Our Family – Page 166 – Andelin Adventures

Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day! Here it is, the start of this special day when we celebrate those women who give so much to be our mothers. Rebecca is a mother of 4 (usually) wonderful children, as troublesome as they might be, and she’s expecting another one due next month. It’s amasing how much she goes through, dealing with my absense due to working two jobs, and still being able to get Ethan to school every day, and keep the kids from completely destroying the house. I’m always amased at how much she puts up with.

It’s interesting for me to look at the past three generations of Andelin men, that I am a proud part of. From my understanding, my grandmother Helena joined the LDS Church in Sweden when she was a teenager, and she left her family and life to come to Utah to be with people who believed the same that she does, where she eventually met my grandfather. My mother left New York along with her mother and sister (leaving behind some bittersweet experiences) for California, where they encountered the LDS missionaries and joined the church in her mid teens, and where she eventually met my father. Rebecca grew up in Fullerton with her family, and moved to Yorba Linda for a larger house, where they lost the youngest family member, which led them to meeting members of the LDS Church and eventually joining it, in her mid teens. And of course, she eventually met and married me. 🙂

I often wonder if that’s a coincidence, that three Andelin men married three converts from their teens. I’m sure their experiences were essential for leading them to meeting such wonderful husbands. Right darling? 😉 I love you!

Tyra’s Birthday

Well Tyra is now 5 years old, and she is just thrilled. She keeps saying that ‘next week’ she gets to go to kindergarten, when actually it’s next fall. 😛 We had her birthday party tonight since Kyle has Wednesday nights off, and we just had a simple dinner of ravioli (because that’s what Tyra asked for). It was just our family and Aunt Wendy, so nothing big or fancy. And we had strawberry shortcake for the dessert, at Tyra’s request.

Kyle spent part of the afternoon working on fixing up the bike that was handed down from cousin Sylvia as a birthday present (Tyra totally freaked out when we put her on the bike, just to see if the seat needed to be adjusted). And she is SO excited that she got a ‘Cinderella dress’ for a birthday present. She has been asking for one for months, and Kyle just happened to see these Cinderella pjs at the Disney store in the mall and picked it up.

“Mom! Stop!”

I was out in the garage this afternoon trying to sort through stuff and throw away the trash and give away stuff we aren’t going to use…..and I came upon a box that my mom had sent up with my dad back before Dinah was born. (Ya I just barely opened it) About half the box were clothes that are for Tyra to grow into that my siblings have all grown out of, some of them were clothes that I remember wearing as a kid (it makes me so happy to have those to pass on to my girls). As I came to an outfit that will fit Tyra now or very shortly I handed them to her, telling her she can go put them in her room. She just stood there collecting stuff, and she was SO excited. “Wow! I love it! Is that for me too???!” And after awhile of me just handing her this pile of clothes to take to her room she said “MOM! Stop! I’m holding too much!” I laughed so hard.

I loaded her up probably two more times after this too. 😉 Hand me downs are AWESOME!

Hot Dog!

Since we needed to do a bit of shopping, we decided to check out the new Wal-Mart in our area; Saratoga Springs (now we can get to Wal-Mart in UNDER 25 minutes!) The layout is a bit different from the American Fork one, so it took a while to get used to, but it was nice anyway, and we got some good deals. While I was checking out, Rebecca ran out to the van to grab our Fly Lady grocery bags, and she came back in with an excited expression on her face. “The Weinermobile is here,” she explained. She had never been close to it before, aside from the Hard Hat Harry video we have about it, so we had to stop by and inspect it, before heading home.

I remember hearing on the radio that Oscar Meyer receives thousands of applications for people wanting to be a “Hotdogger,” one of the drivers of the giant dog. I didn’t realise how popular the job would be of driving this thing around. Anyway, we let the kids walk around (and even peek their heads inside and check out the interior), and they were thrilled to get whistles and stickers from the Hotdoggers. What an unusual experience!

We got a picture of Ethan, Tyra, and Jeremy, in front of the Weinermobile. Dinah stayed in the cart during the picture moment, although she got to look inside it with the others.

I suspect that Rebecca was just as thrilled at seeing this thing in person, as the kids were!

http://brands.kraftfoods.com/oscarmayer/omm_wienermobile.htm

Dirt Pile

Kyle and I have been talking for awhile about hauling in some dirt to mix in with the nasty clay that we have here in Eagle Mountain. We can hardly get anything to grow out in the yard, because most plants don’t thrive in clay. It’s hard for the roots to get water, because the water puddles on the surface, and it’s hard for the roots to get oxygen because the clay is so packed, and so the roots will usually mold and get nasty. Not to mention that it’s not easy for the roots to spread out and grow in such compact soil. And our backyard insn’t level so when it rains a lot we end up with the entire back HALF of our backyard being a lake, so we also wanted more dirt so we can hopefully take care of that.

Well a month or two ago Kyle saw a truck in Lehi just sitting on the side of the road with a sign advertising topsoil and there was a phone number listed. He called to get some prices, and we have talked about it and decided we are going to haul in some dirt this year. So, finally this past week Kyle made the call and ordered our dirt, and decided that we should have the truckload of manure delivered first and it’s HERE!!!

They delivered it yesterday while I was out with the family making the runs to the doctors. I am SO excited! I can’t wait to get it spread out in the backyard (and out of the driveway), but alas, it decided to rain today. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE the rain, it makes the most beautiful sound. But I REALLY wanted to get that pile moving from the driveway to the backyard. Oh well, that will be our project for throughout the week if it’s not raining.

When the kids opened their blinds this morning and saw this huge pile in the driveway they wanted to know how it got there, and we told them it’s actually poop not dirt (we had to explain what manure is).

So Tyra asked Kyle: Daddy, Why were you riding a horse?

Kyle: I wasn’t riding a horse….

Tyra: Then how did the horse poop in our driveway???

So we explained that a truck brought the dirt, it was so funny though (like one horse could do all that overnight….). 😉