Time Capsule

Once again I will be stealing some pictures from Allison.  Good thing she joined our family.  If it wasn't for her I would be picture deficit.  On January 1, 2000 we put together a time capsule.  We each wrote our predictions for the next ten years about our family, the world, whatever we wanted.  We included a newspaper and some pictures and a video.  We didn't bury our time capsule in our back yard.  Good thing since we moved within that decade.  The kids were allowed to write whatever they wanted.  So on January 1st we opened our time capsule.  (Actually a white food storage bucket.)  It was so fun to read what we had written.  I offered a prize to anyone who had predicted we would have had a baby in that ten years, but no one had predicted Conner.    Then we all wrote our predictions for the next ten years. 

We also took pictures of ourselves to put into the bucket as well. 

 Doesn't Zach look super tall in this picture?  I thought he would appreciate that.

This picture will annoy Zach!  Sorry!

New Year's Eve 2009-2010

Can't believe all of the snow! We had our annual (actually our first) Anderson family snowball fight. I was fortunate and was the designated photographer. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I think it started out as the boys against the girls, then Brad and Michael and Will verses everyone else. I think it finally ended up in a free-for-all. The last picture is just two days later. Pretty amazing. Plus the New Year's Eve dance that was scheduled for the youth of the Tri-cities was cancelled because of the snow and ice. Kylee and Zach facebooked and texted all of their friends and invited them all to our house for a dance. Sure seemed like everyone had fun!





 

Christmas 2009

All of the kids came home for Christmas this year.  It was great.  Our whole wall was lined with humongous stockings.  We had a great debate as to how they should be arranged: age order, when they joined the family order, etc.  We finally decided to keep the original seven kids in order and add spouses after each one.  Kylee wanted a phone for Christmas.  I told her she would have to sit on Santa's lap and ask him.  This is the picture she had taken to prove she did sit on his lap, but according to the others who were with her she really sat on the edge of the seat.  She still got a phone for Christmas though!

I hope Allison doesn't mind - but I am going to steal a few pictures from her blog since I didn't bother to take any pictures.  We took video's but not photos. 

Our gingerbread cookies






3 Wisemen in our Christmas Eve Nativity play.

The day after Christmas we all went to Zach's Eagle Court of Honor.  Since Zach has spent much of his growing up with Chet Norman and Steven Empey, they invited us to have the Court of Honor with them and Pasco 2nd Ward, our former ward.  It was nice to let Brother Empey take care of things - he's an avid scouter. 

TWO WEDDINGS IN ONE YEAR!

Earlier this year - 2009 - Erin got married.  Now the week-end before Thanksgiving Michael got married.  Such a great year it is been for us.  We have been so blessed this year.  They got married in the Provo Temple, the same temple that Allison's parents had gotten married in.  Once again, I got to look around the sealing room and had tears come into my eyes as I could see Courtney and Will, and Erin and David there to witness their brother getting married.  I can't get over how blessed I have been.  



Michael and Allison right after coming out of the temple.



3 Brothers - I can always see how much they love each other, and how much the little one admires the big ones.  (He doesn't see himself as the little one, but as an equal.)



Family Photo - including Grandma Hein



The REAL Anderson family.

The POSED Anderson family.



Groom and Two Best Friends: Zach and Zach.  (Interesting bit of trivia - both Zach's born on April 28th.)



Allison's mom brought ties back from China for all of the guys to wear.  Really cool.

Michael and Grandma Hein



The Hayne's Family, my sister Niki, my brothers Andy and David



Zach's Eagle/Senior Project

For Zach's senior project/Eagle project he got a group of people together and they added bark and did some clean up at Lucas Park.  This is a small park just up the street from DQ in Pasco.  The city of Pasco had taken out the old play equipment and put in new and were more than happy to have someone else do all the work of adding the bark.  What seemed like a small project was huge.  There were quite a few mountains of bark to move and level out underneath the play equipment.  Zach also dug around the park benches so the city could come in a lay cement around them instead of having dirt and mud directly under the benches.  Zach also did trash clean up and some trimming of trees, and pulling of weeds.  It was quite a huge undertaking for this November week-end.  (The very next week-end was super busy as well - and it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet.  My next post will be about that.)



The First Wheelbarrow Full of Bark!



Conner on top of the pile - copying his big brother Zach.

Zach, Kylee, and Steven Empey

Scott Norr and Zach

I wasn't there - so I don't know who all helped.  I know it was a long hard process and I appreciate all who were there to support Zach.  Thank you so much!