Surprise!! Happy Birthday Brian

Thursday, July 2, we celebrated Brian's Birthday. He turned 29 and so you know how old that makes me. We had:
Brian and Mal
Jeff and I
Tony (my one son people dont know I have)
Kevin and Natalie (he served with Brian in the same mission)
Leah and Mike
Natalie and Mike
Sandy and Norm
Heather and MIke
Jake and Jenna
Eric
I think he was a little surprised and probably would have been more suprised if he hadnt seen the Malibu on the other street.
We had a fun time and just so you know Bri I still think you give the best bear hugs EVER!!!!

Moving, Moving, Moving, Moving!!

I think I need to lay down some ground rules for all of our children!
I thoroughly love helping people move and am ok with going to Oregon, to Sandy, to Wendell, to Midvale, to Taylorsville anytime I possibly can. There is nothing more fun than moving into a new home and making it all your own.
BUT not even a month a go I was in Oregon helping Andrea and Rich move some of their stuff to their new home and organizing. Lindsay is the next to move, and bless her heart she has to do it when Jeff and I are playing at the Grand Canyon (so I am feeling bad that I wasnt there to help her) Sorry Linds! Then Jen and Bill decide they are going to move back to Logan, Utah and so I was up helping her for a few days, its not easy with 3 little kids for either her or Andrea. Natalie and Mike decide they are going to move and so I helped Natalie for a few hours last night. Leah and Mike are moving to a new home and she needs some help moving and especially painting because the color NEEDS to BE CHANGED!! (trust Leah and I on that) :) Being 6 months pregnant isnt the easiest thing to have going on when your trying to move and paint. So she will be my next step.
Now mind you I am not complaining, because I seriously love helping my kids (any one of them) Could you guys just possibly spread it over a few YEARS instead of few WEEKS!!! If you think about it you girls must be high maintenance none of the boys think they need to take move!! I guess Dan and Laura moved too, but theirs is fairly easy for them because they just load up the car as full as they can get it and then take off! We are a storage unit right now though for them and linds:)
You all have to admit for 8 of our children 6 of them have moved within the last 6 - 8 weeks. Thats alot of MOVING!! Any chance you all might considering settling down and growing some roots :)
I hope all of you like your new homes or apartments and that things go well for all of you. I feel so blessed that things are going well for all of us, with work, homes and families. We truly are being blessed!! Just so you know I love you all!!

I have to share this cute story with you about helping Jen pack this last weekend. Saturday Bill had taken Riley and Madison over to their Grandma Kings to play while we packed. Little Lily was sleeping so she stayed with us and when she woke up she would just walk around and HELP us pack. She soon got bored with us and SEVERAL times we would find that Lily had gone over to Jen's bar tried her hardest to climb up those tall kitchen chairs and then proceed to climb up on the counter and either crawl her way over to the phone and pretend to talk to that annoying signal you get when its off the receiver or pretend like she was surfing the web! I helped her find Uncle Blake's website so she could at least look at a real website. She is a crack up!

Visitors last weekend

Friday night I had 3 visitors come and stay with me.
Jen and her two girls came down for a girls weekend while Bill and Riley had a father and son weekend.
A few months ago after Natalie moved out Jen brought her kids down to stay and we were trying to get Riley and Madi to sleep in Blake and Natalie's beds so that Jen could possibly get a good nights sleep with just Lily in the room with her. I told Madison that I bought a pretty bedspread just for her and so I went and showed it to her. Well little did I know what impact that would have on her. Apparently she tells her mom that she has 2 beds, one at her house and one at Grandma Chris's. Well Friday night Jen and the girls and I were driving around trying to get them to go to sleep and Madison pipes up from the back and says "Mom I want to go back and sleep in my bed at Grandma's" We arrive back home and Jen puts her to bed and she STAYS THERE ALL NIGHT LONG. When she is at home in Wendell that is something she WONT do.
So I would say she like's Grandma and Grandpa's house and her very own bed!
One more thing all of the grandkids like is Grandma & Grandpa's big tub! As you can see they seem to enjoy it!

Thanks Jen and Madi and Lily for coming to stay!

Elder Andreasen's Zoo Excursion

Blake sent home his memory card a couple of weeks ago, and one video I thought I would post on my blog because it was too funny. Now you can see why missions are such a learning experience :)

My Trip to Oregon

On June 5th after work I climbed aboard a Southwest flight to go stay with Andrea and her family. Last time I was up in Oregon Jessi was just 5 months old and as we all know kids grow up so fast. So it was fun to go see them and to see their new house and help Andrea get a little more settled in. I think we got a maximum of 5 hours one night and the others were less than that.

When I arrived Andrea and Megan decided to leave me sitting at the airport on my luggage and out on the curb because their shopping at IKEA was more important than picking me up!! I still havent forgiven them for that.

Andrea and i stayed up way late going through their new office and going through OLD paperwork that she had kept from when they were first married. I think we were able to get her office more organized and fuctional. I should have taken before and after pictures. We stayed up late another night organizing her pantry so that it was in order and she could see what food storage she could work some more on.

I had promised Austin and Redden that if they would help babysit Jessi that I would take them to see a movie while we were up there. We went and saw the movie "UP". If you havent seen it, its a must. We didnt see the 3-D movie, but I hear that is the one that you need to see. We all loved it, I dont know how much Andrea actually saw because she was busy keeping Jessi quiet.

Now it comes the time to brag! If you havent heard little Jessi is a "MAMA's GIRL" and she doesnt much care for anyone that is not her mother. I am proud to say that Jessi and I are BFF's. She even cried when I left her in a room. I think her adoration for me came in close to a tie with her mother or at least a very tight
2nd.

We got to watch Redden play a little league game and I was quite proud of him and well he does. He got a great hit over 2nd base and made some good plays on 1st base.

Richard even took a few hours out of his busy schedule to play a card game with us. I know he is a sore loser and so I think that is why they didnt explain the rules to the game until over half way through, was so that I wouldnt have a change at winning. NOT COOL RICHARD!!

Here are some pics of my time up in Oregon.
Thanks, for letting me come and stay. Even though we didnt get much sleep I still had a good time.


Isnt she just adorable!!!

Our Trip to the Grand Canyon

Jeff and I had decided that because he is traveling so much that we should go on a short road trip and since I have never been to the Grand Canyon we thought we would go there.
Jeff suprised me with different places to stay. The first night we stayed in Kanab at this Bed and Breakfast place. It was a nice big room and decorated very nice. It had a huge jacuzzi tub.(that is something that I just love, give me some peace and quiet and a jacuzzi tub and thats relaxation). The very thing that I enjoyed the most Jeff was distraut about. You see Jeff doesnt take baths he only showers. This nice jacuzzi tub had a hose with a head but it rested on the faucet because there was no place to have a shower. The picture below was basically how the tub looked. If you look closely you can see the hose draped over the faucet.

So the dilema was, how does Jeff take a shower? He said it would be great if he was a midget but seeing how he isnt it wouldnt work. So after thinking about what to do he begged me to be the human shower holder. So as Jeff showers away I am the shower head holder. Trust me if I could have taken a picture of it I would have!!! But I will leave the visual to you!
This is the place that we stayed at in Kanab:

We left on Saturday morning for the Grand Canyon and stopped at various places to take pictures. One of the very first places we learned about several different plants or trees that the indians used to heal certain ailments. As some of you might know Jeff is fond of vaseline. Believe it or not I found a tree that I think I might plant in the back yard that has sap that is very similar to VASELINE. That way jeff wont have to buy any more:

We also stopped and bought me a bracelet at one of the stands that the Indians were selling their wares. They had some pretty cool stuff.
The following are some shots of different places that we stopped and this first picture is of the look out tower that was built back in 1932.

This next shot was of a damn that we came to. If you look closely on the bottom left corner there are little boats that look pretty dang small from that far up. I have to admit it kind of freaked me out going across the bridge.

Here are some more shots!

Here are a couple of other shots:
Jeff found a couple of new friends

Then to top off the trip I found something that made me take a flash back to over 20 years ago. I use to make fun of my dad by waving with 4 fingers like the little Anderson Lumber Man did on the side of all their trucks. Jeff and I were driving through Hurricane and saw this parked out in a empty lot:

We had alot of fun and thanks to Jeff's boss we had a really nice steak dinner in Williams, Arizona. We unfolded napkins in the Circle K parking lot and to the surprise to you all, as you can see even though both Jeff and I got close to the edge of the canyon neither one of us pushed each other over!

In all seriousness we had a great time, we visited Colorado City(that was interesting)and alot of talking and driving it was so good to get away, thanks Jeffie McGriddle for taking me to see the Grand Canyon. With you traveling so much it was nice to get away for a few days!! Thanks Hon!

My Trip to Wendell

Last weekend Jeff was already up in Idaho and so I drove up and we met in Twin Falls and went to dinner with Jenni & Bill and their family. We had a really good time. This was the first time that I have seen Riley, Madison, and Lily out tearing up the rode on their motorcyle and fourwheeler. It was the cutest thing ever. Take a look!