2009: The Year In Review

I realize it is March, but here it is:

2009 A Year In Review

January
A Good Month for:

Real Estate! I know, the economy was tanking and the real estate market was in decline but thanks to William's company we sold our house! So as we prepared to bid adieu to our abode in Utah and our temporary digs in the tundra we started the hunt for the shelter that we would call home as we dug our feet in for our new adventure. And we found a great deal! Which was really a good thing considering we didn't make out so well on the old place.

The new house

A Bad Month for:

Sibling Bonding. We ended our homeschooling adventures and enrolled the kids in school. That was a great day! Sort of. We found out that if a class is full in your boundary school the school district in our tundra home will choose a different school somewhere in the district to send your kid. Mitchell got the raw end of the stick and went to a different school. I say the raw end only because it kept him from meeting kids in our new neighborhood (people are kind of shut-in here during the winter so you don't really get to know your neighbors and since we hadn't actually moved in yet we really weren't in a position to meet them anyway). But really Mitchell had it great because he had probably the best teacher any of our kids have ever had. So in the end, I guess it worked out alright.

Hard at work homeschooling!

February
A Good Month for:

Hard work and calorie burn! I put in a lot of hours scrubbing and cleaning and patching and painting as we departed the old house. Thankfully I didn't have to pack any boxes. But I did have to unpack them.....only after I had scrubbed and cleaned the company condo and scrubbed and cleaned and patched and painted our new house. In the end, hard work turned into not just a new house but a new home.

A Bad Month for:

Playing at McDonalds. I guess it wasn't really McDonalds fault but during the move we spent an afternoon with friends at McD's and we witnessed another of Mitchell's seizures. The bad thing was that seizures are really scary to see and cope with as a mother and it confirmed my fear that he was still suffering from these episodes. To top it off we had a lot of kids and moms around who all had to see it too. The good thing was that although we had suspected Mitchell was having a lot of seizures we hadn't witnessed (or so we thought) a seizure for almost a year, so finally seeing another put us on the fast track in the neurology department at Primary Children's Hospital. And thus began our almost weekly trips back and forth to Utah for the next couple of months.


March
A Good Month for:

Being tough. Mitchell had to undergo another EEG, which is exhausting and miserable because the patient can only have a few hours of sleep before the test (which means this mom could only have a few hours of sleep) and then they get lights flashed at them and they are hooked up to computers with all sort of probes and really its no fun at all. But Mitch was awesome during all of that. And a week later he had to return to Primary Children's for an MRI which he thought would be even worse. I'm not really sure what Mitchell thought was going to happen but I think he thought he was being shipped to space or some such thing. His neurologist thought it might be a good idea for him to be sedated for this so as we headed down to Utah for the test Luke and I were able to lunch and Mitch toughed it out with only a little jello. In the end it was decided that maybe we could try the MRI without sedation and see if Mitchell could hold still. He was amazing.....and terrified! He held on so tight to his "Pirate Bear" (isn't it great that Grandma's seem to know just what a kid might need in a time like this?) that he started wearing out the stitching on an ear! And I don't think he even blinked. Well actually, I don't think he opened his eyes, I mean, who wants to see outer space if you don't want to be shipped there.

Dinosaur Park, on the way to the MRI

A Bad Month for:

Settling in. I think we had lived in our house for about two weeks and I we might have attended church about three times, certainly we hardly knew anyone, but it didn't take too long before the ward (the Lord, rather) put us to work. I was called to the Young Women's presidency as the second counselor and William was called as the Ward Mission Leader. That's one way to get to know your neighbors!

I make a "Beehive Cake" for every Beehive girl (ages 12 &13) birthday

April
A Good Month for:

Luke! Luke turned three and had a great birthday....although for some reason he thought he was going to have three birthday parties. Unfortunately he had to be disappointed and only have one. But he had a spectacular cake, a yellow cake with chocolate frosting as requested, made by his mother. So a quick recap of Luke at age three: he loved puzzles and coloring and could sit for long periods of time quite occupied with these activities. He loved hair snuggles. He would give me a big hug and stroke and twirl my hair (I will miss this when he decides he's too old to snuggle his mommy!) and if he didn't get enough of my hair he would twirl his own which was leaving quite a little bald spot on his head for a while. Luckily he has tons of hair. Luke always has to be in the middle of everything, especially if his older bro and sis are involved. And his non-stop chatter is just that, non-stop, but it's quite cute and very funny. Truly, he is a joy.

Isn't he adorable? Luke turning 3!

A Bad Month for:

Local culture. Actually, I'm not sure there is really a good month local culture, but maybe that's a little harsh. But the point is that I left town and headed down to Salt Lake to hang out with my good friends, Brenda and Megan, and to go see WICKED! I love "Wicked" and it was even better seeing it a second time! It was a fabulous excursion with some fabulous gals!

Not actually from the Wicked excursion, but a photo of the gals regardless!

May
A Good Month for:

Getting out of dodge! Our little family headed to San Diego for a great vacation! We left the cold and wind of our tundra home for the chilly beach, but that didn't matter at all, we had a great time! William had a conference for a couple of days nicely situated at the Hotel Del Coronado so we spent three lovely days there and visited the beach and the San Diego Zoo and Sea World....which was a little bit of a bust because an hour and a half into our Shamu excursion Luke hit his face on a table and severed an artery in his mouth and we spent the next six hours or so in the emergency room. But that would not slow him down the next day when we visited the mecca of all theme parks (in my boys minds): Legoland! To this day I'm not sure the boys think that anywhere on earth is a wonderful and fantastic as Legoland. And really, is there a greater place? Certainly not for little boys who spend every moment they can making lego "creations." So even when we ventured back to Sea World, and yes we ventured back, they were asking all day if we couldn't just see Shamu and then go back to Legoland. Some day boys, some day.

A few images from our grand adventure

A Bad Month for:

Reflection. Not so much a bad month, but more of a sad month. May 19th marked the one-year anniversary of my dad's passing. May also would have been his 72nd birthday and in June my parents would have celebrated 50 years of marriage. Would have. I have a hard time reflecting even now, and my eyes fill with tears writing this. Dave Anderson was a great man and I miss him so dearly. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him and how grateful I am that he is my father.

May was also not a good month for William because, although we celebrated in style, he still had another birthday and crept ever closer to the big bad middle age mark!

William just finishing his birthday treasure hunt

June
A Good Month for:

Jane! Jane turned 9 in June and we had a splendid birthday surprise in store for her! Grandmum (i.e. my mom, Robin, or the myriad of other names her grandchildren call her) came for a fun visit and birthday celebration. We sent Jane on a treasure hunt around the yard and house scavenging for her gifts. Her final gift was a trip that evening to the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone to see the Secret Garden, her favorite soundtrack and now her favorite play! A few things about Jane this last year: She still never puts a book down, which is great, unless you're trying to get her do some work! Jane played softball this year, she started Irish dance, she sings in a performing group, she's working on her Faith in God award for church, she gets almost entirely straight A's, she is quite a good little artist, she is a great big sister and she loves that she can generally sucker her mom into buying her LOTS of clothes because she is my only daughter! What a great girl!

Jane is 9!

A Bad Month for:

Swine flu. Okay, maybe that's dramatic, I don't really know if it was the swine flu because although I should have gone to see the doctor because I was so sick, I didn't.....because I hate going to the doctor, so I didn't get tested. But I did have all the symptoms. And I was very, very sick.


July
A Good Month for:

Being kids! The kids were very busy this month! Jane and Mitch had softball and baseball. Grandmum came to visit with cousins Morgan and Ty. Mitchell had soccer camp. Gramma Sarah came to visit. We had the Fourth of July celebrations not only on the fourth but also the day before! We went to Yellowstone.....and it hailed and looked like three inches of snow. And it was finally warm enough to go to the pool!

The 4th of July....go figure! Yellowstone

A Bad Month for:

Hygiene. I spent five days with the girls in our ward at Girls' Camp. We were in tents. We only had an outhouse for a toilet. And we had no showers; although we did have a very cold lake not too far away! And other than really cold (it dipped into the 30s a couple of nights), wet weather we had a really good time, particularly since we didn't have to build our own latrines like my first year at girls' camp! We did a high ropes course, we hiked, we canoed, we water skied and we were exhausted when we got home.

Girls' Camp

August
A Good Month for:

Road trip adventures. We headed out to Oregon for an Athay family reunion on the coast, all set for a great, relaxing time. Unfortunately, William threw his back out just as we were getting ready to leave town which left me doing all the driving. Now that is fine, because I am a very good driver, but William does not like have to navigate. No, he likes to leave that to me but it became his job because of where he was sitting in the car. So, he left things to his GPS. And we found out that the GPS does not always have the best sense of direction. But it can make for very interesting places to visit while you're driving on a tiny mountain road that is so narrow and windy its a wonder it actually made it onto a map of any sort in the first place. But after a fantastical visit the lava flows on Mckenzie Summit we somehow made it to Florence, Oregon where we really had a great time sand surfing, dune buggy riding, lighthouse seeing and hanging out with our great family.

Mckenzy Summit......or somewhere on Mars

The family reunion. Florence, Oregon area.

A Bad Month for:

Feeling secure in my relationship. William had to go to Florida for "Convention," the big production his company puts on every year. And while he was there "the lawyer man" had a number of ladies who thought he was something special. Now I think he's something special too, so I didn't really like the report he gave of these gals hitting on my hubby....no matter how unattractive he claims they were!


September
A Good Month for:

New Beginnings. School was back in session and this year Mitchell was able to be enrolled in our local school. So September found Jane heading into fourth grade and Mitchell into first and Luke.....well, not into preschool. I just couldn't do it. I didn't find a preschool I was thrilled with and.....Okay the truth is that he's my baby, my last one and although I was very happy to send my older two to two years of preschool I just wanted to hang onto him being little a little bit longer. Nothing wrong with that, right? Nothing until now that we're midway through the school year and he is BORED with me and some days I'm regretting that decision. But many days, when we're snuggled up looking at "I Spy" books (the latest obsession), I'm really very glad.

First day of school.....and first of many long days with mom!

A Bad Month for:

Relaxing. With school came homework, soccer, dance, singing, school events, church events, tennis and, not to be forgotten, BYU football. Okay, okay, I know William will think that BYU football is very relaxing....for him, but for me I get to host football parties which means lots of clam dip and lots of other food (always the clam dip, though) and lots of people. Very fun, not relaxing. And the one game we actually attended this month was a miserable end for the Cougars. Again, not relaxing. Especially when you have to drive four hours home with a grumpy husband.

The fall soccer team, I think....its hard to keep track.

Labor Day in the Tetons

Jane's first Irish dance performance at the commUNITY Fest.

October
A Good Month for:

A Good, Good Night! Living where we live is really great especially because William is home so much more and a lot less stressed but sometimes we REALLY need to get out of this town. (Like right now, as I'm writing this and thinking that I might go crazy if I don't get out soon!) So in October we had some friends who offered us tickets to go see U2 in Las Vegas. Well, there was no way we could pass that up! Not only would we see U2 and The Black Eyed Peas, but we would get to go with friends and see good friends while we were there. And its my birthday month so William didn't have to work to hard on figuring out birthday gifts; just set me free with friends in the land of good shopping and I'm quite a happy birthday girl! So we took off for a weekend of sun, fun, shopping and good food.....and no kids. Ahh, bliss! For everyone, even the kids because they stayed with Aunt Cindy and Grandmum and got to go to Pirate Island and that is a very cool place. Not as cool as Legoland, but very cool. They tell me all the time.

A little night music.....with U2

Shopping! In a mall that seemed larger than our entire town!

On my actual birthday

A Bad Month for:

Not having a costume. So its a good thing we did have Halloween costumes, or almost because we had so many Halloween parties this year! We had parties with friends, at school, with friends again and for the first party the glitter glue on the boys bat wings was still drying as they put the wings on and it "somehow" ended up being flapped all over my walls so I'm still to this day finding traces in places I never imagined. But it was the year of the homemade costume so I suppose its only natural that in my chaotic state I would still be cleaning up after myself. This year the boys decided that they wanted to match each other. They finally decided on being bats probably because Jane, at the last minute, decided to be a witch (instead of a "garden girl") and that way they could flap around her and annoy her until she she screamed, which made them quite gleeful. I guess its not always easy being the only girl after all, at least not when the boys are ganging up. But to top it all off her witch shoes started bothering her after she and Mitch had only made it through half the neighborhood Trick-or-Treating. I told her to get used to it; after all, its just what we girls have to do in the name of fashion! All in all, it was a busy (basketball for both boys started this month) but very fun month.


November
A Good Month for:

Being a dutiful mother. Did I mention that I'm room mom for both Jane and Mitchell's classes? I'm not really sure how that happened. Oh wait, I know how it happened. Mitchell's teacher wanted me to come in for two hours every week to help in class and that just didn't work out because a) I have a little kid at home and I was having trouble figuring out a "trade" and b) I didn't want to go in for two hours every week so I didn't really work too hard at figuring out a "trade." But when she mentioned no one had volunteered to be room mom I was more than happy to take that on. I mean really, three parties and I get credit in Mitchell's book for being a loving and caring parent who helps out at school. Great! Then I got an email from Jane's teacher thanking me for being the room mom and I should get started planning the first party. Wait. I didn't sign up for that. I did say I would help with the FAME program but room mom...... At any rate, I wasn't sure how I was going to handle two parties presumably on the same day until I found that in the 4th grade they don't "do" typical parties. So November was our first party. Veteran's Day. And I had to work with the room mom from the other 4th grade class and I only had one volunteer and I was supposed to have 2 hours worth of party with three stations, a craft, a snack and veteran to speak to the kids, and an outdoor "game." Our game: Broom Hockey with potatoes (I do live in potato country after all). 4th graders can be vicious with brooms and potatoes and I was very tired after this party. But my daughter was very happy that her mom was the cool broom lady.

Unfortunately there are no photos from the great broom hockey games....
so William and his dad being serious hunters will have to suffice.

A Bad Month for:

Being left behind. Sometimes William's company will grab you at the last minute and say "Hey, we've got tickets for you to (fill in the event)." And quite often its for Utah Jazz games or BYU games, which, of course, makes William quite happy when its him who is pulled aside and asked if he would like to go. Unfortunately, there is rarely more than a few hours notice. So when William called in November and said he had been offered tickets to sit on the front row of the Jazz game right next to Jerry Sloan and the team of course I would have wanted to go! But leaving for the game in about two hours with kids who I would have had to shuttle to who knows who, and with those kids not even home from school, just wasn't an option. I have done this once before (you know, frantically arrange for the kids and then taking of for a fabulous evening) and it was great.....but our seats were on the second row for that game. This time I had an evening out planned and I didn't want to bail on the girls and the kids had activities after school and it just didn't work. But it did work out William to go. And he had a fabulous time.


December
A Good Month for:

Mitchell! Mitchell turned 7 this month and had a great birthday bash! We usually have friend birthday parties at home but when we joined our gym/club this year they gave us a three parties included with our membership. So Mitchell's swimming party was our first foray into parties at a place and it was so great! (Why have I been stressing out and working so hard doing parties at home?) I didn't even have to make a cake because my sister Cindy had sent a leftover cake from my nephew David's wedding reception home with us the week before! We defrosted the cake, met kids at the pool, picked up pizza's and voila! Everyone was happy! I'm doing this again! So a few things about Mitchell at age 7: Mitchell played a lot of sports this year, basketball, baseball, soccer and more soccer. He loves legos. Did I mention that he LOVES legos? He has a really sweet nature and he likes to get up really early in the morning and wake everyone else up in the process. He's a lot like my dad that way; its great to be alive every morning! Its just that no one else in this house really feels the same way. Mitchell is a really good student. Math is so easy for him and he is a great reader. Mitchell has had a lot to come to terms with this year and I am so proud of how he has handled this trial. His hope and ours is that in 2010 we can finally get his seizures under control.


A Bad Month for:

Slowing down. This month Jane had a fantastic performance with her singing group, we had church functions, school functions, sports that went on forever, Christmas party after Christmas party, New Years Eve festivities to look forward to, we were dogsitting for Grandmum's Chummy and then finally school got out, Grandmum came and we could enjoy time as a family. I had planned, like Thanksgiving, for a fabulous Christmas Eve dinner and an even more fabulous Christmas day dinner. But Grandmum arrived a little later than we thought and we really wanted her to go the movies with us on Christmas Eve but by the time the movie was out everyone was starving and most of the restaurants in our town had closed before 6pm so we had a fabulous dinner at......Taco Bell. Mom thought this was really funny but my inner Martha Stewart was somewhat mortified. At least I made a great feast on Christmas on day. And we had a wonderful Christmas. It was so great to have my mom join us and it was so wonderful to remember our Savior and just how blessed we are.

Jane all dressed up and ready for her TaVaci Singers performance.

Christmas party at our neighbors house....and Santa showed up!

Christmas Eve 2010



What a great year!