Post Vacation Crash

We got home late last night from our awesome Aanderud family reunion in Park City!
Paul and I were in charge of the T-shirt design and the theme for the week. We decided since the Aanderuds are a family of therapists and social workers that "The Show"would be a fun theme. Paul was the MC for the first opening night and dressed like a talk show host with a table and a mug and did a power point presentation highlighting each sibling and asking many of them to come up and be guests on the show. The presentation was full of all kinds of hilarious spoof clips. My favorite part of the presentation was when Patty (mother-in-law) was asked to come up and talk about her new book "Why I'm right and you're wrong" The show was really funny as well as tender as Paul provided moments for family members to share what family means to them and how special it is for us all to be able to get together. "It is what it is" is our tagline since it has become a common, and probably overused saying in our family.
As an introduction to our family talent show, Paul showed this clip:

We stayed at the Silver King Lodge in Park City. We rented 4 rooms so the kids had a blast cruising from room to room and to the pool and back all week. I feel pretty negligent because my photos are few and far between. You can call me lazy. I've been sticking to the bare minimum lately. So, I'll just fill in some highlights. Zach, my bro in law who just got a job as a professor at BYU (WAY TO GO ZACH!!!!) took us on a nature hike

where we learned that Joren is a huge fan of earthworms. He was so fascinated and had no problem touching and prodding and playing with it. He couldn't get enough. This is cousin Dave being super cool with Joren. I'm not sure Mom would have done such a good job with the earthworm exploration as Dave did. Thanks dude.

The kids LOVED the bubble wands and squirt guns Grandma brought for the hike.

At the talent show that night I had to hold Eirik in my lap with white knuckles because he wanted to be on stage with everyone the whole night. He had 4 parts to his talent and I'm sorry I didn't video anything! He said the pledge of allegiance (I know, old trick) the first article of faith, sang "Skidamarink-a-dink-a-dink" and pointed to everyone at the end of the song where it says, "I love you". Then he did a dying scene as a cowboy with a very funny voice. He was really excited about this part.

Joren's talent was equally cool. He repeated every letter of the alphabet with perfect diction, except W. He can't say it so he skips right to X. He is so smart and so cute.

In the morning the men went golfing (in the rain) and the kids did crafts. I cooked all morning for this awesome dinner we had that night with all the in-laws of each family. My parents came and it was so cool to have them there. We made Kristen's awesome salad. See my previous post for the recipe, and it was a hit.

(I know, my photography rocks in this post. :) I didn't even take my better camera which is a blessing since I would have had it in my carry-on that had a whole cup of sippy milk spill in it as it went through security. The milk ruined my phone.. so if I haven't called you back lately, that's why! And, my camera would have been ruined too.. so as for the pictures.. "it is what it is."









The night of the dinner we also took some family photos. I'll get the professional ones at some point, but for now. These are pretty fun to have.

That afternoon the ladies threw a baby shower for Kristen and me. It was so nice of them and they really went all-out to spoil us. The games were really fun especially because we had some younger nieces with us that loved it. It was fun to spoil Kristen too since it is her first baby. I'm so excited for them!

The whole reunion was awesome, but my absolute favorite part was all the cousins for my kids play with. They were so entertained and had a great time. It was AWESOME! I got such a break from sword fighting and playing pretend, and they still had a great time. What cute cousins we have too!

Joren and Zinnia at the Bean Museum later that week.

Jake, Elsie, Joren

Jake and Eirik ie: Supermen
Eirik said his favorite part was doing steamroller with Megan and dancing with all the kids at the talent show.

On our last day the adults all got to go to the American Fork Temple right after a great dinner at Chilis. In the middle of dinner I was chatting with Kristen who casually mentioned her recommend and I had this sudden panic attack. I realized I had left mine in my diaper bag, which I had proudly announced that I wouldn't need for a night out without the kids, which happened to be 35 minutes away. I jumped right in the car and zoomed home to get it. Luckily my parents are so great and, not only watched the kids, but met me halfway so that I could make it back to the session without 1 second to spare. I literally walked in as they were filling out, and I was the last one in the session. I thought about how terrible I would have felt to have missed that wonderful opportunity. I would have been the only adult in the family of 11 that was missing. I was really grateful to be there. It was a really special session and I had so much adrenaline going in that I had no trouble being very attentive through the whole thing. Maybe forgetting my recommend was a blessing in disguise.


We also got to have some great time with the Laws. My mom is such a delight. She had Eirik join her out in her gorgeous yard to play games, sit in the hammock, swing and climb a tree. In the tree she played tea party and sharks and whales and dinosaurs. I ended up climbing the tree with the so that I wouldn't be eaten by the giant whale that was apparently chasing me around the base of the tree.


We also had the pleasure of celebrating Miss Makayla's birthday with her (my 4 year old niece) while we were there. We had a special waffle birthday cake breakfast for her and then we all got to go see the horses that my sister Katie has been grooming and learning to ride. Eirik and Makayla got to ride on of the horses. Makayla, with gorgeous red hair down to her waist intensely declared, "It's like a dream! For my birthday!" They pretended they were a prince and princess warrior going off to save the kingdom, and then they were a just married prince and princess riding off to live happily ever after.







Thanks Katie for the great time!

And finally a trip to Utah is not complete without a drive in the mountains. Both Paul and I were craving that glorious mountain beauty only Utah has. We did the Alpine Loop and it was so green and the steams and lakes were all so high it was just gorgeous. We saw loaded chokecherry bushes everywhere. It's a big tradition of my mom's to make chokecherry jelly and it's always fun to spot the trees on our drives. The kids didn't really love the drive, but we sure did! Here my mom and sister are whistling with blades of long wet grass. And it was another exciting worm adventure for Joren! He found three, and he had no problem getting very muddy, thus Katie is holding him as far away from herself as possible. he he









My brother Dave bought me lunch and I had a great time visiting with him and my brother Michael. We all miss Daniel who is on his mission in New York. We are so proud of him. We love getting his letters every week. He's a stud. It was so sad to say goodbye again to all our loved ones. It's always too short and too sweet and so sad to come home. We love you guys!

And here are a few Eirik quips to get you laughing if you made it all the way through this incredibly long post!

On the way to Utah Eirik insisted that he had to wear this outfit to the airport. His shirt and pants did not match and each were on backwards. This hideous spiderman boots, given to him by his cousin Abe, have replaced his ultra worn, oh so dear, cowboy boots that no longer zip up, as his footwear of choice. No other footwear will appear on his feet without a great ruckus and tantrum. So he wore his boots, but each on the wrong foot, on purpose. And he had to wear his home depot apron which is now repurposed to be Luke's orange and white flight suit from Star Wars when Luke is in training and in the spaceship. But no Luke suit is complete without the new red helmet! I had to insist that he was not allowed to wear a helmet on the plane. I was afraid he would be mistaken for a hyper hypo and it was already way too embarrassing. He got a lot of attention at the airport and each time had to explain that he was not wearing a Home Depot apron, but that he was Luke Skywalker in training!





And as a side note, Eirik often takes pictures on my camera and I found about 8 video clips of his spider man boots when I downloaded my pictures this time. He really loves those hideous things!



Eirik has still not learned what the word whisper means and his outbursts of words like "Dar Thader", "Kill", "Leah", "Blood", "Poop" and "Now" came at all too frequent intervals.
I'm not saying I'm embarrassed, I'm just saying he's very entertaining.

We were all glad to be home after a long day of traveling.

I made Paul promise that he wouldn't make me go anywhere today. so we are having a cool chillin' day at home.
We miss you family!