Visiting Grandpa Bill and making memories

Anderson has a very serious problem. He is EXTREMELY curious! Well, the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat. And cats have 9 lives. So I'm guessing that Anderson was sent to earth with a hundred lives to ensure he made it through his toddler years. He gets into EVERYTHING. I'm not lying. This kid has learned to escape from every type of baby proofed area I have placed him in~ except his room :) but he manages to break whatever is within his reach while in his room and reek havoc on those things that he cannot yet break (due to lack of sufficient strength) but he leaves a mark on it as in a way to save it for later.

One morning, while Joe was getting ready for work and I was still sleeping, Anderson woke up and went on the prowl. He loves my jewelry boxes and my special knick knacks. Well, I kept my Grandpa's ashes in the jewelry box he gave me (i have yet to decide where I want to scatter them). Well, I'm sure you can guess what happened. Anderson, The Beast, got into Grandpa's ashes and had fun! I woke up to Joe coming in the room saying, "Ashlee, what does Anderson have? Is that dirt? IS THAT GRANDPA'S ASHES!!!!!" I bolted out of bed. No! He couldn't, he wouldn't . . . oh . . . he did! Anderson had scattered the ashes EVERYWHERE!!! All over my dresser, all over himself, all in my jewelry box and on the floor. The first thought that went through my mind was, "How am I gonna tell my mom?" Then I thought, "Grandpa, why didn't you stop him!" As I was gathering up what I could of the ashes, it hit me. Grandpa was in on it! I broke out laughing, I bet Grandpa was egging him on! "Go for it kid, you're mom's gonna love this!" I'm so sure of it, he got a good laugh from this one!

Well, sad to say but the only way to cleanup the floor was to vacuum it. I know how it sounds, I vacuumed up Grandpa. Horrible, huh? Well, I'm sure he didn't mind and well, it was his fault anyways, I'm sure he could have stopped Anderson. With my luck, Grandpa's probably the only one Anderson will listen to. Well, as hard as it was I had to make the dreaded phone call, to my mom. She laughed!! That shocked me, I thought I was going to be disowned! She was a little surprised that I vacuumed up part of the mess but what do you do? She told me that I had to empty the contents of my vacuum and spread them in a flowerbed or somewhere special. I was not allowed to throw them out with the trash. So, when I went to SLC for the Depeche Mode concert I brought my bag of dust, dog hair, dirt, bits of cereal, whatnot's and Grandpa with me. I told Ashley about the incident and she and I packed the kids in the cars and drove to Grandpa's headstone and sprinkled the contents of my vacuum around. It definitely brought us a few giggles, which only seems right, I can't believe Grandpa would want us to take all the fun out of one of his silly tricks by being somber and sad. That's not what I remember about him, I remember the jokes, the smiles, the love he had for each one of us.








Quentin was being so patient with the rambunctious boys.

He wouldn't sit still. Once we took the pictures, Anderson was off and Alex was not far behind him. Just before I reached Anderson he hopped into this huge puddle of water. The worst part was I couldn't reach him or I'd get wet too and I had to drive back to Rexburg about an hour later. Ashley even tried telling the boys that there was poo in the water, they didn't fall for it. I did, but they didn't. We tried walking away and saying, "Goodbye". Maybe Anderson would not want to be left behind, NOPE, didn't care. He just looked up and said, "Bye" and waved back at us. So, I decided to make the best of it, probably just one more trick up Grandpa's sleeve. I started snapping pictures, might as well document this memory.

OH NICE!



I love how my kid is the one to talk others into getting messy. Alex was doing great before Anderson convinced him that this would be fun!

Oh yeah, that's great!



Best part of the visit was after Anderson made his way out of the water puddle, sopping wet, I had to strip him down and change his diaper right there in the middle of the cemetery roadway. To top it off, Anderson got loose and booked it down the road butt-naked!!! Thanks Grandpa, it was a great day! Maybe we'll do it again sometime!
We love you, Grandpa!