Gobble Til You Wobble

Thanksgiving weekend was awesome!  We were so blessed to actually be together this Thanksgiving and even better to be able to spend this time with family.  Last year was the year I was in Romania while Andrew was in basic training.  Sometimes I feel like the years just jumble together...

So this was our second Thanksgiving ever.  Wednesday, we spent the night in Wahepton, ND about 5 hours from where we live.  We then got up early on Thursday and drove the last 7 hours to my aunts' house in Shenandoah, IA. So us and the two dogs had quite a trip!  It worked out great since Cris worked on Thursday and we ended up having our actual meal on Saturday.  What did that mean?

Black Friday!!! Yep, we were some of those hard core people that sit outside in the cold for hours just waiting to be pushed or trampled to death hehe.  But seriously it was our first time and what an experience!  My Aunt Karen, cousin Aspen, me and Andrew all drove to Omaha and waited outside of Target for four hours till midnight.  It was cold but definitely worth the wait.

Between the four of us we got 3 out of the 16 Acer Aspire Netbook laptops available for black Friday.  At a total price of $167.00 each it was worth it! Our other big item prize was the Harry Potter movie set at Best Buy for $39.99.  Aww...victory is sweet.  And no there was not any trampling.

The next pictures are just some of the fun from Thanksgiving weekend:

Those ahead of us at Target (we were in the 3rd "wave" of people allowed to go in!)

The girls waiting in the cold

Andrew couldn't believe we actually waited for four hours hehe

Getting stuff ready for the Thanksgiving meal!!

Aunt Cris cutting the turkey

The table

The guys watching the game while we cooked.  Typical:)

Overall it was a great weekend.  Did I mention there were a total of 5 dogs and 4 cats in the house?  And yes (sadly) two of the dogs finally caught a squirrel while going Ya-ya at the park.  Anyways it was a weekend filled with fun, food, and most importantly family. And of course lots of games!!  Booyah! :D

Love,

The Andersons

Until We Meet Again

Yesterday was an incredibly hard day for my family.  After a long battle, my uncle John passed away.  The initial shock was something unfathomable.  My mom was on a flight over there when the battle ended.  She didn't make it in time.  What hurts me the most is I wasn't able to say goodbye either.  What an amazing uncle he was.  I just hoped he knew how much I loved him.  I was so blessed that Andrew went into the Air Force and his graduation allowed me to visit my family in San Antonio.  At least I will have those memories always.  I just wanted to dedicate this particular post to my uncle john who passed away November 8, 2011.

One memory I will always have of my uncle john is one I will always treasure.  Just under 4 years ago all of my mom's side of the family was able to go on a cruise together! Amazing I know.  What a special time it was for my family.  But the memory I have to share is of the arcade on the cruise ship.  It took many quarters and time but my uncle john and I beat the Jurassic Park game together.  Like, we actually beat the whole game in the arcade!  

It was also because of my Uncle John that I was able to participate in the stingray excursion.  What a special experience I will never forget.

My uncle john will be very missed.  Something I felt we connected on was our love of travel and culture.  Something I always loved about my Uncle John and Aunt Jenny is that I was able to talk to them about this.  I love art, travel, and experiencing life.  Going to Romania even furthered that.

His passing is one still very hard for me.  He left many people behind who loved him.  His parents, 2 sisters and a brother.  His wife, my aunt jenny, who is one of the strongest people I know!  And his young son Rhys.  All of his family and friends knew what a special person he was.  

As hard as it is to say goodbye to someone very much loved, he has someone just as special as he was waiting for him.  My cousin Brittney.  I know at this moment my uncle John and cousin Brittney are in eachothers' arms, finally reunited. 

How grateful I am to know how merciful our father in heaven is.  He sent His son, my lord and savior Jesus Christ to sacrifice himself that we might all return to Him.  It is through Him that we have the opportunity to have eternal families and the opportunity for repentance.  Knowing this truth has gotten me through the hard times.  It is this truth, that will strengthen our family.  We will see my uncle again today.  I feel so sad knowing he his gone so prematurely but I know everything will be alright.

I love this song, it is one of farewell and hope we sang often as a goodbye in Hawaii. I wanted to share it for my Uncle John, until we meet again...

Aloha Oe

Ha`aheo ka ua i nâ pali
Ke nihi a`ela i ka nahele
E hahai (uhai) ana paha i ka liko
Pua `âhihi lehua o uka

Hui:
Aloha `oe, aloha `oe
E ke onaona noho i ka lipo
One fond embrace,
A ho`i a`e au
Until we meet again

`O ka hali`a aloha i hiki mai
Ke hone a`e nei i
Ku`u manawa
`O `oe nô ka`u ipo aloha
A loko e hana nei

Maopopo ku`u `ike i ka nani
Nâ pua rose o Maunawili
I laila hia`ia nâ manu
Miki`ala i ka nani o ka lipo

Papa's Pumpkin Patch

Yes, before you even ask, that really is the name of the place we went for date day on Saturday!  I am not creative enough to come up with something like that on my own.  Anyways...

Our Date Day was so fun!  Andrew and I decided to travel down to Bismarck since we were in serious need of some pumpkins for Halloween.  We went Papa's Pumpkin Patch, an all-around Halloween, harvest, hay bale place to be.  Seriously this place makes can't wait to have kids because it would have been a haven of fun for children!  That day if you wore a costume you got in free (no sadly we didn't wear one) but it was still a blast.   It had miniature pony rides, a "sand" box filled with corn kernels, a hay maze, a train, pumpkin gun launcher, and of course the pumpkin patch.

 

Us on the train

Yes, that really is corn in there

One of the "hay forts"

Who could not love this dork?!

Part of the pumpkin patch

We got 4 little pumpkins ^_^

Our "big" pumpkin we brought home

As you can tell it was raining the whole time we were there.  Big deal.  It was a blast!  It is days like that, that make us remember why we love spending time together. After we killed time by stopping at Old Navy, getting a costume for Athena (muahaha...stay tuned), and the dollar store for some decorations.  For dinner, as I am supposed to mention, we had Red Lobster where Andrew dove into the special of having the endless shrimp.  I have no clue how many he ate, I lost track after 50!  

We are so excited for Halloween, literally our 1st one we have ever celebrated together (we have somehow been apart all the times we have been dating and married).  So we loved sharing this day together and getting ready for the most festive time of the year - Oct 31st through Jan 1st :D

Love,

The Andersons

Makin Our House A Home

Today was a pretty crazy awesome day.  We were told last night that we were speaking Sunday (today).  So with barely anytime to prepare we gave pretty amazing talks if I do say so myself. But what made it even crazier were our roles today in church!  One of Andrew's calling in church is over the CTR 4 class.  He has about 8 kids and the other teacher has only shown up once to help teach.   Meaning he is in there all by himself.  But, last night I was also asked to help out in nursery for today.  No big deal only 15 kids under the age of 3.  haha Yeah it was crazy fun.  Who would have known all the things you can learn from little kiddos?  

Anyways, for this blog post I wanted to share some of the little treasures in our house.  We moved into the house the middle of July but I still feel like we are setting up.  But first things first...

We have grass!

When we first moved in everything was under construction still.  It was all dirt and looked very uneven.  So they just put down seed and ta-da!  Grass over night (ok it took a little longer than that).  They have a contract for about a year where they do everything to make our yard look nice.  They even added planters and our very own tree.

Obviously no real growth yet:)

The other pictures I am going to show you are merely little add ins that I have found overtime to make our house more of a home.  As you can see it is a bit of a tropical theme, perhaps to create our very own sanctuary when we hit the true North Dakota weather!

Our couch we bought and brought from Utah:)

The little side table 

Just an accessory for the dinning room I bought at a base garage sale!  25cents for the new Chinese lanterns not too shabby

Our little set up in our ikea furniture!  I made the picture frame display!

A new painting just given to us from someone moving out

The best new furniture of all is a TV!  We do have an old TV my parents gave us, which we were very thankful for, but we did plan on getting a new one during Black Friday.  But Andrew works with someone recently going through a divorce and is getting rid of all his stuff.  So....drum roll please....we just got a 2009 flat screen 42 in TV for $100.  That painting was thrown in as well.  Got to love living on base you get awesome deals!

Andrew very happy with his new television!

That's all for now for now folks. Although,we are officially going to Iowa for Thanksgiving and Utah for Christmas and couldn't be more excited!  Where better to spend such major holidays than with family.  We feel we have been truly blessed lately and just know things are finally falling into place.

Love, 

The Andersons

The Craziness of Life

This blog post is almost solely dedicated to how I feel myself fighting each day to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  As most of you know, Andrew and I are in Minot, North Dakota.  Even now it is hard to believe we are actually living here.  But in moving here I have changed my life around in order for Andrew to start his.  Over the summer it seemed like things were pretty chill, other than the flood of course.  I had just two summer classes and the rest of the time I felt like I did nothing.  Oh how I wish things could be like that.  Now I have am going to school and started cross-country.  It might not seem like a big deal but it is...

School, cross-country, being married, taking care of a dog, along with other stressors....is a lot for me.  Especially when I feel l will NEVER  be done with school.  Next semester I am applying for the nursing program here at Minot State University but I won't be able to start till next August.  And the program itself is 5 semesters.  Perhaps now you can see why I feel like my life has not really started yet.  On top of that tuition is so much more expensive!  It is no Stanford but it isn't the low cost of BYU either.  Meaning school books and the extra tuition cost, even with a scholarship, is a bit much.  

And then there is cross-country.  The kryptonite of my existence sometimes.  Don't get me wrong, I love running and I get paid to do it.  But when you have to practice 6 days a week for at least 2 hours a day (sometimes at 7:00am) and have to schedule the rest of your day around it, it kind of stinks.  Plus since we live on base I have an extra 20 min each day to drive.

Now on to Andrew's fun life. He starts work at 7:00am and works till 5:00pm.  A regular work day right? Until they have inspections( which feels like they happen every two weeks) and is required to always be on call in case of a substance leak somewhere. So last week he had work on Saturday and today he may be out at work till at least 10:00pm because of an inspection. I know I shouldn't complain because at least he has a job (which he actually enjoys).  But for all those who understand the military will know that the "benefits" we receive through the Air Force is actually compensation.

As I finish writing this I realize how silly it all seems.  I need to be grateful for all the things I do have!  My family is awesome and always there for me, I have a loving husband, a beautiful house, and in 3 years I will be looking back saying how fast the end of school went by.  I guess I will just have to wait till then.  But in the meantime I have learned that I need to live life in moment.  Enjoy the scenery as it passes me by.  Do the best in everything I do now. Instead of telling myself "if only I was done with school" or "I can't wait till my final running season is over and things will be easier" or the best " I will do that when this happens"...I need to be enjoying life now.  Not waiting to do life when "life gets easier" because it never will. 

The present really is a gift I need to take advantage of.  So thanks for listening to the ramblings of a stressed soul... The fact that I realize I need to just roll with the punches shows that at least I can change right?:D ha ha. 

Here is exactly what popped into my head, and will stay with me the rest of day...

I thought it was fitting:)

Love,

The Andersons

A day at the zoo

A few weeks ago, right before school started, we decided to take one last little trip to celebrate the end of the summer.  We again went to Bismarck which is only about 1 1/2 hrs. away.  Last time we were there everything was closed!  This time, since our zoo was flooded, we were able to visit the zoo in Bismarck.  A lot of the animals from our zoo had already been transported down there.  The zoo was tiny and cost only about 7 dollars to get in but it was fun!  Granted it kind of resembled a swamp due to flooding down there and some of the animals were things like deer and horses but still it was worth a few hours...

 Me and my favorite ^-^

 An example of the majority of types of animals (aka deer, bears, racoons)

 Cute, huh?  They were only like a foot tall

 An eagle's wingspan perhaps?

They had these tiny primates everywhere!

So cool! In an underground tunnel viewing point the tigers were sleeping right on top!

 Like I said, the types of animals they had. And what ND is known for-groundhogs!

Overall it was a really fun day.  We only spent a few hours there but it was fun to just walk around and enjoy our time spent together.  Simple days like this just show that you make the fun with whoever you are with. In this case, the zoo was fun because we loved spending time with eachother!

Love Always,

The Andersons

My First Recipe Post

I cannot claim in any stretch of the imagination that I am a good cook.  However, when I find something that even I can make I can't help but post it.  So a few weeks ago I bought a mini Taste of Home recipe pamphlet and found this AMAZING recipe. 

I love Cajun food and I was craving it when I found it. I made it for Andrew and I and while at my aunt's house I made it for them! So here it is...

Jiffy Jambalaya 

Ingredients

• 1 package (8 ounces) red beans and rice mix
• 1/2 pound smoked sausage, sliced
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon Crisco® Olive Oil
• 1/2 pound cooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined( though I just got the frozen bag of medium shrimp)
  
• 1 can (14-1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon Louisiana-style hot sauce, optional (add to taste because we definitely like it much more spicy)
  

Directions

• Cook red beans and rice mix according to package directions.
• Meanwhile, in a large skillet, saute sausage and onion in oil until onion is tender. Add the shrimp, tomatoes, brown sugar and hot sauce if desired. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until heated through. Stir in rice mixture. Yield: 4 servings.

This is a very filling recipe!  So it goes a long way...

Enjoy,

The Andersons