Grampa's funeral

We had a very nice funeral for my grandpa. My brother Ben sang, "Accentuate the Positive" - one of grampa's favorite songs. My dad gave a wonderful eulogy. All the great-grandchildren sang, "I Am a Child of God," and then the Bishop gave a beautiful talk about the plan of salvation. Afterwards the relief society served lunch to the family, and we stayed and visited for hours. Another great thing was that the young women babysat the small children during the funeral. This was very helpful so that I could just sit and listen and cry without having to wrestle with Levi.

Grandpa's 4 children - Michael, Marilyn, Judy and Ron.

Not everyone was able to stay for the internment, which was held 2 days later. The funeral home doesn't like to work weekends. It was the nicest day I've ever seen in Los Osos, which is usually very cold and windy when we put flowers on grandma's grave. But it was sunny and warm.

Since grampa fought in WWII, they had a military honor ceremony for him with three rifle volleys, taps and folding of the flag.

Presentation of the flag to my mom.

We lingered and visited some more, and people pretty much left from there to go back to their various homes.

The flags on the veteran memorial were flown in honor of my grandpa that day.

David Carleton Anderson 8/10/44 - 6/20/11

Dave's dad passed away on Monday, June 20th. He had struggled with his health for several years, but the last 5 months were especially difficult.

Dave flew out on Tuesday, and Spencer and I followed on Thursday.

A bugle played Taps at the grave site. His dad was a naval barber in the Vietnam War. Then bagpipes played Amazing Grace. He said he never heard that song without getting goosebumps. It was beautiful.

Presentation of the American flag to Dave's mom.

His dad had dual citizenship, and he had happy childhood memories of living with his grandparents in Toronto.

Dave's Grandfather, Carleton Edward Anderson.

Although we know his dad is free from earthly pains and trials, we will truly miss him. He loved his wife. He raised 9 children. He worked hard to support his large family. He had a strong faith in God.

We will remember him for his love of crabs and the Chesapeake Bay, talking like Donald Duck, constant puns and word play, scrabble, food, good deals, constant reading (especially The New Yorker), maps and architecture.

We are grateful for the legacy he left us and our children. We look forward to the day that we see him again, and we know that through Jesus Christ's atonement and resurrection, he will live again.

90!

My grandpa turned 90 last week! He had 30 friends over Friday night (Kristen's kids thought it was funny that he wanted a friend party), and we all went down Saturday for the family party. Both events were wonderful. He was happy and alert, and he especially enjoyed seeing everyone.

It took 3 people to get all 90 candles lit before they melted away.


Sing quick -they're melting!

Those 90-year old lungs are sure strong!

He did it!

I don't think there's a happier 90 year old in the world than my grandpa.

Happy birthday grandpa. We love you!

Get well soon, grandpa

My grandpa has had a rough few weeks. It started when he fell at home, and he was so weak that my mom had to call the ambulance to help him. He had a bladder infection and dehydration and had to be admitted. Now he's staying at a recovery center, and we are waiting for him to gain strength and weight so he can go back home. But all he wants to do is sleep and not eat, so he's losing weight instead. On Monday the boys made him cards and we went down to see him for family home evening. He was alert and happy to see us, but by the end of the visit he was ready to go back to bed. As we left Levi said "Bye!" and waved for the first time. It was so sweet. Get well soon, grandpa. We love you!

Halloween

What a fun Halloween weekend! Let's start with last Thursday...

We took Levi down to meet his great-grandpa, who then told our kids stories from his Halloween days as a young boy. Apparently they never dressed up or got candy, but they did tip over their neighbors' outhouses for fun.

The boys all had their Halloween parties at school on Friday, and I went to Dallin's costume parade and party. I also made cookies for Spencer's party and popcorn for Tyler's.

The whole school sits outside in a huge circle, cheering, clapping and high-fiving all the kindergartners as they march around in their costumes. Then we went back to their classroom to eat pizza and decorate cookies - Brennan joined right in. I enjoyed visiting with the other moms and watching Dallin show off his new baby to everyone.
Oh, how Brennan adores his baby brother!

After school we decorated pumpkins. Dave cleaned out 2 of the pumpkins before the boys got home, which helped to move things along. Then Spencer and Tyler cleaned out the 3rd one together.
Spencer got the idea from Family Fun of using mini pumpkins for the eyes. It turned out really cute.We got the pattern for Tyler's pumpkin from the back of a cereal box. Dave got it started, but then Tyler did most of it.

We roasted the pumpkin seeds using a recipe Dave found on Allrecipes - it had sugar and pumpkin pie spices. Yum!

Tyler, Spencer and Dallin.

Don't they look great? I thought Tyler's looked especially cool all lit up.

Levi as a pea pod. He looks calm here, but he was pretty fussy all night - throughout the church party, every time we got in the car, and then while trick-or-treating. I ended up taking him home and missing pretty much the whole night. I guess he doesn't like Halloween yet.

Brennan has been telling everyone all month that he was going to be a pumpkin for Halloween. But just as we were about to put on his costume, he changed his mind. No big deal, since I didn't buy either one this year. It's nice having a huge bin of costumes to choose from. Dallin as a "ghost chef." I'm not sure how those 2 things go together, but he was sure excited about it.

Tyler as Harry Potter.

Spencer as a zombie. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but at least there wasn't any blood. Doesn't he look scary? He loved it.

Saturday was a pretty low key day. I made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, which were delicious. It's a good thing we started getting costumes ready nice and early, because it ended up taking awhile. First we went to the church Halloween party for dinner and games; we left early to go trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. Then I met back up with them at our next-door-neighbors' Halloween party. When we got home we watched Ghostbusters, handed out candy to late-comers, traded candy and drank hot apple cider.

When it rains it pours

We're finally getting a little rain around here. Although we've loved the warm sunny weather, what we really needed was cloudy and wet. The boys were all excited to be able to use their umbrellas this morning.

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My family is keeping the medical community in business this week. Kristen is coming home from the hospital today. My mom had a stent placed to allow her many kidney stones to pass. My father-in-law had two surgeries in a week. My sister Emily had surgery on Monday. And my grandpa was admitted yesterday with a dangerously high calcium level. Our prayers have been rather lengthy this week.

Father's Day

Dave is such an awesome dad. He woke up at 6:00 this morning, reminding the tooth fairy to put money under Spencer's pillow. Shwew! That was a close one. We had a relaxing morning eating coffee cake, calling Dave's dad, and giving Dave cards and presents. I gave him the Clue DVD game, which he's wanted ever since we played it last Christmas.

I was in charge of sharing time in primary today, and it went great. First I read a couple of picture books, "My Dad" and "Knuffle Bunny," which were a big hit. Then I had the kids color candy bar wrappers and tape them around chocolate bars. Talk about simple and cute - my favorite combination.

Father's Day cards don't usually work out so well for my dad. They show dads sitting in their recliners watching T.V., drinking beer, playing golf or using tools. It's hard to find cards of dads reading scriptures, teaching in the prisons or writing notes on a tile. We're so glad he's well again so we could spend the evening with him tonight. We had Mexican Rice, his favorite. For dessert I made chocolate cake with cherries and Dave's favorite white icing. Then we called Ellen and Jason in India using Skype. We'll have to get one of those webcams. That was way cool. We could see them sitting on their Indian couch while we all huddled around my parents' computer in the sunroom. The video stopped working after a little while, probably due to the high volume of Father's Day callers, but at least we could still hear them. Then to top it all off the boys got to sit on my grandpa's lap and sing "Accentuate the Positive."