Spring Break Part 1
So Bryson had spring break this week and even though he is only in preschool 2 days a week, without an organized schedule and friends for Bryson to play with, it was a long week. We decided to go on some outings this week. Monday and Tuesday it snowed. Tuesday night Dad met us at the Kamas swimming pool after work and we went swimming together. Both Bryson and Carley love to swim and they also love the big yellow slide.

Bryson now goes down by himself with his life jacket on. Bryson is getting to be a good swimmer without the life jacket on. He dives for rings at the bottom of the pool and swims about 5 feet to the wall by himself.

Girl Scout Cookies

One of my favorite times of the year when my girl scout cookies come. I look forward to it every year. My favorite is the tagalong (peanut butter pattie), followed by thin mints, then followed by the samoas. A special thanks to my neighbor’s granddaughter who I have gotten my cookies from for the past two years.

I remember when I was young and in Brownies and Girl Scouts. I went door to door trying to sell the cookies. I also sat in front of grocery stores asking people if they wanted to buy some as they walked by. It is a lot better now when I can just buy them from the girl scouts.

Kindergarten here Bryson comes...
So yesterday I took Bryson and we registered for Kindergarten. He is excited to go and so am I.

Powder Day



Yesterday was Bryson's first day skiing. I had meant to take him earlier in the season but due to starting at my new work my weekdays have been tight. I also wanted to take him on a nice sunny day as I figured he would enjoy it more. This year we have only had a few weeks with out a storm (Although the spring has been pretty dry).

Alta was a nice place to take Bryson. They had two tow ropes, one that was pretty flat and one that was steeper. They also had a 'magic carpet' conveyor belt that was easy to ride up. But the icing on the cake was the high speed triple lift that was free after 3pm.








Bryson was pretty good and has learned quite a bit so far. Hes getting better at the pizza and is excellent on French fries (snow plow and skiing strait). He lasted from Noon until 4:15 when we went back home with one break for snacks and two potty breaks (1 that was an emergency down hill event).



All in all I look forward to having Bryson as a Ski/Boarding partner.

So Eric was talking about change in his last post and I guess that is what we all have to realize will happen in life. I was just called as Relief Society 2nd Counselor in our ward. What a change from Webelos leader. I am looking forward to the change and I am excited to help with Enrichment activities. If anybody has had any good Enrichment activities that they want to pass on that would be apprecited

Returning to Bakersfield made me think about all the old times and the people I miss. Bakersfield has changed quite a bit since I last dropped by some 4-5 years ago. And while somethings will never change, I realized that the Bakersfield I grew up in is gone forever. Life is much about change. You often don't miss something until its gone. And so that is the way I feel about Bakersfield. When growing up I always wanted to explore new places; Beaches or Mountains, or even relatives living in other states were popular havens of my teenage years. But now I would give up a lot to just return to the past for a few moments. And so with that I decided to upload a past video of the days of old.

I'm not sure what year it is, as 1st ward in Bakersfield had great Halloween partys every year. But this video has a lot of people that I remember growing up with. It is shot from my Fathers perspective, so a lot is of my family. But also a lot of his and our family friends, dressed up for the occasion.



Youtube doesn't encode video very well (in fact it looks terrible compared to the original). So if you want me to send you a DVD of this just let me know.

Come back next week and I will put up more of Ward camp outs!

So it is 2:30 in the morning and my little girl woke me up and I can't sleep so I thought i would try and figure out some blog stuff. Hopefully I figured out how to get my own profile so it says that I published the post instead of eric. the other thing I am trying to figure out is how to put the cute background colors/paper behind the blog. If anyone can help me it would be appreciated.

Life with a 4 and 2 year old...
Can sometimes be wonderful, but at other times can cause stress and make you just want to run away. Well last weekend that is what I did.
To give you some background I took my kids shopping to the outlet mall in park city. I even had Ann, my mother in law come with me for someone to help with the kids. We were on our 4th store and both my kids had melt downs. We had to take both of them out screaming and crying. Needless to say it is not what I needed for the day. We went out to lunch and then never went back shopping. Luckily I had bought the most important thing I had come for, Carley's new tennis shoes.
Anyways, so i finally start to relax when I get home, but my kids are still high strung and driving me crazy, so that is when I decide to take a break. I called Eric at work and told him that I was going to spend the night at his mom's.
It was a nice relaxing night with no children. then the next morning we went and got manicures and pedicures and went to the dollar theater and saw Enchanted-(with only Grey's Anatomy re-runs it was nice to Patrick Dempsey in a new role and something more G-rated). It was a cute movie and I can't wait until Carley gets into the princess phase and will sit through movies.
Life as a mother is wonderful, but sometimes it is nice to get away.

I am starting to get into this blog thing, so I thought I would let everybody know what has been going on these past three weeks and see the pictures that go along with it. Eric's father, Stuart Duane Anderson II, passed away on February 12, 2008 from lung cancer. We decided to have two funerals because he had friends and family in both Utah and Bakersfield, California. Here are some pictures and notes of the happenings that went on during those two weeks.

The Utah funeral was held on Saturday Feb. 16th and most of Ann's, (Eric's mom,) family was able to attend. It was a very nice service, but when it was over we were all exhausted.

On Sunday we drove down to California to have a funeral in Bakersfield. thanks to David and Cherie Bunting for letting us stay at their house. Also thanks to the Neville's who let us invade their house and let Bryson and Carley play.

Bryson loved to hang out with Aunt Lori because she would always give him stickers. He also liked to hang out with Craig because he put surprises in his wallet.

We visited the best Mexican Restaurant in Bakersfield called El Pueblo. It has been a family tradition and favorite for a long time. Doesn't the food just look delicious. Bryson and Carley mostly ate chips


We then had time to visit with Stuart's brother and sister who I had never met and Eric hadn't seen in a long time. They love to laugh just like Stuart did.

The funeral and graveside service in Bakersfield was very nice

Because Justin had worked for the mortuary previously he was able to help lower the casket into the ground. And because my son is obsessed with back-hoes and dump trucks we had to stay and wait until the dirt was dumped in.

After we went back to the church and had lunch with the best dessert of all. Thanks to Reuben for the most wonderful cake.

Bryson was able to make friends and play around after lunch, but Carley fell asleep on the carride back from the cemetary and stayed asleep on the stage until family pictures were taken.

After the luncheon we were able to spend time with Dave, Doris, and Adrianne. We had a story session about Stuart and had a great time.

The weather turned out good although it was a little windy at the graveside service, but after the rain there is always a rainbow, and maybe even two if you look hard enoughDawnelle

What would a trip to Bakersfield be without stopping at In-N-Out. We stopped going down and coming back. Coming back they happened to give Bryson a hat and I thought it would be a cute picture, so here it is. He is now a crazy fanatic of In-N-Out. He has kept the reciept and he has a gift card that has been used that he carries around in his wallet. We also got both him and Carley a T-shirt.
Dawnelle

After going to Bakersfield and seeing some peoples blogs it got me interested so I am going to give it a try with Eric's blog that he set up a couple years ago. It is fun to see what people are up to and keep updated.
Dawnelle

Well I thought I would upload a bunch of pictures of past events. Some more past then others



First a picture of Dawnelle's flowers. We have been waiting a long time to see what they would look like and here they are!.






Bryson's birthday cake. It was a couple trackers moving dirt. He liked it so much he had to play with before we ate it. He pushed the ground oreo cookies around just like dirt.

























Who can guess what this is?





















Well my trip to Alaska got posponed to next year due to complications with United. Long story short we ended up going to visit the family out in Denver, Colorado.

Here is a picture of one of our many stops along the way at Vail pass (elev. 10666 ft)
























Bryson also had a Birthday cake waiting for him thanks to his aunt Denise. He had lots of fun playing with his cousins and Grandma and Grandpa while in Denver.












Bryson also learned to swim a little while out there. Here is a picture of him kicking (real hard) water on his instructor Kelly. He loved swimming, and even jumped off the diving board by himself. He didn't like the cold water on the last day. He also loved lying on the warm cement to get warm.


When we got home we found TONS of vegitables in our garden. Our neighbors said they had given some away but there were still plenty to be had.

We have picked a few tomatos, but hope to have more real soon!