Getting the room ready

We are trying to get ready for the arrival of our new daughter.  The due date is August 21st.  That is just three weeks away.  We still have a few things to do but one of the main items on the list was getting the room ready.  With Tyler and Lauren’s help, we painted the room pink.  Then, my talented Mother-in-law did a decorative “A” on the wall.  Not sure how she does the things she does.  She is very talented! 

The “A” on the wall might stand for “A”nderson, but it is actually the first letter of the name we chose for our little one.  I think I will make you wait until she is born before I announce her name.  Or, you could ask Mere or one of the kids and they will tell you.

BBQ in Vancouver with Family

On Thursday night we headed over to Uncle Steve and Aunt Liz’s house for a BBQ.  Martin was in town as well as Spencer and Susie and their family.  It was so much fun to hang out and catch up with everyone. 

We haven’t seen Spencer and Susie for a VERY long time.  They have a beautiful family and Lauren and Ashlyn loved playing with them.  I think they jumped on the trampoline the entire time together.  When it was totally dark we decided to go in the house and their feet were so dirty.  They each took a turn at the sink getting their feet washed.

Grandmother and Ron were also there and it was good to see them and see how they were doing.  My Grandmother always looks so good.  I don’t think she owns any “relaxed” clothing like sweat pants or anything like that.  As you can see from the picture below, she always looks beautiful and so well put together.  She doesn’t like to get her picture taken, but we didn’t give her a choice.

I think it was been seven years or longer since Martin, Spencer and I have been together. 

Mart always hit it a mile with that nice, easy, relaxed swing of his.

These photos were taken by Rachelle.  She has one of those “nice” cameras!  Check her blog soon for photos from this BBQ.

Tyler and Zach play so well together.  They are such good buds.  We played a lot of baseball in the backyard and hopefully Rachelle will post some of those pictures.  Zach ended up coming home with us to spend the night and Lauren went home with Rachelle and Ashlyn to spend the night.  I am so glad we have cousins close by.

Thanks for Steve and Liz for getting us all together.  We had such a great time!!

Another Baseball Season

Tyler had a great season playing baseball.  I wish the season was a little longer as he was seeing success in hitting.  He is a very talented boy who loves to play baseball.  He played a lot at second base, short stop, third base and center field.  He is fast so coach liked to have him in center field because he could cover a lot of ground quickly.  I am proud of him and the progress he makes as he works to improve his skills.  We are looking forward to next year and another great season.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate a little more.  We had a lot of rain during the season, but that is what you get when you live in Oregon.

Team party at the Sherwood YMCA.

This short video clip is from one of their best games.  They ended up losing in the bottom of the last inning, but Beaverton was ranked #1 and we just about beat them.

Note to self: take more pictures next year!  We finally have a better camera now, so I expect to have plenty of good pictures going forward.

Best Buds

Alice and Tyler are cousins and best friends.  You wouldn’t have thought that when they were 3 years old and beating each other up.  However, now they are really good friends and they love to do things together.  They love hanging out at Grannie and Papa’s house.  Here they are showing me that they can use the canoe with out any adult helping them.  They have so much fun together!

The Oregon Trail

Tyler and the other fourth graders learned about the Oregon Trail this year.  That is a pretty important piece of the history of Oregon.  You can read all about it here or just ask Tyler and I am sure he can fill you in on some of the details.

As part of this project, the kids are divided into groups and they are required to put a wagon together and dress in the appropriate attire that was used back in the mid 1800s.  Then they go around the neighborhoods and stop at different posts.  At some of the street crossings they would have to carry their wagons across.  The pictures show Tyler and his group passing our house on their way back to the school. 

Girls Camp 2010

Well, where do I start?

This week was girls camp for the young women in our ward.  We had 21 girls go this year.  Thursday night was Bishopric night.  This give the Bishop and us counselors a chance to play games and have a good time at the camp.  Last year was my first time going and I had a wonderful time.  I was looking forward to this year as I had a better understanding of what goes on.

The plan was for me to meet up with Bishop Milne at his office in Portland.  There we would ride together to the camp in Washougal, Washington.  As I arrived at Bishop’s office, he let me know that two of our ward members had passed away and that he would need to stay here and visit with those families.  So, I took his car and headed to Girls camp on my own.

I arrived just in time for all the festivities.  We played a lot of games and most of them involve water.  I think the whole goal is to get the bishopric as wet as possible.  Luckily I brought a change of clothes.

Here the girls were throwing cups full of water and I was to catch it in the red bucket.  We were competing against Woodhaven ward to see who could collect the most water.  However, some of the girls wouldn’t throw the water in a way that I could catch it, they would just throw it right at me!!  I was pretty wet right after the first event. 

Gotta love the old hula hoop relay game.  Good times!

This was a fun game of tag. 

This picture was taken right before I fell down.  I couldn’t stop myself and my shoes provided little traction and down I went.

Our ward dominated in the tug of war.  Nice how they wanted the Bishopric up front in an attempt to drag us into the water.

This relay involved the pictured garbage can with a lot of holes drilled in it.  Half of our girls worked to plug the holes with their fingers and the other used the buckets to try and fill it up.  Madeline sat in the can to try and plug some of the holes.  We won this race easily!

Then the water fight happened.  I took notes and made sure I got even with some of the girls that enjoyed getting me wet.  All in all it was a lot of fun.

The cease fire was called and it was time for dinner.  It should be noted that the food was amazing!!  Let’s just say that it isn’t the same as the food at scout camp!

Each ward introduces their Bishopric at campfire.  They do this in creative and embarrassing ways.  This year the girls bedazzled hard hats and tool belts for the Bishopric to wear while they sang a song to the tune of Bob the Builder with the lyrics “Bob the Bishop”.  They did a great job with the song.

At campfire, the girls created a game called Bishop’s Feud. (Similar to Family Feud)  They surveyed all the girls in the camp and asked them questions like:  What is your favorite color? Who is your favorite music artist?  Who if the best looking celebrity?  What brand of shoes do you buy? etc.

Then it was our challenge to try and guess the answers.  It was a lot of fun and we all learned that we really don’t know enough teenage girl pop culture. 

To determine who would be in the speed round, they wanted us to do a dance off.  They started playing some dance music and wanted us to all dance and the best dancers would be selected for the final speed round.  I can do a lot of things, but dancing is not one of them.  I was standing there thinking I am NOT going on stage.  Bishop Dixon, who dances very well, was up on stage tearing it up.  Then, some girls from our ward show up at my side and they were telling me that I had to get on that stage.  I politely let them know that Brother Anderson doesn’t dance!  They didn’t care.  They pushed me on the stage.  So, I “danced” and luckily two other Bishops came on stage to give it a try.  I was not selected for the final round, but when I went back to sit with the girls in our ward, they were all giving me high fives and told me good job.  They were being way too nice.  Then one of them says, “You were a little stiff up there.!”  Gotta love honesty!! 

After campfire, I was able to meet with our girls and share a spiritual thought.  I also brought ice cream with me and they loved that.

I must say that this was such a fun time for me.  We have such amazing young women in our ward!  It is comforting to see girls this age making great choices.  I see so many bright futures in all of them.  It is amazing to think of the great impact they will have on the lives of so many!

Thanks for a great time!

What would you do without cousins?

Spencer and Lauren play together all the time.  Right now their game of choice is Star Wars.  They dress up and have light saber battles all the time.  Yes, these two can make a mess that resembles a tornado, but they sure do have a lot of fun together.

 

Notice her belt.

Happy Birthday Meredith!

Meredith turned 34 yesterday!  She was a good sport in the morning as we had her go through a scavenger hunt to find her presents.  Let’s just say that Jillian Michaels was the theme for her birthday.  She loves Jillian’s workout DVDs and books, so we made sure she had the latest and greatest.  Ever since Jillian arrived in our house, our diet had changed.  No more little debbies or anything like it.  High fructose corn syrup is almost extinct at our house.  If we want something sweet we have to bake it from scratch.  And I digress…..

I am a lucky man to have such a sweet wife!  Happy Birthday!!

 

The kids helped Meredith and Wes blow out the candles!  (Wes’ birthday was July 10th)

New Washing Machine??

Not so fast!

I came home from work last night and first thing Meredith announced to me that it’s finally time to replace our 12 year old washing machine.  Of course she wants one of those new fancy front loader machines.  All I started to see was dollar signs!  I had Meredith show me what was wrong with our trusty washing machine.  It was making this awful grinding noise when it was running.  I started to think about what my options were.  I had a list of things I wanted to do that night and trying to fix the washing machine was not one of them.  Then I thought about calling a repair guy but that ends up costing $$ when I could put that towards a new one.

So, I decided to pretend like I knew what I was doing and take the machine apart.  There is a happy ending to this story……for me.  Sorry Meredith.  The new front loader will have to wait a little longer.  I found a tiny little bead that Lauren uses to make necklaces out of.  It was caught in a location that was hard to get to, but eventually I was able to get it out and put everything back together!

Happy Birthday Tyler

Ok, Tyler’s birthday was last month (June 6), but I wanted to update the blog so we have a record of these important events.  We sure do love Tyler.  He is a great kid.  He has a great heart.  He is a wonderful blessing in our lives which we will always be grateful for!

For his birthday party, Tyler invited some friends over to have a backyard campout.  We setup a huge tent and filled it will blankets and pillows.  They started it all off by making some s’mores.  It seemed to me that the boys preferred to see how black they could get their marshmallows.  After the s’mores, they watched a movie in the tent while enjoying some snacks.  After the movie we had cake, but the kids were too full from eating all the snacks while watching the movie!  We are so thankful that Tyler has great friends!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Getting Ready

Meredith’s due date is August 20 and that is just a little over a month away!  I can’t believe we are that close.  At times it goes by fast and at other times it seems like it takes forever.  What’s funny is we still have people just finding out Meredith is pregnant.  She is 8 months now and they are just noticing.  Doesn’t she look great?

Well, I have a list of things I have to accomplish before the big day and one of those is painting the baby’s room.  Yesterday we took care of that and I had plenty of help.  I cut in and then the kids helped me do the rest.  Tyler is getting pretty good at painting.  Lately he has been helping me with a lot of projects and it has been fun to work alongside him and see him enjoy work.  Lauren helped as well, but eventually wanted to stop.  As she was watching Tyler and I work, she wasn’t looking where she was stepping and put her foot right in our roller tray which was full of paint.  I didn’t get a picture, but I should have!  She had a pink foot.

Cub Scout Day Camp

I was very lucky to spend Monday with Tyler and his Cub Pack at Camp Ireland for a day of fun.  We started the day off with shooting BB guns and then moved on to learning how to fold the American flag.  Then we played some great field games including steal the flag.  After lunch we made some clay creations and then ended the day doing archery.  Each boy in my group surprised me with their ability to learn new things.  This was Tyler’s 3rd time going to this camp and it surprised me to see him in the role as the “older” boy.  He also surprised me with his accuracy in shooting the BB gun and his skill at the bow and arrow.  Scouting does a lot of great things and I am excited to see Tyler have these different types of opportunities.

Even though I was one of the adult leaders, I felt like a big kid.  I wish I could attend all week and enjoy all of the other activities with the Tyler.  I am going to miss out of the Jungle Geysers (2-liter water bottle rockets).  Oh man!

Getting the kids to eat their food

Maybe we are the only parents that this happens to, but maybe not.  Sometimes it takes a great effort to get our kids to try new foods.  Most of the time when they finally take a bite, they discover that the new food actually tastes pretty good.  Well, this happens all the time at our house.  The funny thing is that many times Tyler or Lauren will “forget” that they liked a certain food and we have to go through the whole process again of trying to get them to “taste” it again. 
Last night Meredith made some meatballs with rice.  It’s a quick and easy meal and the kids love it.  As we sat down to eat, Lauren pushes her food away from her and complains that she doesn’t like this meal.  Let it be known that she LOVES this meal.  We are not sure why she forgets this.
So, I decided to get my phone ready and I was going to record her going through this process so that when she forgets next time, I would have a video to play back for her.  Well, here it is:

Quick Trip to the Beach

Meredith and the kids decided to head to the Oregon Coast yesterday.  They went to Lincoln City and had some fun at the beach.  It was close to 100 degrees in Portland, but at the coast the temps were close to 70 degrees.  Auntie Sarah, Kyra and Ziza went as well. 

The first beach they stopped at had lots of bugs on the sand and I guess that was too much for Lauren.  They then headed a little further south and found a nice place to spend the day.  The kids had a great time!  Tyler said that the water was very cold, but that didn’t keep him out of it.

A Little Neighborhood Fun

I was working in the yard last night and the kids kept asking if I would come out front and do the “rocket car”.  Tyler received this as a gift from someone.  It was a small kit that you put together to make a car that is propelled by vinegar and baking soda.  The kids love it when we do this and it has become a neighborhood tradition.

Before we started Lauren asked Max (our neighbor) to tape Evil Kenevil (one of Tyler’s toys) to the rocket.  Max attached him and he stayed on the whole time.  Later Lauren told us to wait while she went inside to get something.  She came out with a polly pocket.  Max attached that to the rocket as well and Lauren is proud to report that the polly pocket stayed on the rocket after each launch.

We are trying to figure out the right combination of vinegar and baking soda to get the most thrust.  It seems our most successful launch had a small amount of vinegar and a lot of baking soda.