SAD DAY

Today is a sad day...

Today is La-Z-Boy Tremonton's last day of production

Hundreds of people will be leaving

Few will be left

Thankfully Clayton will be one of them

Want furniture? Go to Mexico!

Today is also a sad day for another reason

Today Clayton and I were supposed to fly out to Hawaii

Stupid gas prices

Stupid ATA

I will be eating a lot of CHOCOLATE tonight.

CALF PULLING 1010

Grab a box of tissues, roll of toilet paper or whatever you fancy when it comes to wiping your tears. That's right I used the word "fancy" what of it!?! This wasn't supposed to be a sad story, it was supposed to be another farm adventure for Clayton...

So there we were...I have been telling Clayton that his next farm project is to pull a calf in order to prepare him to be my midwife when we have little ones (yes we will pull our kids with bailing twine). You might remember a few posts back where Clayton "breeded" a cow, this is not the calf from that cow. A cow's gestation is a little longer than that. Sunday Pop's told us that there was a cow ready to give birth. After lunch we went to check on the cow, but found that it had already given birth. Pop's said not to worry there would be 1 or 2 more cows ready to give birth before the end of the day. Around chore time Clayton put on his "work shorts" and headed down to the calving pen. NOTE: Clayton's "work shorts" consist of a pair of WHITE basketball shorts that he wears to help out on the farm. They look extremely sexy with his gray boots. Clayton told my dad that a hoof was sticking out of the cow's butt. Pop's put some bailing twine around the calf's hoof' and Clayton sat down to pull (in his WHITE "work" shorts).

Here is where the sad part comes in. After a few minutes of pulling (and posing for pictures) Clayton had to turn the reigns (or twine) over to pops because Pops was guessing that the calf was dead. Pops had to put on the crank and get the calf out of there because if he didn't get it out fast enough it would paralyze the cow. He finally got it out of the cow and sure enough it was dead. It had been dead for awhile. The umbilical cord had broken off and it had drowned. Sad...
To make things worse the dead calf was a heifer and heifers are worth more than bulls...at least in the dairy cow world (which is how it should be in the human world too). So that was our sad day. The bright spot (or brown spot...you decide) was that Clayton sad in cow crap.
I don't think even a little Tide+bleach will get that out. Good thing that they are his "work shorts."

Even after 27 years of watching cows give birth I still learned a few things...well 2 things

1. You can usually tell if a calf it a heifer or a bull before it comes all the way out. If the hooves are pointed it is a heifer, if they are more rounded it is a bull.

2. Cow's CAN have epidurals (that's for you Jessie)

HOPSCOTCH

1967 Hopscotch Champion

Seriously she was...

and she was GOOD!

How many of you can say you have accomplished this?

That's what I thought!

Of course being the competitor he is Clayton had to try. Pardon the underwear shot!

ANDREW, ANDREW GOD IS CALLING...

Saturday was the annual Andrew family reunion. Uncle Curt and Aunt Barb were in charge of it this year and did a great job. We launched rockets, played kickball and had lunch. It was one day and very relaxed...just the way I like it.

Hey ladies! See this sexy beast sportin' the good old sweat pants? He is S-I-N-G-L-E. I will give out phone number upon request. He loves Mariah Carey, riding his unicycle, ballets and a good cry while watching a chick flick. You may also be asking yourselves, "how does he get such great hair?" Well it is pretty complicated, but allow me to explain. Cort's hair process is done in 3 stages. STAGE 1: goop it up. This means put tons of product on it. Gel, moose, hairspary, etc. STAGE 2: get in a car and drive between 45-55 mph and stick your head out of the window. STAGE 3: Wait about 10 minutes and repeat stage 2. Ok so I was just kidding...about everything other than the hair process. Cort really likes sports, building things, sports, burping and sports.
The three geeks...er I mean amigos.
I was surprised on how far some of the rockets went.
This was our rocket. Pretty impressive, huh. I still owe mom 10 bucks for it.
The 'rents just chillin'

Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of our rousing game of kickball. Let's just say that I need to go back to the 5th grade. Clayton on the other hand did just swell. I say that strictly in an unbiased way. He blames his stellar skills on the fact that he still has to prove himself to the extended family. Whatever. That is the wrap-up. Until next year...

SAVING LIVES

Oh how there are days when I wish that I were in the possession of a video camera. Yesterday was one of those days. My writings of the event will not do it justice...this I am sure. In Church on Sunday a sign up sheet to donate blood was passed around. I passed it up thinking that I have given blood to the Red Cross enough times in my life to reap the blessings of eternal salvation. However, after no one signed up the first time they laid on a guilt trip and passed it around again. This time I signed the sheet and since Clayton has never donated blood before I figured I would help him earn heavenly service points by convincing him to go with me. Back in the dating days I could make him do anything for me. Oh how those were the days. Today is a different story. I "mentioned" to him on Sunday that I had signed up and that he "could" come with me if he wanted to. I think he mumbled something like, "I'll think about it" hoping that would be enough and I would forget about it. Hello Clayton! Do you not remember who you married!?! I remember EVERYTHING.

So Wednesday comes and I call him up and say, "Are you going to be a man and come donate blood with me or are you going to stay home?" After a long silence and several "uhhh's" he said, "ya I'll come." Keep in mind that Clayton is deathly, DEATHLY afraid of needles. We get to the Church, sign in and wait for our names to be called. The only other time I have seen him this nervous is when we went sky diving in Hawaii. The only difference between that time and this time was that this time his mouth was rather clean. Not the "I just brushed it clean" but the "not swearing clean." I tried to reassure him that the finger prick that they give you in the interview thing to test your blood is worse then the actually needle. He didn't buy this (although I really think it is). He said, "oh I doubt that! They stick a freaking hose up your arm." He was so fidgety, taking deep breaths every 3 seconds. Finally we went in for our interviews and then headed for the chairs to have our blood taken. Clayton had the whole gym cracking up with his nervousness. The nurse put the blood cuff on to cut his circulation off a bit and his legs went straight up in the air. I lost count on how many time she told him to "calm down." I thought that they were going to have to strap his legs down because every time he "thought" that she was going to stick him he kicked his legs up in the air. I think that I might buy him some cheerleading shoes to go with those kicks. The nurse kept asking him how he was doing and each time he replied, "I haven't decided yet." He hadn't decided during the blood giving process or after it was all done. But 5min and 50 sec later it was all over with. By the way my time was 4 minutes and 18 seconds. He didn't know that I was racing...but it is better that way. Next time Clayton you need to pump your hand. Anyway after stocking up on 4 things of orange juice and 6 bags of trailmix we were headed home.

If you look close at the above picture you can tell that he is holding his breath

I look like the devil in this picture with my eyes all red.

I am very proud of you Clayton even though I tease you. Giving blood for the first time is a hard thing to do.

SHOPPING AND FISH

There once was a girl who was mean to all the boys...

now she is getting MARRIED.

Friday, Kami came home to go wedding dress shopping. I wasn't invited to go (thanks jerk!) so I invited myself anyway because I know how much she values my taste. Seriously she would have regretted it if I hadn't been there. She probably would have got some overy-laced, overly-beaded number with big, puffy 80s sleeves (no offense of any of you had that dress...I'm sure it looked very nice on you). Anyway back to the story at hand, I invited myself to go along. I was planning on meeting mom, Kami and Rachel at 11am. By 1130am Kami had found her dress. 1/2 hour + 1 store = wedding dress. Pretty impressive, eh!?! But for the record she didn't need to go anywhere else because the dress she found is absolutely beautiful. She will be a gorgeous bride.

Later Friday night we went out to Trenton for some dutch oven and to give dad his father's day presents while Kami was up. Most of the gifts were the same old...food storage and movies. However, a few of the gifts were...well unique.
Kace gave dad a fish. Not one you eat but one you take care of. Doesn't dad have enough animals to take care of? I would think that 650+ cows is enough. But, I guess he wanted to give it to grandpa for Christmas but Rachel told him "no." Apparently she couldn't tell him "no" twice. I give the little beta fish 5 days until toilet flushing time...good luck little one, good luck!

Brandon and Cristen gave dad some bYu soap.

And Clayton and I were boring and gave dad food storage.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

One goes by "Pops"
the other by "Poppy"

I know that this is a late Father's Day greeting, but I don't think that Clayton and I tell our dad's enough how grateful we are for them. These are two of the hardest working men that we know. Many late hours were spent working in order to support their families and many sacrifies have been (and still are) made. They are always putting others before themselves, especially their kids. Both are full of encouragement, love, praise and laughter. Most importantly both have strong testimonies of the Gospel and honor their Priesthood and are willing and worthy to use that Priesthood at any time. We love you guys. Happy Father's Day

Love, Clayton and Heidi

p.s I forgot to mention how they both love food storage. Maybe love isn't a strong enough word... Clayton has always said, "Heidi we don't need to have a huge food storage, as long as we are in walking distance to either of our houses we will be fine. Maybe we can convince one of them that buying us a 4 wheeler for Christmas is an emergency prepardness item!

TAG-O-LICIOUS

So this is my third tag in 3 weeks. I'm not sure if people...actually I'm not quite sure why people keep tagging me. However since this blog belongs to Clayton and Heidi, not just Heidi I am making Clayton answer these questions too. Clayton's are in blue and mine are in green. Oh and I added pictures because I know that there are those out there (myself included) who hate a post without pictures.

NOTE: I could fill this out in like 3.7 seconds with the obvious answers (my husband, family, the Gospel, etc) but I'm not. Just keep in mind that the obvious answers are my first choice, but I'm doing things randomly.



3 Joys
- Claytonious. I know I'm a hypocrite and said that I wasn't going to say the "obvious" answers but I can't resist. I just love him so much.
- Hitting the "F3" button at work. This means I am clocking out and going home to stuff my face with food and spend time with Clayton
- taking the I-215 exit towards SLC airport. This usually means that we are going somewhere. I love to travel.
- my wife.
- my families.
- playing the bass.

3 Fears
- Clayton dying. I seriously don't know what I would do.
- duh, snakes.
-waking up with cramps (a.k.a a Charley Horse) in my calves. Happened two nights ago...oh so painful...
- my wife.
- uncertainty/risk.
- the crawlspace of our house (aka the gateway to hell).

3 Goals
- visit every Hawaiian island.
- not eat so much ice cream (dreamin' the impossible dream).
- to not get a speeding ticket for the next 3 months.
- make my wife happy.
- get a good job.
- avoid Hell.

3 Current Obsessions/Collections
- accessories such as hats and slippers/flipflops. I'm a no jewelry kinda gal. Besides my wedding ring of course.
- running.
- food. This is why I run.
- bass guitars.
- watches.
- houses.

3 Random Surprising Facts about Me
- I love apples. So much that I eat the entire thing, core and all.
- ever seen the movie "Pay it Forward" where the little boy tries to start a chain of doing nice things for people? He does something nice for someone and they pay it forward by doing something nice for someone else. I do my own little pay it forward daily. At Icon the papertowl dispenser in the restroom is motion censored. Having a pea sized bladder I make frequent trips to the bathroom. Every time I leave I swipe my hand over the paper towel dispenser so that the next person to use it can avoid the annoying motion sensor, take the paper towel that I left them and leave, saving about 10 minutes (our dispenser is sloooow).
- if I had to stay home sick from work, I would probably watch the Disney Channel all day.
- I fill out my wife's bra.
- I am very gay for a straight person (hence the obsession with houses...what I really meant was design).
- I have diarrhea.

WHY CAN'T YOU ACT LIKE YOUR BROTHERS?

Here is a common argument that was heard in the Andrew home back when my 2 sisters and I were young (this is just one between Rachel and myself, but let me assure you Kami was in just as many):

HEIDI: Moooooooooooooom Rachel STOLE my ENUF (remember ENUF?) shirt again! Tell her to stop stealing my clothes! I AM SICK OF IT!!!
RACHEL: How did you know I took it?
HEIDI: Because you always take my clothes and you didn't hang it up on the RIGHT hanger. I know exactly which shirt goes on what hanger. Stop stealing my clothes you jerk!
RACHEL: You are sooooo selfish. I wish I had a nice sister.
HEIDI: I'm going to start locking my clothes up in my cedar chest.
RACHEL: Your clothes look better on me anyway.
HEIDI: ewww...just leave me alone.
(by this point one or both of us are in tears)
MOM: Why can't you girls get along like your little brothers???!!!

Well mom...here are your boys today




Ok so these aren't my brothers and they get along better than this but at one point when the boys were the only ones at hom mom changed her tune to, "Why can't you boys get along like your sisters."

Also I must point out that my sisters and I get along much better now. Rachel no longer steals my clothes, I don't throw bottles of fingernail polish at her anymore and Kami has stopped using her fingernails as weapons of mass destruction. My sisters (and you too mom) are my best friends...along with my wonderful husband Claytonion of course.

A NOSE IS A NOSE LIKE A ROSE IS A ROSE

some people wax their eyebrows

some wax their legs

some get a bikini wax

some wax the peach fuzz above the lip

but who waxes their nose!?!

DISCLAIMER: Clayton wouldn't let me blog this unless I said that the reason he had his mom wax his nose hairs was because he is tired of plucking and our nose hair trimmer doesn't work. Now that that is out of the way...

Next up mud masks and pedicures!

How can you resist those baby blues!?! Sunday, Brady kept himself pretty entertained (for at least 5 minutes) with the string on Clayton's hoodie. Are all babies that easily entertained???

IDAHOAN-IT

WARNING:
These pools are natural hot springs and are not treated with chlorine. Putting head in water is NOT recommended.

Not quite sure what I am doing in this picture...

The warning above is what we saw when we ventured into the distant land of Idaho on Saturday to go swimming at Riverdale. We saw the sign after we put our heads in the water. So far no hair has fallen out.

This was Clayton's first trip to Riverdale, but it was my millionth time (well...1st time in about 6 years). My sisters, cousins and I all took swimming lessons at Riverdale when we were young. This is where I learned to "tread" water and not to brag or anything but I was an awesome treader (still am). However, my american crawl was a different story. Do they even call it the american crawl anymore? Anyway, I was held back two years, TWO YEARS because I couldn't do the crawl...stupid American crawl! Grrr... I still think that my awesomeness in treading should have made up for my lack of crawl and they should have let me move on to the next level! However, keep in mind we were learning to swim in Idaho and things are just a little bit different there (just kidding all you Idaho readers).

How about a trip down memory lane

1. One the long 35 minute drive to swim lessons there was a sign just inside of the Idaho border that said, "IDAHO IS TOO GREAT TO LITTER." Oh how we hated that sign. For some reason as young kids that sign was demeaning to Utah. It was like saying that Idaho was better than Utah. Whenever we passed the sign we would litter out the car window (when mom wasn't looking of course).

2. There was another sign in the changing rooms that said, "NO PEEING IN THE POOL." We thought that this sign was the funniest thing ever. Keep in mind that as 6, 7 and 8-year olds the word "peeing" is hilarious.

3. Riverdale is also the first place where I discovered the "hottness" lifeguards (the male ones of course).

4. Hello Polar Bear Ice Cream! I'm still in morning that the Polar Bear is gone and has been replaced with some cell phone store. No cell phone can give you the comfort that ice cream can.

5. One time I saw our janitor from elementary school in the pool with some woman and they were canoodling. Scared me for life (well the rest of my elementary life).

6. Have I mentioned my great ability to tread water?

WHEELING AT THE 'RENTS

I'm not sure where he comes up with these random ideas (standing on dead bloated cow, breeding a cow, etc) but he pulls them out of somewhere. Sunday, we were at my parents and Cortney, Clayton and Brandon decided that they wanted to roll down the small hill in my parents yard in tractor tires. Sounds like an puking session to me.

Clayton getting Cortney started.

Brandon getting Clayton started

Clayton wanting to throw-up after he was done.

Naturally Kace wanted to try since all the other boys were.

After the tractor wheel session, Clayton and Cortney thought that it would be "good times" to pull out the old pitching machine and try to hit each other. This is Cort up against the house while Clayton operates the pitching machine. I'm not going to lie to you...doesn't look like a lot of fun to me.

Kace, Tydon and Dad on the 4-wheeler.

Tydon couldn't get enough of the 4-wheeler. After each ride he would point to it and grunt to let us know that he wanted to go again.

SEASON OF THE BEAR LAKE

I guess you could call us sun worshipers. Not that we actually bow down and say prayers to the sun god...that would be bad. We just love the sun and love to feel its burning hot UV rays as they beat down on our skin forming cancerous cells on our seldom protected skin. I'm sure I will be getting a phone call from my mom about that line. Calm down mom! We wear sunscreen...spf4 anyone?

Anxious to start our Bear Lake season, I googled http://www.weather.com/ on Friday to see if it would be warm enough to go hang out at the lake on Saturday. Notice the use of the word "hang". Getting into Bear Lake in May or early June without a wetsuit is absolutely insane. I.N.S.A.N.E. I have only been in Bear Lake one time before May and it was a dare and other circumstances were involved (or not involved) and because of the PG rating of this blog I will not go there. Anyway weather.com gave me a somewhat optimistic reading of 72 degrees. I told Clayton that it would be warm enough so on Saturday we packed our frisbee, volleyball, raft, beachblanket, skimboards, towls and iPods into Subie 1 and headed for the lake. At the turnoff to Beaver Mountain (15 minutes from BL) we noticed that there were quite a few clouds hanging out in the direction of the lake. Once again optimism came pouring out and we decided to keep on going.

Stupid Optimism

Naturally we were the only idiots on the entire beach. We could have stayed in Logan where it was cloud free and 75+ degrees the entire day, but NO we opted to go to Bear Lake so we could cuddle up in a blanket on the hard, rocky sand under the cloud filled skies. Oh well...that experience has officially opened up Bear Lake season 2008 of us. Hopefully the rest will be a little warmer and a little less cloudy. Oh yeah and mom you should be proud we even wore sunscreen for our cloud filled blanket adventure.