Merry Christmas from Mantua!

This year we made a gingerbread house from scratch.  There are even rolled out gumdrop stained glass windows on the side of the house that unfortunately are hidden from the camera. We are enjoying picking off treats.



A lot of rain made a lot of the snow has melt, but we'll take what we can get.  We are hoping most of it sticks around for Saturday.  I would love to get some more cross country skiing in!  It's my favorite snow activity.   The kids can play outside for hours, literally!  The neighbor dogs come over to play and Ben gets mad at them because he doesn't want them ruining the snow hill that Nate built.  It even has a big jump this year.



Santa hasn't even come yet!  This is the benefit to a large and very generous family!  The kids are going to experience another dream Christmas full of everything they could ever want.  I just hope they stay nice kids, with all the things they get.  Thanks for mailing out the packages everyone!  I was expecting to get them from Jill when she came back.  I know shipping isn't cheap, so thanks for doing that.





Bronco had just learned how to crawl, and this was so funny.  He wouldn't put down his sippy cup for anything.  It looked kind of like a cow udder swinging under him as he went along...

We will miss all of you this weekend.  Sorry John, Mom and Dad's tree is going to look void of presents, because half of the grandkids presents are out here.  We hope you all enjoy the peace, because you might not get it next year.  We love you all and look forward to seeing you in Florida!

Oregon Update

Hey Fam! Been awhile, so here are a few random pictures and stories. Hope everyone is doing great!

 We went to a local cut-your-own tree farm nearby in Oregon City, OR to get our first tree for our house. Here is Alisa picking it out. It was fun to go cut it down and drag it back, but it wasn't quite the same as going into the deep woods to find one. I miss that tradition!











Here is Alisa decorating the tree. We have quite a few ornaments, but not quite enough to fill it up. Alisa says that one of the first things she thought of when seeing the little alcove in our main room is that it would be a great place to put a tree. So, there was no discussion on where to finally put it when we got it back to the house!

The tree is starting to accumulate a few presents. Most of which need to get in boxes and sent to Utah for the Blaines. We will miss you all next week (and a few days)!

 I had been taking a picture a day for every run I did. Here is a picture on my last run before my knee (supposedly my good one!) decided to not play along with marathon training and get injured. I've been off it for a good couple of week, and while I don't expect to finish fast in Florida, I do hope to finish! I even was able to run 3 miles today without any pain. Oh, yeah, back to the picture: there is a cool little farm with all sorts of fowl along the bike path/running trail that isn't too far from our house. On that day I saw that there was also a family of otters(?) near the farm. I caught one of them "sunning" itself on the bank.

 Our fence along the house next to us starts at 6 feet and goes down to 4 feet. That is about 4 times as tall as Zoey is, so there is no way she can jump over it, right? Wrong. With the arrival of a new dog next door (a cute pup named Peanut, formerly Mango), Zoey was motivated to try to get over and say hello. Well, she was able to jump over by first getting just high enough to get her hind legs on the little perch there at the top. The neighbors said that she was free to come over any time she liked, but we somehow felt that they would actually get sick of us constantly retrieving her. So....

  Over a very cold weekend we put up a trellis system above the 4-foot section. Thankfully, the length was exactly 24 feet long and three pre-framed 8 foot sections fit snugly in place. I had to extend the short posts by a couple of feet, which looks great on our side, but you can see the metal connector on the neighbor's side. They are a very nice couple however, and even helped us put it up. We had to quickly stain the trellis, no easy task in short wintry days, and here is Alisa showing how much she enjoys the task.

 We are happy with the result and look forward to the spring when we will probably put in one or two vertical trellises (the plural of that should really be trellii as I like the sound of it), and plant some jasmine to climb along the fence.

 Zoey, however, isn't nearly as happy. Here she is checking out the fence. I swear she knows which fence slat she is at by smelling them. Prior to Zoey jumping over the fence, there was a loose fence slat that Bill (the neighbor) repaired after she had gotten through. She would sniff along the fence and return to that one to scratch at it. Anyway, I think the trellis has locked her up pretty well in the back fence. Though now, I worry she will some day learn that she can probably get over the gate we built for her!

  I've been volunteering at the local science museum both in the "featured exhibit" hall and in the laser lab. The laser lab is fun, but I am stuck back in a dark room where it can be half an hour before anyone comes in. I was wiling the time away last time I was there by taking long exposures of the diffracted light we pass through fog creating a rainbow. You can also see green speckling from the laser we use to display a hologram and some fiber-optic light fixtures. 

Finally, I was going through pictures to post on the blog and found this one from our house-warming party and had to post it. Alisa is getting ready to fill those cupcakes with lemon curd. They were great! Anyway, love this picture and it gave me a smile.

Thanks for reading! See you all soon!

Baby number 2 and late Thanksgiving pics and wishes

I had a baby appt last week and all looked good and healthy so that's great and the ultrasound is actually recognizable if you are used to looking for it the head is middle leftish :).  she/he was moving around a lot so I'm not sure I have the mellow baby I'm hoping for but healthy and happy are number 1 priorities :)  Here also are some pics from Thanksgiving. We sure had a good time with Mom and Dad and Jen and Nate and missed everybody else but was glad to see it looked like you all had some great Thanksgiving celebrations too :).  Hope to see most all of you soon for Christmas!

Happy Fall and Halloween!

Nate decided to get rid of his red suit this year.  Too bad, it was so funny, but the pirate was classy!

Jill and Rilan joined us for trick or treating!

Bronco's first amusement park ride at Lagoon.

Camping in the beautiful fall colors!

The front crew on the above metioned ride.  We were so loaded down with the whole family that we got soaked!!

Deven was so cute with Bronco on this ride!  He is such a great big brother for Bronco.

We'll see if you can see this movie.  It's a cute one!

Anderson Updates....

Well first off we have some exciting news, we are expecting Baby number 2.  Due date June 1st.  I'm 9 weeks along and all looks healthy so far so that's great.   Bad picture you can't see a thing but it was fun to see in the ultrasound today the little heart beating and all looked good.

We have been busy tripping too going on a nice trip home in late September to help celebrate Dad's b.day and then early October boating with Thain's brother and then a quick Southern Ca/ Disneyland trip about a week ago with Cole and Paula and Amber.   We've been having a lot of fun basically well as much fun as tired and nauseus early pregnancy can be but it's good news and we will love to have our little ones close together and complete our family :).  Here's a few pictures from the tripping.....

Well I was going to label these and clean up the blog a little bit but Rilan has had it and is driving me nuts so I better go...Oh I did want to post a few from walking with Jen of Bronco and him playing and a recent cute one of this little rascal....

hope all is well with everyone.  Love the Anderson's

Dad & Mom on the move.....

Since our Maine trip, Dad and I have continued a wonderful summer of fun and family! Ben and I stayed at the Railroad Park in Dunsmuir for the Boxcar Adventure with the Elderhostel program (now named Road Scholar).
This is our ''room' on the inside - looking past Ben's bed & mine, to Ben at the door of the bathroom.
On one of our hikes, our leader emphasized that if lost, you should not wander away from where you are. Ben is a great listener!
Soon after Dad, Jeremy, Kathryn, and I helped Alisa and Justin move into this beautiful place, their new home!
Barely a week later Jeremy, Kathryn, Justin, Alisa's good friend Kristen, and Zoey watched for Alisa to run past during her triathlon in Santa Rosa.
This is Alisa running the last lap, taken after her swimming and biking events! What stamina! She was on the go for more than 7 hours!!!!
Vance took this picture of us with Alisa after her finish!
Early the next morning, Justin and Alisa posed right before Justin took off on his ultra marathon near Danville, most of which was up and down steep hills. Jeremy drove us from station to station, and we often got there barely in time to see Justin run by. (Not because Jeremy was driving slowly - the road was very twisting!)
Relaxing with our gracious hosts, Kathryn and Jeremy after the exciting weekend.
Gary gave me a lug of Gravenstein apples so Brianna and Aiden helped me dehydrate a bunch and then did a great job making their own individual pies!
Brianna and I went to the Galley in Chico for a Cooking in the Kitchen for kids. Notice those curled knuckles! She's safely cutting mushrooms for the pizza.
Aiden's letting me know how old he is on his birthday, after the kids destroyed the pinata and he donned a ray from the star.
Cris, Colby and Cassidy Harrison watch him blowing and wishing.
Back to Portland where Dad and Justin built three professional looking composting bins, a planter, and the grape arbor!
Justin didn't waste any time getting the first one going!
Brianna and Aiden helping Cris celebrate her birthday at the Outback!
Justin stopped by on his way to the Burning Man Event in Nevada and the John Dunlaps returned from Colby's game in Merced.
It was a fun and yummy dinner!
We just returned from 4 nights on Lake Shasta the day before yesterday. Dad's driving us out of the harbor to begin.
Our last night we were parked next to a submerged firepit ringed by seats!
Despite being told by fishermen when we left that there were 'no' fish in the lake, Dad caught some every day. We brought about 10 home, and I ate one or two each day (they weren't as big as this one)!
The weather was gorgeous and we had one of the best times yet.
Now I am waiting for Dad to finish extracting the honey for the year so we can go visit Granny. Her surgery Tuesday went well, but Wed. night she had a rough time and since her blood count dropped so low she needed a transfusion. She also has a hairline fracture in her pelvis. She was released to Cypress Acres yesterday for a week or two, but she hopes to go home much sooner.
Hope you're having a fun Labor Day weekend. Dad's leaving tomorrow for a couple days for a tournament in Reno. I'm ready for the next posting........whose will it be? Much love to each of you!
Added after 9:00 pm: the plan is for me to pick Granny up tomorrow morning and take her to her home!