More Family Pictures

We got family pictures taken a few weeks (months!) ago, and I'm finally getting around to posting a few. Here's how it went:


Tyler refused to make direct eye contact with the photographer.

Josh hid in the bushes.

Elyssa and Dave managed to hold still just fine.

Tyler stuck his tongue out.

Josh beat up Dave. (I really love this one because it represents their relationship so well.)

That's about how pictures go at our house. At the end, the only person not crying was Dave. Josh knocked over the photographer's million-dollar lighting equipment, but luckily he only bent the (cheap!) tripod. Still, I love to look at all the photos. Some of the other ones are a permanent part of the blog.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

A few years ago, I taught in the communications department at Brigham Young University. My time there was brief and unremarkable, but it landed me on the Web site Ratemyprofessors.com. Ratemyprofessors.com is, apparently, a high-tech way for students to spread the word about pushover teachers. And, boy, was I one. Well, I was hardcore about two things: attendance and deadlines. Beyond that, I was a creampuff, easily manipulated and always willing to get sidetracked from a grammar discussion by the mention of Britney Spears.
Oddly enough, my ratings reflect an average easiness and helpfulness. The only area where I have a perfect score is "Hotness." I felt really good about myself when I first checked the Web site, until I realized I could trace nearly all the comments to immediate family members. I appreciate their loyalty, just as I am sure I'll appreciate their support when I finally get braces. ("Those metal brackets really complement your eyes!" "Great job matching your rubber bands to your handbag!")
The one comment on the Web site that sounds decidedly unlike family is this: "She is hot but inside is a mean person." The sentence composition makes me think of the only student I ever failed. This is a student who, after I had multiple discussions with her about not accepting late work, sent me a text message saying she wasn't going to turn in her paper on time. Her boyfriend had dumped her; she was "broken."
I'm painfully slow at texting, so I didn't write back to ask if "broken" literally meant her fingers couldn't type the simple assignment that was due. She didn't come to class much after that, and either promptly forgot about me or -- as I suppose -- vented her frustration online.
The saddest part is I don't even care that someone believes inside me lives a mean person. I just look at myself in the mirror, see the wrinkles, the crooked teeth, the doughy stomach, and remind myself that no matter how bad it gets, I have this: Somewhere in cyberspace, a mad, anonymous student thinks I am hot.
-- Elyssa Andrus

This article orginally appeared in the Daily Herald on Oct. 22, 2008. Reprinted with permission.

Me and My Sugar Baby

These are old but are Halloween related, so I thought I'd post them to go along with the article below.


Josh as Bob the Builder for Halloween 2007.

Also Halloween 2007: A very pregnant Elyssa, Liz, Mykin and Nesha.

At Pumpkinland 2007: Josh, Kylee, Matson, Bryce and Jenna.

Before trick-or-treating: Alex, Jenna, Josh, Jason.

After trick-or-treating (I think): Josh and Maxon.

Halloween is more than a month away, but I've already been thinking about it for weeks. Some people love the magic of Christmas or the romance of Valentine's Day. Those are great holidays, to be sure, but trimming trees and buying pink teddy bears is a lot of work. Which is why Halloween is my kind of celebration. All you have to do is throw on a costume and go door to door begging for candy. What could be better than that?

Having children has only increased my enthusiasm for Halloween. When my oldest son was a mere 4 months old, I dressed him up as a tiny frog and took him a' knocking. He couldn't hold his candy sack, he couldn't say "treat," and his tricks were limited to drooling and crying. (I think the frog costume was itchy.) After an hour, he was screaming hysterically and way past ready to go home. But that didn't stop me from continuing to hit the neighbors up for goodies. I got some appalled looks from more responsible parents, but I'm not above a little humiliation when miniature 3 Musketeers are involved. (Certainly no one believed that the infant was going to eat the candy, but how are you going to say "no" to a crazed mother waving a baby frog in your face?)


Now that I have a 3-year-old who can hold his own bag and scamper from house to house, I am in the clear. He can do the dirty work for me. After he goes to sleep on Halloween night, I'll pry the candy bag from his sticky little hands and "organize" it for him.

I'll make sure he's collected enough candy so that I can skim my cut off the top without him ever noticing. Never mind how dark it is on Halloween night, or how much the temperature drops. I'll stay out with my son until the bitter end, until we've knocked every door in our neighborhood and within walking distance. That's just the kind of committed mother I am. At least when Tootsie Rolls are involved.

-- Elyssa Andrus

This article originally ran in the Daily Herald on Sept. 24, 2008.

Riot of Passage (Sorry, Dad)

There’s nothing like the first day of school. When I was a child, my parents would walk me to my new classroom each year to help me get settled. It was a fun tradition, one that made me feel comforted and loved. The problem, however, is that the hand-holding never really stopped.

I guess my parents did lay off during my junior high and high school years. But when I started college at Brigham Young University in 1995, they went right back into kindergarten mode. They drove up with me from Arizona, helped me move into my dorm, and then waved goodbye to the other parents who – politely and appropriately – left their children behind.

My parents just stayed. Did you know that, before they were demolished, Deseret Towers used to have rooms that they would rent out to campus visitors? My parents stayed in the dorms – my dorm – for days, wallowing in nostalgia and self-pity. As any selfish teenager would do, I stayed busy and pretended not to know them. That got a little trickier when my dad insisted on attending my first day of classes with me.

My dad’s really not the type of person who blends into a crowd. There he was, 6-feet, 5-inches tall, 44 years old, wearing a fanny pack (his must-have traveling accessory), sitting on the front row of the lecture hall with his mortified freshman daughter. He had a hard time staying quiet, too, “whispering” commentary during Biology 130 and “softly” correcting my religion teacher’s explanation of the Greek symbol the caduceus. (Yes, 13 years later, I remember the details. It was that traumatic.)

In fairness to him, I was his oldest child. And I was moving more than 300 miles away. Did he sense, back then, that his family was never going to be the same? That I would marry a Provo boy who, try as he might, simply couldn’t cut the apron strings (to his snowmobile!) and planned to live in Utah forever? That I was never coming back?

One of my dad’s favorite sayings is: “You can’t escape genetics.” Now that I have children of my own, I see my first day of college in a more sympathetic light. I can’t imagine saying goodbye to my baby. In fact, I won’t.

I truly plan to get a PhD before my oldest starts college so that – should he choose to study anywhere outside of Utah County – I can simply go with him. Maybe I’ll even teach one of his classes. Because the only thing more horrifying on your first day of college than your dad wearing a fanny pack and sitting on the front row is this: Your mom wearing a Britney Spears T-shirt, standing at the lectern.

-- Elyssa Andrus

A shortened version of this column appeared in the Daily Herald on page B1 on Aug. 27. Reprinted with permission.

Yuba Lake Part Two

These are pictures from our second Yuba Lake trip this summer. I think Trent and Noelle DeGroot, who also came, were asleep in their new camper or something, which is why I don't have pictures of them.



Tyler loves sand.

Dave and Elyssa.

Josh in the water.

Jenna Higbee.

Jen, Steve and Mindy Marx.

Jon and Kimberly Jonas.

After Yuba. Tyler ate an entire thing of licorice.

Tyler loves the sand, part 2.

Addie Jonas.

Jason and Preston Higbee.


Ben, Matson and Mykin Higbee.

A Fishy Situation

One thing I love about Utah -- particularly Utah County -- is it's pretty easy to be close to your neighbors. This is literally the case when you live in a subdivision and the houses are practically stacked on top of each other. We had a new family move in next to us a few weeks ago, and they are everything you could ask for in people who share your lawn. They have a cool family band that I've never heard practicing late at night, and a bunch of red-haired teenagers who look like they could be siblings to my children. Really, they are the best. Which is why I was only too happy to get their mail and pet-sit their goldfish while they went on vacation for a week. Picking up mail is no big deal. And I like to look at fish, but not eat them, so I figured that made me a great candidate for freshwater babysitter. I got a little nervous when the mom, Martha, told me that the goldfish were a couple years old, but I still figured I could handle it.

Wrong.
I actually kept the goldfish alive for almost the entire week. The morning my neighbors returned, I went in to give the fish their morning meal and found them belly-up. I kept hoping it was a funny animal trick -- something straight out of "Finding Nemo" -- but, alas. They were very, very dead. And I'm still not sure what I did to make them that way.
Talk about awkward. Hallmark has yet to make a greeting card for this kind of thing. There is no tasteful way to say, "I'm really, really sorry I killed the only living thing you've ever entrusted to me, but I promise to do better next time." Or, "I'm really, really sorry it took me a week to get rid of what you've spent the last three years carefully nurturing." Or, "Your fish are dead/As you can see/ Your big mistake/ Was trusting me."
On the bright side, proving my incompetence early on has likely gotten me out of years of neighborly favors. When the family at the end of the street needs someone to watch their pet ferrets while they go out of town, you can bet they won't be choosing me.
-- Elyssa Andrus

This column originally appeared in the Daily Herald on July 23, 2008.

Postlude: In church a few weeks ago, another neighbor bore testimony of how his child's fish was magically resurrected through prayer. Sure could have used him when I was blubbering over a stinky bowl.

Yuba Lake

My poor red-haired boys have to stay in the shade.

Sadie Buckles after wakeboarding.

John Jonas wakesurfing with Austin.


Kim and Bailey Jonas.


Tyler loves to eat dirt.