Random pictures

Pigs, Brita, cows, humming bird inside the house.

For now stick to playing with your fingers

The talent show was fun. S&K's and G&K's kids played the piano. Brittney and Christopher both played hymns out of the hymn book. I'm now too discouraged to ever touch a piano again. Peter played, too. That's why Pamela told her students they could only play with their fingers for now. After Peter finished playing Scott leaned over and asked me,"Who did you marry?" It was pretty impressive. Especially since he only got to play though it once before he played. C&A's kids recited a poem (with Chad) and lip synced upside down (Monica listened to that one). Pamela and I sang--mighta shoulda practiced that. Brittney and Stephanie sang. Mom played the accordion. Greg did not play Chariots of Fire for the talent show.

Helpful Brita

Brita helped feed the pigs, sheep and chickens. She also herded the sheep. And rode them. And she helped weed the garden.

Jealous Brita

Scott put up Brita's jumper for her. She loved jumping. She had a constant audience. All three of the babies were about the same size so they took turns jumping. Here's Brita watching Joseph jumping. That's HER jumper, you know.

It was pretty funny how distraught she was by it.

My two funniest memories from the reunion

When we got to the farm G&K and C&A and their families weren't there yet, so it was pretty quiet. We were all standing in the kitchen/living room area talking. All of a sudden five lambs burst into the living room baaing and not looking like they were going to stop. It was like everyone except the lambs were frozen for about a half a second. Then Peter and Scott chased them out of the house and I about died laughing. And Elijah grinned (he had herded them in). I wish everyone could have been there. It was hilarious.

Sunday after dinner everyone had ice cream sandwiches made with waffles and slabs of ice cream. There was a little bit of ice cream left in one of the opened cartons so then everyone got ice cream cones (which of course required opening new cartons of ice cream). Then after the kids went to bed we had bowls of ice cream. Scott was dishing up the bowls so they were very full. He had just handed mom hers when I asked about her unending supply of ice cream, "Mom, how much ice cream do you HAVE?" Dad's immediate response was "She only got as much as everybody else, Andrea. Give her a break." It was so funny. I couldn't stop laughing. Maybe you had to be there. I love my family. Take the advantage of one because of his words.
(Dad did know what I was really asking, in case you were wondering--but in my family if you can twist someone's words you do. It's great. That's why it would take some one with a very strange sense of humor to want to marry one of us girls (Do any of you remember when Mom told us that?).)

We only give rides to skinny people now

So, last weekend we went up to my parents for a family reunion. We took lots of stuff. Lots of it was heavy. Our car was pretty full.

Peter offered to give his brother Andrew a ride up to his house in Sandy since we were headed up there. So Andrew came over and when Peter got home we left. Kind of. Peter backed up out of the parking spot and we heard a crazy scraping noise. We (Peter) finally figured out that the frame of the car was hitting the back tire. So we rearranged by weight--Andrew driving, me in the front seat and Peter in the back. And we moved all the potatoes and cans to the front and around Brita. Then it only hit on bumps or when we turned left.

It was a pretty exciting ride. Something between a roller coaster and a horror movie. Here are some pictures of our scraped tire.

Sister Oohara and the Temple

One of my favorite people in the whole world is Olya Oohara. She was my fourth companion on my mission. We had so much fun together. And we worked hard. She's from Russia and I never thought I'd see her again after I saw her off on her train to go home. Several of the great experiences in my life were with her. We taught some amazing people. We taught some people that she refused to give up on. We taught some people that I refused to give up on (Tatyana--that lady made me laugh. She had an attitude just like Eeyore). Granted the people she didn't give up on were a lot more promising than the ones that I didn't give up on. I was there when she got her Patriarchal Blessing. Everyone thought it would be a very long time until the Russian speaking people had the opportunity to receive patriarchal blessings because there were no stakes. Then they called two traveling Patriarchs. Anyways, it was amazing. We had a very deep bond. She taught me a ton. She is one of the greatest examples in my life. And I kicked her once--how can you not have a bond with a person you kick. Wait, maybe you can. Maybe you shouldn't kick people.

Anyways, then she came to Utah and went to the U. I was so excited when I heard she was coming to the US. I got to see her a few times. The first time I saw her here we went to the temple. It is an amazing feeling to be in the temple with someone you thought you'd never see again in this life. I finally wore her down and she moved to Provo. Happy days. Now she comes to visit me. It makes me happy every time. She loves Brita. She's never been around babies much before, so it's fun to see them interact (no fussy, no fussy). Today she watched Brita so that Peter and I could go to the temple. I didn't worry about Brita the whole time. Usually I'm thinking that Brita will scream the whole time, but I didn't today.

I had a great experience at the temple today. I felt the Spirit really strongly and all my questions seemed to line up and get answered in turn. I definitely needed to go to the temple today. I didn't know that until last night. Luckily the Lord helped Sister Oohara know that a few days ago so that we could plan and actually get to the temple. I love her.

Brita has hair!

To Do lists

I like lists. I like making lists and planning what I need to do. I don't so much like doing what I need to to, but planning it is down-right fun. So is crossing things off the list. I think I get the planning gene from my Mom.

There are only two things that I get to cross off my list every day. One of them is hanging out with Brita. This is my favorite thing to do. I prefer it to almost anything else. I like watching her play and watching her sleep. I like watching her bounce.

Here she is sleeping.

And here are her sleeping feet.


The other thing that I usually get done is washing the dishes. I hate dishwashers. I think it's because I'm the youngest child. I remember standing on a chair and helping people wash dishes in St. Anthony. I always got the easy part because I'm the youngest. And I was cute back in the day. I remember I was paired a lot with Greg, but I think I was paired with each of the older kids. (How do families with an odd number of kids survive?) And I remember washing dishes on Sunday afternoons in Mesa. Mom started some mighty water fights with Shawn while doing dishes there. Water fights in the house...one of the only advantages of living in Arizona in the summer.

Here's the dishes after I did them today. I know you were all anxious to see them, right?

Our fabulous weekend

This last weekend was great. Saturday we cleaned the house. Happy Day. We even got through the six-inch stack of random papers. Peter cleaned the kitchen and filed everything that needed filed. I entered a lot more clothes in the inventory. We were productive. Seriously--it was great.

Sunday we went to church and then we played games. I love games. Peter and I played rummy and then we went over to our friends house and played the farming game. I came in second by $30000. Good job, Dani. It might have just been beginner's luck though. ;)

Now Brita is going on three hours on her nap this morning. That might have something to do with how exciting game night was last night and how late it went.

Possums

You're right, Dad. I should have gotten a second opinion before making such a rash diagnosis. Maybe subconsciously that's why I haven't thrown them away. What do you guys think: Are the flowers just trying to mess with my mind or are they really dead?

Flowers

I forgot to mention that Peter and Brita brought me flowers the other day. Aren't they pretty?
Unfortunately I didn't water them before we went to Idaho, so now they're dead, dead, dead.

I've lost the old magic

Wow--that's all I can say. I just went to the bank. I got a deposit slip and put the two checks on there and totaled them up and went to a register. The girl asked if I had my debt card. I said no. I was thinking, "Why would she need my debit card, I'm not getting any money out." Then she said my drivers license would work. Then she said my SSN would work, so I gave her that. I finally asked her why she needed it. She needed it to find my account. I had left everything else on the form blank besides the amounts on the checks. Brilliant, Andrea. Then she asked me if I wanted the money in my platinum account or my free checking account. I looked at her blankly for a good minute. Then I remembered that I'm on Dad's account. So I just gave her my account number. I've had it memorized since I was fifteen. I've been successfully depositing checks since I was fifteen. But now I've lost it. I don't think I should leave the house any more.

Brita's first trip to Idaho and first rest area

This is when we first got to Idaho. That's Idaho behind us. I told Peter we should take a picture because it was Brita's first trip to Idaho. He rolled his eyes, but he took a picture of us in Idaho. I only realized later that it was her first rest area as well as being in Idaho. If we're anything like my family was there are going to be a lot more road trips and rest areas and Idaho.

Sit down you're rocking the boat

I have no idea what Pamela is doing in this picture. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that it was super windy while we were there.

The poor little Gerbil almost got blown off the road a few times and I got blown into the side of the car at the rest stop. Too bad the wind wasn't blowing from behind while we were driving or we could have saved money on gas.

Everybody loves Brita

My hardest job of the trip was to keep track of whose turn it was to hold Brita. All the cousins held her at least twice, except Michael, who wanted to hold her, but was too busy working. (Did I ever mention that Monica told me that her professor told her that most people viewed commas like rain and just sprinkled them here and there whenever they felt like it? She followed up by saying that my papers were in a drought. The comma eludes me.) Anyhow, I was keeping track of a list that had at least six people on it at a time and then people weren't there for their turns and some turns were significantly shorter than others. It was all very complicated.

My parents house

We went up to my parents house for Mother's day. It was so fun to be there. We worked on the house and ate and slept and worked some more. And we went to church. It's just not the same when Mom has to sit up front during Relief Society and you can't make snide comments to her.
Anyways, here's some pictures of the house, the view, and the shed.

Our family

Here's a family picture of us. We all look funny in our own ways. At least there are pigs in the picture. That makes things better, right?
Speaking of pigs, Brita really liked looking at the pigs.

They made her laugh.

Grandpa made her look like Rudolph.

Just chillin' on the bed

Here's Brita today after she turned over twice. Fun times.

Woah Nellie, sorry it's been so long

I've been busy doing nothing, so I haven't posted. Sorry.

I was talking to Monica the other day about playing town and about how Greg always locked us in the room with the food storage and we had to eat dry Jello to stay alive. She didn't remember that. I'm not the only one who remembers this right? Do you? (Probably not if you didn't live in St. Anthony with us.)

Also, Monica has a theory about what role you played while you played house when you were little and your personality. I was usually the dog. I don't know what that says about me. What were you when you played house?

I'm going to Mom's house for Mother's day. Lucky me.

The fun is in playing the game

Peter and I played Rummy this morning. Then we played Gin Rummy. It was fun.

Last night I won Californina Speed. It was great. I creamed team BaD.

Last night we played regular Speed. It was fun. Like the games today.