Our Anniversary Celebration

Today is our thirteenth Wedding Anniversary! I consider that quite an accomplishment. We celebrated over the weekend by dressing up a bit and going to an upscale restaurant in the historic district of downtown Boise. We brought along our most favorite people in the world, our three amazing children. The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant I've been wanting to try but considering it's a bit pricey, I needed an occasion to celebrate in order to justify going. For anyone not familiar with fondue, you're basically "dipping" your entire meal. Our first course was a cheese fondue served with cubes of various breads, fresh vegetables and Granny Smith apples. Being the cheese person that I am, I loved it. Next was salad. Our kids were outraged when they discovered this restaurant didn't serve ranch dressing but Aaron and I enjoyed our strawberry, almond salad . Next came our entrees which consisted of a variety of bite size meats, seafood and vegetables served with about 6 different dipping sauces. Sounds wonderful , doesn't it? However, there is a catch...The food is not cooked! I think my mouth fell open when I realized that we were to cook the food ourselves in the boiling pot of broth on the table. I cook all week long, I do not want to go to a fancy restaurant and have to cook there too! Aaron came to the rescue though and cooked it all himself. Whadda-guy. By the time the entree was even served we were all getting a bit full and we ended up tossing all the food Aaron cooked into a take home container. Besides, we KNEW we had to save room for the dessert that was to come. Dessert was chocolate fondue with a bit of crunchy peanut butter mixed in, served with sliced strawberries, bananas, pineapple, brownies, pound cake, cheesecake, and marshmallows. Delicious! It was a really fun experience that we all enjoyed.

Enjoying the Harvest

After Amanda's field trip to the Orchard, she and I decided it would be fun to take the whole family there to pick apples. We had fun talking with the owner of the orchard and then we wandered up and down the rows picking two bags full of enormous apples. After that we went home and made carmel apples. We tried to make "gourmet" apples with layers of goodies on them like you buy at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. They looked great the evening we made them but the next morning we woke up and all the carmel had slid down into pools around the bottoms of the apples. Oh well. Next year we will do it again and try to perfect our technique!

Anderson's Apple Orchard

Today Amanda's class took a field trip to a local apple orchard. The kids learned about the apple growing process and then they had a contest to see who could pick the largest apple. The largest one picked weighed in at 1.4lb !

Ribbon Cutting...

On Tuesday afternoon we had our Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting for the opening of our business. Of course, Elite Fence Co. has already been open for several months but when we joined the Chamber they wanted to do a ribbon cutting to make it official. They also interviewed us and will be putting an article in the newspaper about us and our company. That should help bring in additional business. It was a big leap of faith to close down in California and start over from scratch in Idaho. It was kind of a difficult transition but things are going well now. We were very blessed to buy this commercial property and it is great to have an actual shop, office and yard to work out of. I am so proud of Aaron for all the hard work he's done to own his own business. He's not only great at installing his products but has become a great businessman and salesman as well. I truly admire him when I watch him in the juggling act of the self-employed.

A Good Weekend

I had the best weekend. I was able to sit and enjoy all four sessions of General Conference and felt riveted by each and every talk. Several years ago, at a very low point in my life, I attended General Conference at our Stake Center and I truly felt that it lifted me from the "depths of despair". Ever since then I can't bear to miss it because I know that there will be messages presented that I NEED to hear. This one was no exception. We had actually been invited to go camping this weekend with several other families and for the whole week ahead of time I felt burdened that I would be missing Conference. Finally I decided that I just had to stay home this trip. I was so glad I did because so many of the talks spoke straight to my heart. I can't help but be grateful that in a world filled with turmoil, we have a Prophet and inspired leaders to guide and direct us. Aaron went ahead and took our two older kids camping but Lauren decided to stay home with me because, in her own words, "Mommy I will miss you too much." So sweet. It was great to spend one on one time with her. I really enjoy doing that with each of my kids. After the Saturday afternoon session, we drove into Boise for dinner and a movie. We saw, "How To Eat Fried Worms". It's about a little boy who accepts a dare to eat ten worms, prepared ten different ways throughout one day. About 3/4 of the way through the movie, Lauren turned to me with an apologetic look on her face and said, "Mommy, I just can't watch anymore of this movie". I quickly agreed, as I was pretty grossed out myself. We left the theater and I was able to slip a little lesson into Lauren's head about how if anything in a movie ever makes her uncomfortable or doesn't seem right, it's a good thing to leave or turn it off. Gotta love the teaching moments life presents.