Utah trip 2018

 After surprising grandma last year we decided that we better do another Utah trip this summer. The kids loved it so much and realizing that I could do it by myself was a game changer. Shad is usually pretty busy in August trying to get ready for the school year, so that was a good time for us to go. We didn't get to spend as much time as last year as we had swimming lessons we had to stay for and school starting mid-August. However, we did get 10 days which was packed with lots of fun.

The drive out was pretty easy. We stopped in Omaha again and stayed with the Applegarth's. It only took about 8 hours off, but that made all of the difference. The next day was about 13 hours, but it was doable.

Of course we had to stop by Little America and see the dinosaur and get some ice cream...

Benny is still not a fan of heights. He didn't like being on top of that bison very much. 

 One morning we went to an awesome new park in Bountiful and met up with some of my high school friends and their kids. I love that we still stay in touch even after 15 years. I love all of these girls. It has been fun watching them all become moms. I have learned so much from them. This is only a handful of the kids that were there. I didn't count how many kids we have between us but I think it's at least over 20. Pretty crazy to think about!

Jack insisted on wearing his favorite cowboy hat from Grandma's house. I think he pretty much wore it for an entire week straight. 

One night we went and did some school shopping at Station Park in Farmington. The shopping wasn't the most exciting part though. I think they really liked being with their cousins Annie and Aliyah and hanging out with the princesses. However, we did get all of our school shopping done in one trip so that was a win!

We spent one afternoon at Grandma's house having a "Pinkalicious" tea party with all of the cousins. My cousin Liz was also in town from Seattle with her kids so her daughter Molly was there. She is close to Ruby's age. My mom, aunt Cheri, and Grandma planned it and it had so many fun details! Gracie now talks about having a tea party all of the time.

We also spent an afternoon at a splash pad in Salt Lake with some of our cousins. It was a super hot day.

We spent one day at Lagoon with Annie and Aliyah. We left Ruby with my aunt Cheri as I didn't think it would be worth it to take her. She probably wouldn't have wanted to ride anything anyway.
I debated about taking Benny, but I was so glad that I did. It was so fun to watch him enjoy all of the kiddie rides. I was glad that Jack was still short enough to ride all of the kiddie rides. It was so fun to watch them ride them together and call each other "best buddies". I think they are really going to like sharing a room together.

I couldn't really ride any rides except for the log flume, sky ride, and the carousel so I became the designated stroller watcher and photographer. This was part of our group going on rattlesnake rapids. It was a super hot day so I was a little jealous I couldn't go and get wet with them.

By far Benny, Jack, and Gracie's favorite ride was the little bumper cars. I think they rode them 10 times over and over again at one point. The ride operator got to know them pretty well. 

Gracie loved the ladybug drop. I was glad that Grandma still likes to ride the rides with the kids since I couldn't go on any with them.

We went and had lunch with Ruthie, Taylor, and Riley at Arctic Circle and then went to their neighborhood pool in Saratoga Springs. I didn't get any pictures at the pool as we didn't last very long. Ruby was super tired from the fun events of the week and threw a major tantrum so we had to leave a little earlier than we were planning. I think the kids still got a little bit of swimming in though. 

We spent an entire day up in Cache Valley. Aunt Cheri had arranged for us to learn more about our ancestors that lived up there. She compiled some history for us to read before we went up there and arranged for us to go see the home that the Smurthwaite (my Grandma Miller's side) lived in in a small town called Wellsville.

First we stopped by the cemetery in Wellsville and found the graves of the Smurthwaites and Browns.

We found the grave of one of my great grandma's, Mary Ann Wood Watt Brown who was the first woman baptized in the British Isles.

Sarah and Joshua Brown are my great, great grandparents who built the house in Wellsville. It started out as a log cabin and then was added onto by their daughter Maggie and son-in-law Alfred.

This is the Brown/Smurthwaite house and we got to go visit and have lunch in the backyard. It has had a lot of changes since it was first built. It started as a small log cabin and was built on by it's many owners. Now it is owned by the neighbors across the street who are renovating it to be a bed and breakfast. They were nice enough to let us use the kitchen and have a picnic in the backyard. It was fun to see a little piece of history and be there together as a family.

Grandma entertained the kids and blew big bubbles outside on the lawn.

While renovating the house the owners found the original log cabin underneath the walls. It was pretty cool to see. They said that they will try to keep at least a part of it exposed so that others can view it.

 Haken's absolute favorite part of this trip was being able to spend so much time with my cousin Grady. He slept over at his house and they spent a solid 2 days together playing baseball pretty much the whole time. My aunt Cristina said that when they weren't playing baseball they were making up logos for their imaginary baseball teams. I'm so glad to see them getting along so well. So many of his friends here are girls so I think he really likes having a guy that he can share his love for baseball. They really are best friends and are only a month apart.

They were being a little awkward in this picture as I told them that they needed to put their arms around each other and act like they liked each other. 11 year old boys are so funny.

While in Cache Valley we had to go check out our old house in "the circle" in Providence. We only lived there for 18 months but my kids loved that house and I did too. It had such an ideal set up for kids with the track in the backyard with lots of kids to play with all of the time.

I couldn't believe how much the trees we had planed grew up. When we planted them they were just barely taller than me. Now they tower over the kids. It's amazing what 3.5 years will do.

I was sad to see that the new owners had ripped out the flower beds along the patio that we put in and replaced it with grass. It made it a nice little secluded patio but maybe they didn't the up keep of the flowerbeds.

Shad flew in for our last weekend there to help me drive home. We spent our last day on the beach of Willard Bay with our friends the Burnhams and Mickelsons. They were our Alturus Lake buddies so it was fun to relive the good times and hang out at the beach with them all day. The Burnhams brought a floating island and two paddle boards so there was plenty of stuff for us to do.

Haken loved hanging out with Bodee again and Jack with Ian. I didn't even get pictures of them together because they were out in the lake playing together the entire day. It was so perfect. I miss hanging out with them.

Ruby has been one tired girl all week. She slept a bunch on the way home as I think we really wore her out, especially skipping naps so many of the days to do fun things.

The drive home was fast and great. I was so glad that Shad flew in so that we could do it all in one shot. However, I did end up having a little bit of swelling from sitting so long in the car. It's a good thing we aren't doing any more big trips this pregnancy. It really was a great trip though. I'm always glad when we can go and spend lots of time with family that we don't get to see often. 

“You’ve got your hands full”

I don’t normally go out with all five of my kids alone. In fact, I actually avoid going out by myself with even one or two kids. I try to do my shopping when I have a sitter or when Shad is home, or I just shop online. It isn’t because they behave terribly, they are actually really good in public. I  more just enjoy shopping (even grocery shopping) alone and it is “me time.” I don’t have to worry about one of the kids asking for this or that, I can compare prices, and actually move through the store a lot faster without them. Then there’s the buckling in and out of car seats as we hop to different stores...don’t miss that at all when I’m out on my own.

Today was Jack’s quarterly endocrinologist appointment. The closest Endo is an hour and 20 mins away in Peoria so we make the trek over there 4 times a year. I usually try to schedule it during school hours and just pull him out and try to get sitters for the others because it is nice to have some alone time with him, but once a year I have to take them all with me so that the others can get their blood drawn for the trial net study. That day was today and this year it was a much better experience as they now only require a finger prick instead of a complete blood draw for the study. Not a single one cried and Ruby was even begging for it to be her turn. They said that she was the youngest one that they have done successfully so far using this new method. Everyone got their prizes and were all smiles when we left. Jack also had a healthy check up (although his A1C is back up to 8.8, but it is probably due to the unpredictability of the summer months routine).

As we were leaving there were some pharmaceutical sales people at the front desk. One of them said “well you’ve got your hands full,” then we talked about how I was going to have twins in December too. They were both very sweet explaining that one of them had 8 kids and the other had identical twin girls. My unusual amount of kids is always a great conversation starter.

After the doctor appointment we went to Wendy’s during the lunch rush.  My kids were pretty well behaved except for the top of the lungs screaming by Benny as I was ordering. I swear three’s are way worse than two’s. I went back and forth on whether we should stick around Peoria and go to the children’s museum or not, but decided to go as the kids were under control once they had full bellies.

As we were walking out the door a man held the door open for me as I walked out holding the hands of the two little ones and said “well you’ve got your hands full.” Then I had my three others follow me out afterwards. I wonder if he could tell I was pregnant too. No wonder his eyes popped out of his head. 2-3 kids is pretty typical here in the Midwest. We are somewhat of a freak show with five going on seven.

We had a great day at the children’s museum and I’m glad that we decided to stay. I was very grateful to have Haken there to help even though he really just wanted to go home. Children’s museums aren’t really his thing anymore unless they have some older kids activities and this one was sparse in that area. I needed him for the extra hands and eyes to keep track of them all.

At the end of the day, I am reminded why I don’t do outings like this all of the time by myself. I am tired. I needed a bath with the jets on tonight because although at home I don’t feel like I “have my hands full” I think it becomes more apparent as I go places with them, it is physically draining, especially when pregnant. However, I made a promise to myself that if I was going to have a lot of kids we were still going to go do things together. I want to make sure that they have experiences and look back to remember that we made the effort to get out of the house.

I was recently listening to a Jim Gaffigan comedy routine where he was saying that people always say to him “you’ve got your hands full”  when they see him with all of his kids and he compares it to someone walking up to another person in a wheelchair at a dance and saying “I’m sure you don’t get out and dance much.” It made me laugh because it truly is pointing out t don’t know what else to say. I’m sure I’ll come up with some kind of fun response but for now I just reply with “yep, and I’ve got two more coming.”

Family Reunions 2018- Part 2

After our adventure with the Evans family we met up with the Anderson side. It was really nice to kill two birds with one stone, especially since we drove so far.

After church with Aunt Janelle in St. Ignatius we had lunch and then started our journey up to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. About three years ago we put a deposit down on a rental house in the mountains by Coeur d'Alene. It is actually a recording studio/retreat house and it had 7 bedrooms/bathrooms so every family could have their own room. It was such a great find! The whole house was amazing. Tons of space outside for the kids to run around, a gourmet industrial kitchen, a video game room, pool table, hot tub...really anything we could want. We didn't end up doing a lot of excursions and leaving the house because the kids were happy and content hanging out there. It was so fun to have 25 cousins all together in one house. This was the first time that has ever happened and they are all asking when we are going to do it again.

Once everyone got there, Shad revealed the family reunion shirts that he had designed and then had Kristin make with her screen printing equipment. The back had an outline of the brothers doing "the pose" (aka pretending like they are peeing off something....such a boy thing to do) and a definition of "Anderson." The front had everyone's number on it based on when they entered the family.

We were all on the back porch and it was really fun to have each person come up and have their moment of excitement as they were spotlighted. It was really touching to see that even though we are a large family each one of us is important, loved, and are an integral part of the family. Shad even made a shirt for his mom who passed away 12 years ago.

Probably the most exciting part was when we got to the end and Shad pulled out a #41 onesie and handed it to me. Everyone was really surprised excited for Nicole and Shad's parents who already knew. However....I think the biggest surprise was when he pulled out a #42 onesie. He looked at Nicole (implying that maybe the onesie was meant for her) she laughed and then he handed it to me. Everyone started screaming and freaking out. Nicole started crying and hugging me. It was a pretty exciting night. I think it caught everyone off guard just like it did us when we found out. We had Kristin video everyone's reaction for us and this time we made sure we had plenty of battery on our phone so it didn't die in the middle of it.

Afterward, we good some great pictures out on the lawn. These are the first pictures we have ever had with everyone together, so that was exciting! We also had Shad take some better, more dressed up pictures of everyone together another night. It will be fun to get them printed and on the wall in our house.

The week was jammed packed. There was always something to do. First of all....lots of food. We spent $1,500 for a week's worth of food. Which was actually pretty good to feed 40 people. The kitchen and serving area that we had made it pretty easy, especially when it came to feeding 25 kids.

My van jammed packed with $1,500 worth of food

The serving area made it easier to feed all those kids

The kids loved the play area outside. They had playhouses stocked with toys, a slip n slide, a playground, and tons of sports equipment. Then there were the free video games (like pac man), and a projector screen to watch movies and play other video games. If we couldn't find one of our kids there was a good chance they were hiding out in there.

We also did a fun activity outside where the kids put rubber bands around watermelons until they exploded. It was great! The reward afterward was eating the watermelon.

While we were there we announced on social media that we were pregnant with twins. We had to keep it a secret from our family until we got to Idaho, but it was pretty difficult to hide with those that we saw often. I'm glad we kept it a secret though because the reaction was great. 

We did do a few activities away from the house. By far the most exciting one was the Hiawatha bike trail. This was an incredible experience and totally worth bringing our bikes out for and paying to ride down it. We left Benny and Ruby at home with a few adults who didn't want to ride and took the other kids. Gracie rode on a tag-a-long behind Shad and the boys rode their own bikes. It is a 15 mile downhill trail that is an old abandoned train route. They have taken out the train tracks and made it into a bike trail. There are huge tunnels (the longest one being 2 miles long), and tall bridges that go across deep valleys. The scenery was incredible and it wasn't a hard bike ride at all, even being 14 weeks pregnant with twins. We stopped halfway through and ate our sack lunches. Once we got to the bottom we rode the shuttle (old school bus) back up to our cars. It really was a major highlight of our trip.

"The pose" of course

Dirty bums after riding back up through the wet muddy tunnel

The other fun thing we did was visit two different lakes and played on the beach. The first day we did Lake Coeur d'Alene and rented sailboats. I think this was the highlight of the trip for Shad. After that day he was convinced that we needed to buy a little sailboat. They really were adorable and the kids had a lot of fun going out on the water and taking turns having rides. The sand at that lake wasn't very fun to play in as it was pretty rocky and the water was cold, but I think everyone still enjoyed it. After playing there we went into town for a bit and played at the park and did some main street shopping. Downtown Couer d'Alene is pretty cute.

We stopped at a pizza place that we had reservations at on the way back to our rental. I think everyone was starving from a day at the beach.

We also visited another lake called Lake Pend Oreille. There was a great beach in Sandpoint that we played at all day. It was much more swimmer-friendly and the sand was softer. We also rented some paddle board for a few hours. I enjoyed that a lot and was on one for a good portion of the time since I didn't bring my swimming suit, DUH! I forgot about what a workout those things are though. The kids had a great time that day and loved playing together.

That night the adults headed back up to Sandpoint and had dinner at a restaurant right on the lake called "Trinity at the beach." It was really refreshing to be with just the adults. I felt like I missed out not being able to go ziplining with some of the other adults because I was pregnant so a date night was much needed. I appreciated that Ryan and Lindsay's teenagers were willing to watch the kids for us so that we could go. After dinner, we walked along the dock and checked out all of the boats in the boat show. Some of those boats cost more than our house. It was unbelievable!

It really was such a great trip and my kids still talk about it often and ask when we are going to do it again. It was a miracle that no one really got sick the whole week we were there (although Ruby and few other cousins ended up with hand, foot, and mouth after we got home). I think we were really blessed. It was a perfect week!

I am so grateful for the amazing family that I married into. My sister in laws are like my sisters. We talk every day. It was so fun to be with them all week and I learn so much by watching them as mothers and wives. It was also really fun to see how the cousins interacted and got along together. They were so sad to leave and I think they can really say that their cousins are some of their best friends. They really enjoyed getting dirty and having unstructured playtime. They don't get to be with these cousins very much so that was important.

We did the drive home, 30 hours, straight through. The kids did great! They really are great travelers. We did the northern route this time to make sure that we hit North Dakota and could check that off our state list. I think the drive was a little long for my pregnant body though. It took my feet about a day for the swelling to come back down. I think there is a reason the doctors say to only do 3-4 hour stretches and then you have to get out and walk around. The night time driving was a bit longer than that.