William had a birthday. And according to Mitchell he is OLD! So happy birthday old man! But really this post is another attempt to rectify my poor journaling efforts over the years and really record the happenings of our little family. So, again, Happy Birthday old man and because old age is setting in and you might forget the great things we did for this birthday here is the play-by-play.
We let William sleep in. At least as long as we could allow because we had an agenda and as any good Anderson knows agendas are key to enjoying quality, scheduled, organized and properly planned activities. This, of course, was instilled in us by our loving father who would print, bind and send in the mail (even if you lived in the same house as him) the agenda for family events. While I didn't print and bind the agenda for William's birthday I had made specific arrangements based on a certain time table and it was definitely time to wake William at a little past 8. Quite decadent really, to sleep past 8am.
So as a good Anderson, I was beginning to feel a little nervous because William felt he needed a shower and food and time to wake up properly but this was not in the agenda and he was slowing us down. So we tried to hurry him along without being too overbearing and finally he made his way to the kitchen for his gifts which consisted of a number of things the kids had picked up from the Dollar store. He was really quite good-natured about the lack of anything fancy and in fact thought he had figured out we were taking him on a great adventure, which in fact we were, but not the kind he suspected. He actually though he found a theme in our Dollar store finds and assumed we were taking him for a water adventure when in reality we had thought nothing of that sort of theme and we were just grabbing items we thought were funny or odd. Maybe he was really hoping his birthday wasn't going to be filled with cheap plastic water guns and he was hanging on to the hope we had done something else for him. Which we had as evidenced by the next package produced by Jane. He was going on a scavenger hunt, or rather he was undertaking the Silly Billy Quest of 2009 and Jane had just presented him with the first clue.
In all there were only six clues but each one took bit of time because most of them required some sort of physical activity before he got the next clue. For instance, the first clue:
Stand up.
Sit down.
Spin yourself all around.
Do a little Irish jig.
And go and find the biking rig.
Ok, so this didn't really require too much physically except for his Irish jig which was actually a bit lacking, but we let him move on anyway which was a good thing because it took him a while before he figured out that the next clue was in Luke's bike trailer. This clue, however, took a little longer to accomplish, although not as long as William initially thought when he assumed we would be riding our bikes to Provo which is not a distance I want to undertake with our kids this year. At any rate, clue number 2 put us on our bikes on our way to visit our true-blue friends, the Chandlers:
You might think there are easier forms of transportation.
But this is a task of my own creation.
So use your legs and pedal away
To the place where we saw the Cougars play.
They were gracious enough to give William his next clue without making him dance but he did have to mount his bike again, this time heading to the kids school.
Morning breaks and the day takes you here
A place where there is someone dear
Who smiles and jumps and runs away
But returns again at the end of day
Run, Jane, run. And run she did! She ran half-way around the school before she stopped to give William his next clue which required an interesting ride home before a rummage through any spot in the house he could think of that might have had "creativity" associated with it. But the place he should have thought of first was finally the last: the lego box. After all it is where the kids spend hour upon hour creating "creations" which they then line up on their dressers and count how many they've made.
Home again, home again jiggedy jog
On the way back play a little leap frog
But don’t forget when you dismount
Find the place where creativity counts
The lego box yeilded this:
Rocking is a form of expression
And in this place we faced a little regression
So go there again and repeat your previous action
And you might find a clue if you don’t get caught by the distraction.
From here we had a bit of a drive ahead of us to visit our youthful friends who like to help us old foggies relive our younger years by playing Rock Band. So thanks to the Powells, we played. And although Lisa talked about making William play on the expert level and not giving him his clue until he passed, she really didn't have to worry. We failed on the easy level. But perseverance finally paid off.
Since we live in the tundra where the weather is fierce
And the cold, through your clothes, simply does pierce
You should look for the thing that brings warmth to your soul
And makes you complete when you’re ready to roll
After thoroughly disecting the clue on the way home and a search through the house, William finally finished his quest.
We'll see if we can top it next year.
And while they have been busily occupied honing their new-found skills, I have been busy honing my quite imperfect sewing skills. Mitchell is a true middle child; he thinks he has been given a raw deal in much of life. Although I only made a quilt top for Jane and then tied it and I've done nothing for Luke, Mitchell felt his room needed spiffing up and that should come from a cowboy quilt. So I finally made it. Its nothing fancy and you really don't want to look close because of an unforeseen difficulty (i.e. a problem with the binding because this was originally intended-as requested-to be a duvet cover) but it is a cowboy quilt and I actually machine quilted the thing. I guess we all have to have a first try at things and this was mine and hopefully my next attempt will be much more professional but currently Mitchell feels quite loved and special (although you'd never really know it because he doesn't smile in pictures and claims to not know how to) because he's the only who has a new quilt. 
And for those of you who think I'm now turning into a true Idahoan, it's not true. I've just momentarily found a new creative outlet.
