Rebecca – Page 14 – Andelin Adventures

Happy 8th Anniversary

Kyle and I met in 2000, after I graduated from high school. I started going to the Fullerton West Institute, across the street from Fullerton Community College and I knew very little people there. And I’m quite shy. 🙂 A girl from my ward introduced Kyle and I.

I happened to be dating another boy at the time we were introduced. About November of 2000 I broke up with him though, because he wanted to serve a mission and I felt like he was paying more attention to me at the time, than his goal of going on a mission. And I remember mentioning to Kyle that I don’t want a new boyfriend for at least a month, because I didn’t want the other boy to feel like I broke up with him to get with a new boyfriend. After breaking up with the other boy, I crashed my first car (not on purpose of course). It was a sad day. I hated that car, but when I crashed it and it was totaled I really began to appreciate it, and I knew I was going to miss it. But I used it to my advantage one night after institute. I had my Mom drive me to institute that night, my Dad told me to just take his car, but I insisted that Mom just take me and drop me off. You see I was planning on bumming a ride home off of Kyle. 😉 It was a set-up!

Then I started dropping the hints. 😉 One Tuesday night after an institute class, I was talking with my friend, Kim about the boys I liked (yes there was more than 1). Kyle asked who they were, and I said something like “I don’t tell boys that are on the list” (it was something like that, I don’t think that was exactly what I said). On another occasion, he asked me to tell me who he liked and I said I didn’t want to say because I thought our friend Sarah, likes the same guy. And on another occasion I mentioned that he served his mission in England. Ok Kyle is pretty smart, even though I dropped all of those hints at completely different times he realized it was him!

2 December 2000 Kyle and I went on our first date. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend at the time, but he needed to go to a few museums for a class that he was taking at the college, so he asked me along and we went to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. I wouldn’t let Kyle take any pictures of me, because I was really shy. But I remember that day well. I went shopping that morning before he came to pick me up to buy something cute to wear. I got a cute purple top and a pair of black jeans that sparkled, and I wore my Opal Watermelon LipSmackers. 🙂

Sometime during December Kyle went to Utah to visit with his sister Laurel and her family, but he was back before Christmas because he wanted to come back to me. 😉 He gave me a key chain that Christmas with “There is beauty all around, when there’s no one home.” Being the oldest of 10 kids he thought I would appreciate that. Then 26 December 2000 we officially became boyfriend & girlfriend. 🙂

31 December 2000 we spent our first New Years Eve together. He came over to my home and we stayed up really late watching movies like “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and “The Princess Bride”.

Over the next few months we spent a lot of time together. Some of our favorite places to go were to the book store, the Main Place Mall and See’s Candies. Once we left a See’s with a handful of samples EACH! Kyle would ask, hey what’s that one, and the nice lady behind the counter would give one to each of us. I asked him to marry me. He said that he wanted to read the Book of Mormon first. So he did, and I asked him frequently where he was at. I wanted to know how close to finishing he was. 😉 I wasn’t always happy at home, but every time I went out with Kyle I always felt like everything would be ok, and I knew I wanted to be with him.

5 June 2001 He popped the question, he took me to the park where he first kissed me and asked me to marry him, and the next day I left to go on a road trip with his sister Liesl, to visit his older sister Laurel. Liesl was so happy when she found out that Kyle and I were engaged, Laurel on the other hand nearly flipped out. You see I was only 18, and Laurel is about 12 years older than I am so she saw me as a child I guess. Kyle is also 8 1/2 years older than I am. But we moved forward and made plans for our wedding, and we said how about 28 of December. The temple was actually closed for cleaning then, but was having a special opening on the 29th of December, so that was the day we picked and started working towards.

We were married in the Los Angeles Temple (along with like 35 other couples that day). And now we have been married for 8 years! CRAZY! 😉

In this picture we had been married for about a week, and his family decided to have family pictures done before Laurel and her family went back home to Utah.

Merry Christmas to me!

Yes I realize I just totally skipped over Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, this year was not the center of my attention at all. We had Thanksgiving dinner at Kyle’s mom’s house, and I brought the pies. But the main thing, that I’ve been focusing on all week is getting ready to go to CALIFORNIA! That’s right we went to California again this weekend. So all week, I’ve been running around the house like crazy, packing clothes, gathering Christmas presents and cards (hey if I’m going down there WHY ship it?), cleaning, and trying to keep the kids from destroying the things I’ve already cleaned…….

Then Thursday evening after having Thanksgiving dinner at Karen’s house (and Kyle had a nap), we hopped in the car and headed for California. The trip down was pretty much uneventful, only stopping for potty breaks, water refills, feeding the baby, gas refills, and switching drivers, and we arrived at my parents house around 5 in the morning (CA time). The kids were really excited and it took a little bit to get them to settle down to pick a sleeping spot.

But the purpose of this post is to announce to the world that Kyle bought me a KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas while we were in California. Costco had one on sale with a coupon over Thanksgiving weekend, and we found a mail-in rebate online, so we researched them a bit and decided to go for it. So Christmas came a bit early for me this year, and hopefully Kyle will let me use it before Christmas too. 😉

Kindergarten Thanksgiving Party

I have never gone to the school to help in my children’s classes before. The school asks that you not bring other kids with you and well, I’ve got several little ones at home with me, so I’ve just never gone to help. But this year I decided that I would sign up to help with the holiday parties, and I would get Kyle to take the days of the parties off from work so that I or even he can go help out in Ethan’s and Tyra’s class parties. So this is the first time I’ve ever gone to help with a school party. 🙂 Tyra was SO excited to have me in her class. She and all the other kids had fun making Indian headbands and they got to color fruits to put into paper bag ‘cornucopias’. Then they got to have a piece of pumpkin pie, and would you know it? My child was the only one in the class that asked for a fork to eat her pie (everyone else just picked it up and ate it).

Gold Mine

I’ll bet you don’t know anybody that actually has a gold mine…But I do. 😀

Grandma Shirley has been decluttering, and giving some of her stuff away. She offered me her cedar ‘hope chest’ AND all the contents therein. YAY! Of course for now I don’t have a way to get the hope chest to Utah, and she wanted to hang onto it for a bit longer (which is fine with me of course). But since Kyle and I were in California I got to bring home a whole box, overflowing with old pictures. A stack of photo albums, AND 4 more bags of pictures! Yes I do believe I have a real gold mine. 😉 My heart just rejoices to have these pictures in my possession. I have been working on scanning pictures for years, and I just hit the jackpot and have LOTS of work ahead of me.

I love looking through the pictures, and seeing the people and thinking ‘hey they are related to me’ and wondering what they were like.

Here is a picture of me in the dutch girl costume (looks like I’ve got some licorice hanging out of my mouth too), Jenny in a Friend bear costume, and Patsy in the 8 ball costume. 🙂

My parents at some dinner party (I have no idea when, maybe when they were first married, or engaged?)

I love this picture of my uncle Frank. He died in 1993 about a year before Timothy died. But I love his face in this picture (he’s the one on the left). He was such a fun guy:

Aw! A family picture of my grandparents, aunt Glenda and my dad as a little boy:

I just love this picture of my grandpa Denzel admiring my grandma Shirley, they eloped when they were almost 25 and almost 19.

Here’s a picture of Great Grandma Zoe holding Grandpa Denzel as a baby

And a picture of Grandma Zoe when she was younger:

And this is a picture of Grandma Shirley’s birth mother Willa Tevis Ballard, as a child, with her brother, Wilbur Harve Ballard

Oh I am so excited. These pictures here aren’t even a tip in the ice burg. They’re more like a shaving of the ice burg. 😉 Yes I have a real gold mine.

General Conference

I always look forward to hearing the words of our Church leaders at General Conference. And Kyle and I have been trying to get our kids to pay more attention too. This time I think focusing on General Conference was even more of a challenge than it has been in the past. In the past, since we don’t have satellite tv or cable tv or anything like that (one less bill yay!) we’ve pretty much been able to get the station showing General Conference by putting a safety pin, or a paper clip in the antenna spot in the back of the tv. Not the best quality picture you could get, but it was good enough that we could see who was talking and hear them talking to us. BUT now that tv has gone digital, that didn’t work, so we ended up listening to conference on the radio. 🙂

So with not being able to SEE conference, and having the distraction of kids that just couldn’t sit still and listen to conference, I did my best to listen, and take notes on things that I found interesting or things I felt I needed to improve on. Such as:

Provide an environment where the Spirit can be felt daily in our homes, also provide a quiet time, so that we will be able to feel the promptings of the still small voice of the Spirit.

I love Elder Bednar’s talk from the Saturday morning session. There is just so much to glean from it.

Be more diligent and concerned at home
Express love frequently, sincerely, say it, mean it, and show it. (How easy is it to fall into the trap of doing all the things that need to be done, and not taking the time to tell your spouse and your children that you love them. I find myself in that position all the time.) 🙁
Bear heartfelt testimony, mean it, and live it. (I’m not very good at this considering I don’t open up very easily. I generally keep my feelings to myself, which I guess could be the result of being made fun of for so many years.) :/
Be consistent with family home evening (working on that), scripture study (that needs work too), and family prayer (we’ve got bedtime prayer down, just need to work on morning prayer).

Neil A Anderson mentioned that repentance isn’t always some big process, but it can also be as simple as quietly striving to change and be better.

President Henry B Eyering said “When you keep trying, you are doing what Jesus does.”

Quentin L Cook “Remember that having religious observance in the home is as important as providing food, clothing, and shelter.”

D Todd Christofferson reminds us to be diligent with family home evening, family prayer, and scripture study (wait! Elder Bednar said the same thing, maybe I really needed to hear that. Hmmm)