The story, Part 1, from Edward's perspective, I mean Mr. Anderson's

Kids, when you want the artsy half remembered story you go to mommy, when you want the truth you come to daddy. Well Daddy’s here and wants to clarify any artistic impressions mommy may have applied to our story. Mr. Anderson was indeed born in California. But not just any part of California, the kind of place that is a couple hours one way to snowy mountains and the other way to sandy beaches. Your mommy was jealous of your daddy before she even knew daddy. Enough for hometime pride, now to the story.
I can concur through many corroborated stories that mommy was boy crazy, I think it was boy delusion. It is true daddy didn’t have a girlfriend prior to mommy, but I need to clarify that was by choice after keen observation of older siblings and their failures. So thanks to older siblings and their failures so that I could learn a few things about life without ever having to experience them. Plus the age of freak dancing was in full swing and who needs a girlfriend when you have freak dancing.
Alright now to the real story, meeting the most beautiful girl in the world, your mommy.
I had really let myself go in college when it came to hair care. Beanies were convenient and no job interviews were in the near future. Those of you that know me best would sight that I was probably thinking the opportunity cost of a haircut is about a slab of tri-tip. Easy decision, bring on the tri-tip. Thank you economics for such easy decision making. However, the hair was groomed occasionally by the budding amateur hairstylist and her handy scrapbook scissors. Little did I know that my crazy hair met the "unique" requirement mommy was looking for. Did she mentioned she had a list?
I came to Preview Weekend looking for opportunities friends. I was developing some skills and I was looking for a place to use them skills. So off to Preview Weekend I go, no initial rejection like the Mrs. because I was so late in applying, just a "come on down lucky one." I too had given up on the fairer gender, the pursuit wasn’t my style. I didn’t understand, I wasn’t hunting game or fishing the sea for my wife. Sorry people there are some bad analogies out there. However, I did want to be married at 23 and start the family at 25. I am a future planner if you hadn’t guessed, I was planning for Emily before she even knew it. I much preferred a Heaven sent package that fell into my lap, kind of like a stork that delivers wives. I that she did! Fall into my proverbial lap that is. I arrived, sat through the talks the first night walked back to the hotel hair flowing as I walked through the lobby(A little embellishment for mommy) and went to bed. Didn’t realize the tardy group had arrived. I was 1 of 4 that came from my school so we all proceeded to cling to our comfort zone for most of our time that weekend. First night no sign of the "package" from above. Little did I know someone was watching me this whole time and it all was because of my good genes, cheap clothing and neglected hygiene. But was it love at first sight or just misguided infatuation towards a perceived 'bad boy.'

Just realized as I typed the title that we might get a lot of Twilight fans accidentally coming to our blog.
Welcome Twilighter's!! Welcome to the real world love story!

sorry for my absence...

do you ever just get in a blogging rut?

i'm so there.

i mean, how many blog posts of pictures of my kids can i possibly have?

at least one more, i guess.

enjoy.

the grand finale.

okay...so where was i?
oh yes, i remember. sobbing my heart out on the airplane.
well, not really sobbing, but i for sure had a tear in the eye.
i was leaving to head back to kansas (cold kansas, mind you). and he was heading back to california.

i really liked mr. anderson, and he apparently wasn't so sure.
was it something i said? was it my old lady grandma shoes that i was wearing? was it the fact that i insisted on showing him my rather large muscles? was he intimidated by those muscles?
what was it?

as i sat on the airplane, i started thinking about if i should just email him as soon as i got home...or should i wait for him to email me. everything in me wanted to wait for him to make the first move, but goodness, we all know how long boys take to call you and i just couldn't wait.
so, i went against everything inside of me, and sent the first email.
here's what i wrote: (we printed all of our emails, so this is really the first email i sent him!)

hey nerd.....how's everything going? okay, so i know that probably according to the "boy meets girl" rules, i'm not supposed to email you first....but, i was just wanting to see if y'all made it home okay. right after i saw you by the security, i got stopped by this security guard....he was like "ma'am, i need to check your bag again"...i'm thinking, "what is going on"...then he said "you're going to need to come with me" and he escorted me to this back office and these police men were there and they started questioning me.....okay, so i'm totally lying. none of that happened. i just wanted to remind you how funny i am.
welp, i hope all is well in california...i'm going to bed fairly soon, cause for some reason i barely got any sleep this weekend....hmmmmm.
hope you're having a great day....or night....whenever you get this! talk to you soon....em

clearly i liked writing .......... the dots are overwhelming in that email. and i had to throw a little humor in there, so he didn't think i was just being psycho.
and well, apparently that email worked, cause i got a phone call the next day from him! and guess what? he decided to fly out to KS to visit me---and he was coming in like a week!
holy cow. i loved this man already.
i told my best friends (who were also my roommates) about him and my weekend. amazingly they thought it was neat...instead of saying "em, seriously. you just met this kid"...they were actually really excited for me. (jami used this situation in her maid of honor speech at my wedding---she said "yah, emily came back from orlando and she's all 'here, i got you this coffee mug....and i got me a boyfriend"....ummmm. well, yah, kind of.)
i told those girls that "i met the boy i'm going to marry"....and it turns out that keith went home and told his roommates that if he could have married me that weekend, he would have. WHAT?!

so, he comes to visit...and this is crucial for us. we have a great time together...and decide to make it official. he meets my family (i can only imagine what my dad was thinking----oh man...this boy has flown all the way from california to see my daughter---yikes!) and from there it's a year of long distance dating.

we see each other once a month for the whole year...with the exception of the summer. i go to spain for 2 months, while he is back in orlando, doing an internship. that didn't stop us from talking on the phone nearly everyday. i would walk to the corner pay phone in downtown madrid, almost everyday to chat it up with my man.
when i flew home from spain (on my 21st birthday) i was so surprised to see him waiting at the airport for me...my mom arranged it for me, for my birthday...and it was one of the best birthday presents ever! he only got to stay for a day, but it was amazing.
about 2 weeks later, i flew out to california and this is when we got engaged. it was august (we started dating in february). we were driving down the coast, and we pulled over in monterey bay...there is this amazing cross on the beach...and underneath that cross, he asked me to be his wife. this was totally not planned...he didn't even get to ask my dad first, which was something he really wanted to do.

and remember when i said one of his favorite past times was making rings out of quarters? well, it really was the truth, cause my engagement ring is this:

a quarter...he sat for hours and hours using a spoon to flatten the edges...and then he used a drill bit to make a hole in it, and voila! my engagement ring. it's perfect.

in december, keith graduates from college, minus an afro:

he moves to kansas and we are married in april. married.
april 25, 2003.



and from there, the rest is history:

all those little munchkins...all because we fell in love.
God is gooooooood.

ready for part 2?

i know, i know...i've been absent.
and i left you hanging.
so sorry about that.
let's jump right back in where we were, shall we?

so, i left you at...hello.
in mr. anderson walks.
i am completely drawn to him, because 1. he is asian. and 2. he is rocking a thrift store t-shirt. and 3. he has an afro. yes, you read that right. an afro.

i am bound and determined to meet this kid, but little did i know that God was bound and determined to make us meet too.
i went to bed, dreaming of my future with a kid whose name i didn't even know.

next morning i wake up and go get my breakfast. as i'm pouring myself a bowl of fruit loops at the hotel lobby continental breakfast, i see him again.
i felt all a-flutter.
sweaty palms. worried about tripping as i walk back to my table.
you know, the usual.
i proceed to chat it up with the people at my table...really not listening but making myself look oh so appealing, as i laugh out loud. i'm hoping the mystery boy thinks this is the fun table and wants to come over.
no such luck.

i finally get to meet him because we are put in the same group for a crusade headquarters tour. we secretly talk in the back, not listening to the guy giving the tour. so rude, i know. but this is love we're talking about here.
the moment when it became real love to me was that night at dinner. we end up sitting at the same table and are chatting it away.
i am full, and can't finish the food on my plate. keith asks "are you gonna finish that?" referring to the leftovers on my plate. i felt like we had been married for 20 years. i mean, he hardly knew me but he was comfortable enough to want to eat the leftovers on my plate? (or maybe he was just a hungry, growing guy---who knows, but i like to think that it was the first). i know this sounds weird, but that moment changed everything for me. i knew i wanted to spend every moment i could with him that weekend.

after dinner, we ride back in a conversion van full of people. we pull over at this really cool place in orlando...have ya'll ever seen wayne's world? if you haven't, rent it immediately...it's a gem. there is a scene in the movie when they lay on their cars and watch the planes fly over them, right before they land. well, we go to that place. and everybody is out of the van, but only keith and i are laying on the roof of the van...watching the planes fly over us (crazy!).
fun for us.
awkward for the 7 other people that were with us.
time to return to the hotel and call it a night.
i dream of him, yet again...only this time, i know his name.

next night, there is a group of us that decide to go eat at T.G.I.Fridays. while there, i proceed to show keith how muscular i am, by flexing my muscles...not just "here, look at my muscles" but rather "here, look at my muscles, but first i have to take my sweatshirt off and pull my sleeve up as high as i can. no really, hold on...look, my muscles are huge." not my proudest moment, but clearly, it worked. sidenote--he still makes fun of me for doing that. again i say...not my proudest moment.
we both have early flights leaving waaaaay early the next morning, so we decide to stay up all night and talk. no really, all we did was talk. helloooooo, i have to ease back slowly into boys again, after my no dating fast.
we talked about our lives...past, present, future.
he wanted 5 kids. i wanted 5 kids.
it was a match made in heaven.
we sat and talked for nearly 5 hours.
here is the place where we were:



(sidenote--now after living in orlando, i would never again sit this close to a pond for fear of getting eaten by gators).
it's now time to head to the airport.
my stomach is all a-flutter again. we didn't really clarify what we were doing...did he like me? i certainly liked him, but i didn't want to make a move. so, i waited.
as we are saying our good-byes at the airport, he utters his famous last words "well, we'll see what happens".
mmmm, excuse me?
what the he-zeck does that mean?
tears well up, but i suck it up and proudly agree that "yes, we'll see what happens".
again, what is that supposed to mean?
i board the plane...my stomach is no longer all a-flutter.
now i have a sinking feeling...an unsure feeling.
i don't want to wait to "see what happens"...

to be continued...

the story of mr. anderson and i. part uno.

in honor of mr. anderson and i celebrating 7 years of wedded bliss (cough, cough) this month, i thought i'd share the story of how we met and (of course) fell in love.

ya'll may not want to hear it, but i wanted to at least type it out, for our kids to read someday.

it's a long and drawn out, complicated story.

anytime anybody asks us "how did you meet?"

we respond with "it's a long story."

so, our kids can look back at this now (since i now get my blog printed into a book each year) and read about how mommy and daddy used to make out---oh wait! that's not going to be in this story.

or is it?

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well, it all began with us being born.

true story.

keith was born in the good ol' state of california---and lest you forget that, he'll remind you daily.

he was busy being a cute lil' asian kid...

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while i was half a country away, in kansas, busy practicing my modeling skills, eating cheetos (i knew my love for cheetos had to stem from my childhood) and being mischievous.

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(sidenote---now that you've seen some of our childhood pictures, who do you think our kids look like?)

back to the story.

growing up, i was what some may call "boy crazy". i know, i know...hard to believe, right?

while keith never had a girlfriend until he asked me to be his.

quite opposite, i tell ya.

fast forward to the winter of 2001. (i know, big jump)

i decided that i needed to take a break from dating boys...sort of a fasting, if you will.

i told the lord, "okay, i'm gonna take 3 months and not date any boys...seriously. why are you laughing at me, lord?"

okay, the lord didn't laugh, but most people (my bff's jami and hannah) did.

they didn't think i had it in me...neither did i, actually.

i liked boys.

a lot.

so, 3 months...i could do this. i would spend my time focusing on my life, and who i am when i'm not dating anybody.

fast forward 3 months.

i apply for a spot to go to this "preview weekend" that campus crusade for christ holds yearly.

it's basically a weekend where you get to tour their headquarters...and see about working there in the future.

well, they only took 75 college students, and i, my friends, did not get accepted.

bummer---especially cause it was the dead of winter in kansas, and hot and sunny florida sounded oh so appealing. my pasty white skin was beginning to look scary.

well about 5 days before the weekend, i got a phone call saying "that a spot had opened up and would i like to take it?"

i replied back with "hollllla. me and my pasty white skin are there!"

i'm sure i scared the person but i didn't care. i had just a few days to get everything together so i could take off for this weekend.

***i realize that this story is just about me right now, but hang tight. mr. anderson shall make his appearance soon enough---and besides, i don't know what he was doing during this whole time anyways---probably fasting, praying, reading the bible and making rings out of quarters---some of his favorite past times***

so, a few days before i leave for my trip, i decide to go to church with my bestie.

while there, her mom (good ol' terr-bear) pulls me aside and says "em, you've really been on my heart this morning, and i feel like God is wanting me to tell you that you're gonna figure out your future, real soon"

m'kay. i failed to mention that i had been unsure about what i was supposed to be doing with my life. i disliked school...lots.

so, when she spoke those words to me, i thought "oh my gosh! this is it...i'm gonna work with campus crusade!"

i was stoked.

******

(if you're still reading this, give yourself a pat on the back)

so, now it's the morning i was supposed to leave for sunny florida.

when i woke up, there was about 2 feet of ICE outside. not snow people, ICE.

kansas had just survived one of it's largest ice storms ever.

i got a phone call from the airport...my plane was still going to be taking off...just delayed.

fine...i can handle that.

at least i'm still going.

when i get to the airport (after about 2 hours of driving super slow to get there---thanks mom!) i realize that my flight is 1 of about 10 flights that are still flying out.

so, there is still the strong possibility that my flight won't take off.

finally, after a few hours there, my flight takes off for the sunshine state.

only about 8 hours delayed.

at this point, i've missed the whole first day of the weekend.

so, i'm sitting in the hotel lobby, waiting for everyone to get back from a meeting.

college students start flooding in through the doors, and in he walks.

this day just so happened to be the day my dating fast ended as well.

coincidence?

i think not.

to be continued...

off we went...

r. anderson had friday off last week.

late thursday night, we decided we needed a mini vacation.

so, friday afternoon, we went and stayed overnight (with the kids) at the peabody hotel.

this hotel was very nice...

hence the T.V. in the bathroom.

a T.V. to watch while you poop? the kids couldn't get over how cool that was.

while there, caedmon's bladder suddenly became very small.

thus needing a bathroom trip, every couple minutes...the T.V. was just too enticing.

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wowzers!

just a little pic before we headed to the pool.

clearly mr. anderson caught us both offguard...we look like deers caught in headlights.

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hadley looks like she may or may not be suffering from a hang-over.

maybe it's just an easter candy overload.

helllloooooooo bed head.

the sun is shining so beautifully on his rat's nest.

in milo's case, the more ratty his hair looks in the morning, the better he slept.

and believe me when i say that he slept good.

so did the other members of my sweet, little family...excluding myself.

i was up most of the night listening to the lovely snoring sounds of the other 5 bodies in the room.

at one point it sounded like a train or a tornado coming through our room.

we'll call it a train-ado.

it was loud.