sculptures, etc and apply them to a theme.

Aylee and Johnathan both participated in the program this year. Yesterday they both won trophies for their age group in the category of film production. Each of them had done a film about their favorite places. Aylee also won a ribbon for some artwork she did.

Needless to say the kids were very excited about winning trophies together in the same category. Way to go kids!

Singing in the rain, sleet, snow, hail

On Monday night, Aylee's third grade choir was invited to sing at Provo's "Lights On" ceremony. I twa sa pretty crazy night for weather. I think they only way they got peopleto the ceremony was to have the school kids sing at it so that their families would come. That weather consisted of rain, snow, sleet, etc - not to mention it was cold!

Aylee did a great job and was selected to be one of three children that helped Santa to turn on the lights for download Provo. That was kind of neat.

First Snowman of the Year

We had our first snow this week. The kids took advantage of it and built this snowman. The snow was the deepest or the best, but they were clever and built their snowman by packing snow in a five gallon bucket and then turning it over and keeping its form.

Narnia Nest

We have a reward system established for our family on our family scripture reading. A week or so ago, we reached the goal that said we could buy a movie as a family. The kids chose to get the Chronicles of Narnia movie, "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe". The kids loved the movie. Since the kids liked the story so much, we decided to start reading the entire series of the books to the kids.

To kick this off, a week ago Amber and I told the kids that we were going to create a "Narnia Nest" where we get together as a family in a cozy spot and listen to a chapter or two in the book that we are currently in.


The kids hopped on board more enthusiastically than we originally thought. They drew pictures of the story characters and cut them out and then stuck them onto our bedroom wall where our "Narnia Nest" is located.

We have been having a fun time with this. There are great messages in the stories and we have a good time explaining different things to the kids. We have already completed the first book and are ready to start the next one which is the one the movie is based off of.

Of pee, toilets, and washclothes

"How was your day", was one of the first things that left Amber's mouth when I came home last night around 6:00pm. "Fine", I said, "if you like having someone else's urine shot all over your face." I knew that would get her attention...And that is how I start this blog...yesterday was my day of toilet disasters.

Up until the end of the workday, I had enjoyed myself - except for the fact that I had to go and buy Ramen Noodles to make up for the frozen burritos someone stole from my emergency lunch stash in the breakroom freezer. Above that, however, it was great.

To top of the workday, I went to the fitness center at 5:00 to work off the stresses of the day and hopefully shed some fat and calories. Before starting my routine, I went into the bathroom to relieve myself. As I entered, one of the urinals was unflushed. Normally, I just go to the next one, but I thought to myself, "I'll be a good citizen and flush this one". I proceeded to flush the urinal but to my surprise this bathroom appliance was a little over-eager. It flushed water into the urinal with so much pressure that it sprayed the contents of the full urinal all the way up into my face. I was spitting and sputtering in disgust. I was glad that I had a towel draped around my neck for I was able to quickly wipe my face off.

Within an hour of relating this incident to Amber I was helping Aylee clean up from a chore/job that she did to earn some money. She was cleaning the outside refrigerator in garage. A few months ago, Alayna had taken some blue snow cone syrup and mixed it with some egg yolks from eggs she had broken and made some nasty, hard blue/yellow concoction in the bottom of the fridge. We ahve avoided that mess for quite some time, so when Aylee wanted to know what to do to earn money, we pointed her in that direction. Aylee had just finished and asked if I would dump the durty water from the mop bucket into the toilet. As I was dumping the water, I heard a deeper plop sound go into the toilet. It appears Aylee accidently left one large wash cloth in the bucket which went into the toilet and clogged up the toilet. Hoping to extract the cloth rather than send it to the ocean with all of this year's dead pet fish, I had to stick my hand into the toilet and into the trap searching for the cloth. After a little time I realized that it was of no use. I had to withdraw my soaking hand with toilet water dripping off of it and use the plunger to get the water flowing again.

So, I guess you would say that my day was rather down the drain by that point.