Happy Birthday Dad!!

We had a great time this weekend celebrating Dad's birthday. Although Dad was able to enjoy most of it with us, there were a few key moments he missed out on.

I guess when you get to be over 55, you just can't make it through ALL of your birthday party. We had to split the party up into little bits here and there so the old man could take it all in strides.

Going under the knife

Yesterday I met with the back specialist for an assessment of the options ahead on my disc problems. After reviewing the MRI films and the prior treatments that I have had, we decided to go ahead with the surgery. I was somewhat relieved to hear that surgery would not be including the fusion of discs in my back. I have two herniated disks, but one is minimal and not causing any problems. The other one is still small, but it is the one that is pinching the nerve to my leg - causing all of the problems.

The doctor will be trimming a bit of the vertebrae and protruding disc to let the nerve return to it's proper place without obstruction. He said that it will require an overnight stay and some bedrest for about a week. After that, I will need to be really careful with what I do for about six weeks. Also, he mentioned that I could have some permanent nerve damage to my leg that I will have to live with for the rest of my life. But he believes it will be managable and that I should be able to participate in most activities that I enjoy as time goes by.

The surgery is scheduled for Feb 27. We are hoping to close on our house around that time two. So, it is going to put a lot of things a little tight, but it is well worth it.

Piss and Valentine's day

Grandma Reed sent the kids some Pezz dispensers and Pezz candy for Valentine's day. The kids thought that was really cool. They had one packet of Pezz consumed within ten minutes. Alayna set the Pezz candy aside however, and stole a big sucker that one of the kids had given to me for Valentine's Day. She walked arouond the house with the big ball of sugar in her mouth. The sucker was so big, however, that she couldn't swallow the saliva in her mouth, and she got a huge 10cm diameter sugar-spit mark on my pants and on the couch before I knew what was happening.

Johnathan was exercising his reading skills by reading the Pezz package. After reading the package outloud he told us he wanted to thank Grandma Reed for the "Piss" that she sent to them. Obviously we need to work on his reading & phonetics a little bit more.

Going, Going, Gone!

Well, our offer was accepted today - we just need to fill out the paperwork!!! I told Amber that this was her birthday present :-).

We're pretty excited about it. It is on an L shaped street that does not have any through traffic on it.

We won't be moving in until end of April most likely as the family is building a new home and wishes to wait until it is done before they move out.

We just need to fill out the paperwork and then we will be done. Wish us luck!

Get together in Provo

This last weekend, Mom, Janae, and Joe all came down to Provo for a weekend of fun. The three of them arrived in Provo around 11pm (I believe) and stayed the night at Jen and Dave's place. That happened to be the place where Dustin stayed the night as well. Shantell and I just stayed at our place by ourselves ;).

In the morning, everyone came to my place and we had pancakes and hashbrowns. Shantell and I really enjoyed having everyone over and hosting our little breakfast. We had 9 people there. It's the first time since we finished our house that we've had more than 4 people there. It was fun to chat with everyone and swap stories. There was a pushup contest. Janae won out of the girls and Jacob won between the boys :) ). We also did hand stands where Mom took the prize for standing on her hands the longest without falling. I had no idea she was so good at handstands.

After breakfast (which should probably be called lunch at this time) the girls went shopping and Joe and I worked on our computers. Then we went to The Work and Glory part II. It was really good. Shantell and I had been wanting to see it for awhile and it did not disappoint us.

It was so fun last Saturday. I invite the family (including Dad next time if he can) to come down more often. We had a blast hanging out. We really should do that more often.

I have no idea why I am the one blogging this. I have no idea how the reception went or anything that went on at Jen and Dave's place. Joe, Jen, Nae, Mom.....you guys may add to this blog if you wish.

It's time to start working out again!

Hello everyone. It feels like I am slowly losing touch with what is happening to everyone as I am sure that others feel the same way about me. It has been quite a while since I have blogged an update on my family.

First of all, I just want to tell everyone that familyworkout has been updated and improved! It still has its little glitches but I hope to have them worked out before too long. It is better, however, than it was in the past. It's quite a fine site I might say :). I would like everyone to begin to log their workouts again on this site. I know that Mom, Jen, John, and Shantell have been working out, but only a few have been logging their exercise time. This site is a powerful too to see progress and regression over different periods of our life. The address for the workoutzone is http://workoutzone.net . You can also access it the usual way from the andersenranch website. It would be good for our health if we would exercise a little more and track our progress :).

Things have been good for Shantell and me. Our life has slowed considerably since the move and improvements to the house were complete. Things are getting busier, however, now that I'm full swing into a new semester at school. I am hoping to finish my prerequisite classes by August and start the Utah State MBA program in September. I have enjoyed doing these courses simultaneously with John. It makes it a lot more fun. It does feel like school will never end, though!

Oh, and for a funny story to tell. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night laughing or (very seldom :) ) crying. I tell Shantell every time that it happens and she thinks it's pretty funny. Well, last night I did it again. I woke myself up laughing.
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A few minutes later, however, I heard Shantell laughing in her sleep :). I told her about it in the morning, but she doesn't believe me yet :).

Long Night in Pocatello

Last night Nicole and I broke up.

Long Night

Aliece has been doing much better today - she has still been cranky, but she has been awake, eating, going to the bathroom, and playing. It was good to see her greet me when I came home from work this evening.

While we were eating dinner, however, Amber and I both noticed that Aliece's lips were very dark - nearly black. Amber pressed on her hands and arms and observed that the color was a little slow getting back.

Amber decided to call a nurse and see what she thought. There was no question in the nurses response, but that we were to bring her into the after-hours care center.

I stayed home with the rest of the crew while Amber hauled Aliece off to the hospital. After three hours, a pneumonia scare, and some x-rays, they decided that Aliece is just fine. I guess they were worried that sometimes when a child get's ill their body is weakened and they can catch pneumonia easily. According to the x-rays though, she didn't have pneumonia. They assume that it is just that Aliece's body is still not up to par as a healthy child, but she should get there in a day or two.

Amber says that Aliece did really well at the hospital. They got back home just after 10pm.

Snow Angel

Alayna must have loved her little stint outside playing in the snow on Friday. Yesterday I stayed home from Church to watch Aliece since she was still sick. Alayna stayed home with me out of convenience.

I was doing something in the kitchen - probably making a sandwich, and Alayna kept coming over to me holding this stocking cap up to me and grunting. I would put it on her and then she would walk over to the patio doors and try to put the snow boots on. She never got them on, but soon she was back over to me with a large polar fleece type shirt. She did the same grunting noises and so I put the shirt over her head so that it fit around her neck and on her shoulders. After that she went to the patio doors and stood there for many minutes grunting and trying to open the patio doors. There was no doubt that little girl wanted to go outside and play in the snow. She was pretty bummed when I did not go over there to help her get out in the white stuff.

What is this stuff?

Yesterday morning we got our first real snowfall of the year. It was the first (and possibly only) time this winter that I had to shovel the sidewalk. It was really wet and heavy snow too.

After the kids got home and I got done with work, we headed outside to play in the white stuff. By then the snow had crystalized and we couldn't get the snow to pack at all for snowmen, but we had a great time doing snow ball fights instead.

Alayna made it out for the first time in a snow suit to play in the snow. She wasn't too adventurous in it as she mostly stayed in one place and watched us all play. After a while she decided that it looked good so she stuck her face in the snow - man she quickly repented of that!!

Aliece, sadly, was unable to come out and play with us. On Wednesday, Amber caught her filling up the toothbrush holder in the kids' bathroom and drinking the water out of it. She got on her case and told her that it would make her sick. A few hours later she was sick. We don't know if it really was from that, but we tell her that it was so that she doesn't do it again.

Anyway, we are getting kind of worried for her. She is unable to keep anything down, and thus has not been able to drink liquids since Wednesday afternoon. Amber will call the doctor's office today to see at what point we should worry about dehydration. Hopefully she gets better soon enough to play in what remains of our "winter".

Mmmmm, Mmmmmm

On Monday we had a family day with the kids. Amber took Aylee shopping and I took the other kids to run some errands. Then we rented a movie and watched it with the kids. For dinner I cooked up some of that lamb Dad got for us. I barbequed the chops and ohhh...they were good. The kids all seemed to like the new kind of "chicken" (as they call all meat). Thanks Dad and Mom for the meat. It is good stuff!!

This would have never happened with our first child

I had to leave work early today because Aylee had a choir practice that I had agreed to take her to. The plan was that I would arrive at 4:30, pick Aylee up and take her to the practice.

It was all going well. I left work just in time and arrived at the house at 4:29. When I pulled into the drive way I saw Aylee playing with a bunch of friends in the neighbor's front yard. I thought Aylee knew the plan, so I just rolled down my window and told her to get in so that she would get to the practice on time. I kind of hurried her on her way into the van. She hopped in and away we went.

When we got to the church, it was locked and we walked around to find an open door. Finally, we found one on the other side of the church, so I left Aylee there and then returned home.

When I got home, Amber was visiting with Ellen Kosmicki, so I took an opportunity and visited with her also. It was not long after that Ellen had to leave. Amber and I visited about a couple of things and I opened the mail and read over some of the bills and such.

After 20 minutes had gone by, Amber suggested that I go to the Church and wait for it to end so that Aylee wouldn't have to walk home in the dark. I was shutting by bedroom door. I saw Aliece in her room and Johnathan in the living room playing on the computer. As I got my things together to go get Aylee, I asked Amber where Alayna was. Busily working, Amber just stated that Alayna was playing with Aylee. There was a big pause by the both of us after she said that...and then the panic ensued.

"You mean, you didn't see Alayna when you picked up Aylee", spurted out of Amber's mouth. Quickly following, "You mean Alayna was supposed to be with Aylee?!?", were the words out of my both while the two of us rushed out the front door.

We hurried on down the street, looking on both sides of the street and into backyards as we nervously hastened our search. Luckily it was only a few feet from our driveway that we noticed a conglomeration of five, six, and seven year old neighbor kids huddled around a green jogging stroller. I spotted her right away. Alayna was in the jogging stroller with her blanket and baby doll, and all of the neighbor kids were playing with her as if she were their own baby.

When I got there, they all said, "Aylee left Alayna here, so we were taking care of her". I thanked them all profusely and in relief, we both returned home.

I always knew that our parents got more lax with the younger siblings than they had been of us. I guess we are falling slowly into that same pattern.

It always helps to live in a neighborhood with good neighbors....and their seven year old kids!

Wow! All I can say is Wow!

This is what we got in the mail today. This is the back of the envelope. The Letter, it appears has been blessed. It came with a 10x16 paper prayer rug that you are supposed to kneel on. You say a prayer and when what you prayed for comes true, you mail the prayer rug to the original sender. Interesting... As for me, I'll continue my prayers on the carpet.

I do have to admit though, these people are not selling anything. They just want you to use it, mark on a piece of paper what blessings came to you for using it, and send it back (return postage is even paid).

For those of you who hate skiing...

Tonight I went to mutual to be with the youth of the ward for a little while. It was the joint activity, which means all the young men and young women meet together for the activity. Tonight we were making Ginger Bread houses and having contests between them all.

While I was observing the ginger bread houses, I noticed a cast on one of the young men. I asked him how he broke his arm. He told me he got it while skiing earlier this week. Apparantly, it was very foggy, which causes frost to accumulate everywhere - including the chair lifts. He was on the chairlift by himself, sitting on a frostly seat. A blast of wind came up and tipped the chair a bit. Because the chair was so slippery, off he went. He said he fell some 25 or 30 feet to a scary terrain below. He landing first on his feet and then fell to the ground on his stomach. His arm was between the ground and his stomach. The force was such that it broke the arm.

So, for those of us who aren't going skiing in this year, just be glad that you won't be taking that sort of risk. :-)

Unexpected Stop

Our family headed up to Spokane to join the crew on Wednesday, Dec 28. It was rainy pretty much the whole way, so it made the roads even worse for seeing clearly. It was about 10PM and we were about 15 miles west of Missoula. As we came around a corner I noticed a couple of clumps of something in the road. I didn't want to take the chance of sliding on black ice by swerving, so I opted to hit one of the debris.

As soon as we hit the object we heard air bursting out of the front driver's tire. We slowed and pulled off to the side of the road and sure enough, our tire was as flat as could be.

I got out and changed the tire in the misty rain while passers-by sprayed even more water on my backside as I leaned over to work on our third flat tire for the year. I got the donut tire on and after about 20 cold minutes we were on our way again.

I didn't dare take the van through the two mountain passes on the 180 mile stretch that stood between us and our Washington destination. We also discovered from all of our tire information pamphlets in the jockey box that there was a Big-O tire store in Missoula. We had purchased the tire from Big-O and hoped that it would be under warranty.

Once we got to Missoula, we drove around to try to find a hotel we could afford. We were discouraged by the 70+ dollar price tag on the first hotel, but were elated when Holiday Inn said they were having a special for just under $50.00.

We bedded the family down in the hotel room and tried to get some sleep. Amber and I struggled to get much sleep since our adrenelin has been running in overdrive from the flat tire. But, we eventually fell asleep.

I got up about 6:30 and headed to the nearest Big-O tire store. They opened up the doors about 15 minutes early for me so our tire was replaced at no cost by 7:10AM.

I picked up some breakfast food and headed back to the Hotel. Everyone was still sound asleep, so I whispered to Amber to call me on my cell phone when they were up and we would get ready to go.

I did some odds and ends for a few minutes, but then decided to do a litle geocaching in Missoula while I waited for the crew to return to conciousness. I got a couple of caches in and became a lot more familiar with Missoula than I had ever been.

The unexpected stop in Missoula went well overall, and by the time we were getting in the van and heading out to Spokane everyone was in good spirits and ready for the short three hour segment that would bring us to our destination.

Cory Don Andersen

Troy and Linda had their baby on Christmas day. His name is Cory Don Andersen. He sure looks like a little tike when then placed him in this Christmas stocking.

Finally been accepted!

Well it looks like after two and a half months I've finally been accepted into the family, I've now been given an account in the family blog. Thanks John for sending me an invitation.

We really enjoyed being in Arbon for the Christmas holliday and spending time with all of you; it was sure hard to break away and come home yesterday. We kept saying "if we could only stay one more day"; Jen could have, but I didn't think I should since this will be my last week of Junk. So we made the hard trip back through the snow and rain and icy roads (with the piano in back), the whole time dreading going to work the next day. This morning I woke up at 4:30am got on the bus, then trax, then the bus, then walked to a junk truck, then drove to the office, to get there in the nick of time at 8:00 only to find no one else there. When I called Grant (the new manager) he said they had already left to do the morning jobs, and that they would have waited for me but he didn't think I was going to be home until tomorrow...

We apreciate all you're love and support, and look forward to seeing you again soon.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Well, he came, just ask the wee ones at our house. With the help of a digital camera and a little photoshop, Santa Clause got his picture taken in our house on Christmas eve. The evidence was on the table on Christmas morning next to the crumbs on the plate the kids left for the Jolly old elf.

Life Stinks!

Aylee got the game of life from Jen and Dave for Christmas. They wanted to play me and mom. Of course at the beginning of the game, Johnathan declared,"Let's have Dad come play so that we can whip him." I thought I had life figured out, so I took on the challenge.

I hate the game of life. I chose to be an accountant, because Aylee beat me to the punch at being the computer specialist. Aylee earned 90,000 per year and got 50,000 every time someone spun the spinner off of it's track. I had just finished my USU Accounting class, so I felt that accounting would be a reasonable alternative. Not so!

My Accounting Salary was $20,000 - I was the lowest paid player of the game. By the time the game ended, Aylee ended with over 1.7 Million dollars with Amber and Johnathan trailing somewhat behind with over a Million dollars themselves. Me? I barely cleared all of my debts,lost money on my house, turned in my expensive insurance policies that did me no good the entire game, and sold my stock - yielding me a lean retirement of about $300,000.

What a dumb game! :-)

Sorry!

The game that Johnathan got for Christmas was "Sorry!" To my knowledge I don't think the kids have ever really played that game. We got it out and started playing on Saturday. The game was going well until the first Sorry! happened - I sorried Johnathan. As soon as he realized what happened, he broke out in his Bass pitched wailed and tears started just streaming down his face. He couldn't believe what I had just done to him.

Amber and I laughed about it and finally got him to understand the game. We did pretty well until Aylee got Sorried when she was close to getting into her "home" zone. Before we knew it, Aylee had her head buried into her hands as she non-chalantly prostrated herself on the edge of the table.

In the end, Aylee did win the game, thus renewing her enjoyment of the game. I never knew that the game was such an emotional roller coster. So whenever you're in town, and want a good laugh, come on over and invite our kids to play a round of Sorry! Who knows, you might be wiping away a sniffle or two yourself.