A Lot of Cancun Pictures (And No Swine Flu!)

Zipline at Isla Mujeres.

Before dinner at our hotel.

Josh on the beach at Akumal.

Trent and Noelle on the ferry to Isla Mujeres.

Such a fun vacation. Our only complaint was that Trent and Noelle and Terry and Claire ended up at a different hotel. (Long story, very sad.) We showed Josh the pyramids he'd been asking to see, spent a day at Isla Mujeres, and spent the rest of the time at the pool, beach or the buffet. Managed to avoid the Great Swine Flu Epidemic of 2009 that hit Mexico. This is probably our last international vacation with kids for a while, but I am so greatful we had the chance to spend a week together as a family.

Cancun Pictures

Tyler and Dave on the golf cart at Isla Mujeres.

Josh on swings at Isla Mujeres.

Josh in the pool at Isla Mujeres.

Josh holds a starfish at Isla Mujeres.

More Cancun Pictures

Tyler on the beach at Akumal.

The view in the courtyard of our hotel.

Tyler gets at drink at Chichen Itza.

Cancun

Dave and Tyler on the beach at Akumal.

Josh is hot and sad at the pyramids (Chichen Itza).

Terry, Claire, Maddi, Noelle, Trent, Elyssa, Tyler, Josh (hiding) and Dave.

Josh, Tyler and Dave at the beach by our hotel.

Tyler fell asleep every night at dinner.

Tyler also got sand in his eyes, mouth and nose pretty much all the time.

Hope it Gives You Heaven

It's not a very nice song, but I love to listen to the All-American Rejects's "Gives You Hell" when I'm driving my minivan. Normally, I'm a Britney Spears or Madonna kind of girl (both my co-workers and my family are appalled by my taste in music, by the way), but I make an exception for this particular song. In case you haven't heard it, "Gives You H-E-Double Hockey Sticks" is pretty much a repetition of the title lyric over and over again, with lead vocalist Tyson Ritter railing against an ex-girlfriend he doesn't much care for. The song suggests that Ritter is particularly disgusted with said ex-girlfriend for embracing responsibility, with all the stable employment, picket fences and shiny cars it entails:

"I wake up every evenin'
With a big smile on my face, and it never feels out of place.
You're still probably workin', at a 9 to 5 pace. I wonder how bad that tastes."

It's a song that I'm sure Ritter never, ever intended to be sung in a minivan, that perfect symbol of dorky suburbia I have so come to embrace. I particularly love to blare the song when I'm wearing a sweatsuit, driving my minivan, and headed to Wal-Mart to haggle with the cashiers about coupon matching and price adjustments. It's a guilty pleasure I enjoy when I do my late-night shopping, free from children who might inconveniently start singing "Gives You Hell" at, say, church or preschool.
Truth be told, I don't have a picket fence or a shiny car (mine is streaked with dirt and kid fingerprints). But part of me likes to envision the horror Ritter would feel if he pulled up next to me at a stoplight and saw me singing -- and dancing -- along to his rant against Middle America. It might, as they say, give him hell.
-- Elyssa Andrus
Published in the Daily Herald April 1, 2009.

Say it to my Face

Say it to my face: I'm a late adapter when it comes to any sort of technology, and I think I am one of the last people on earth to join the friend-locating, social-networking, time-sucking Web site Facebook. Just in case you are one of the other last people on earth yet to join, here's how it works: You set up a free online profile and choose "friends" who can look at it. A person has to accept you as a friend for you to see their profile, or vice versa. Then you can send messages back and forth, both private and public. When someone requests to be your friend, you can either confirm him as a friend or ignore the request -- a fun new form of cyber rejection.

Fair enough. The site's greatest feature, in my opinion, is its amazing ability to locate people. I've been able to find most of my high school friends, many people from college, and practically every teenager that lives within 5 miles of me. Interestingly enough, all of my high school and college friends look amazing -- the best they have ever looked. Either there is a lot of careful photo selection and editing going on, or an extra decade really does make all of the difference.

Because Facebook includes so much personal information, it's kind of spooky and weird to now know so much about people I haven't had a face-to-face conversation with since the 1990s. And I've gotten a few friend requests from people I truly can't remember. I always feel horrible hitting "ignore," but apparently that's not a problem for a couple of old boyfriends of mine. I tried to add them as friends so I could, you know, show them how happy and successful and beautiful I am after all these years (just look at the Photoshopped pictures!), but not a single one has added me as a friend. In all three cases, the relationship ended poorly and it was my fault.
But at least I've given them the final word (or mouse click, in this case).

Rejection is subtle with Facebook, but I get the message.
-- Elyssa Andrus
Published in the Daily Herald Feb. 11, 2009.

A Column That's Totally Awesome

When you're married, there's an almost endless list of things you can do to annoy your spouse. I've been married almost a decade, and I've discovered that I can aggravate my husband (with so little effort!) in the following ways: cleaning obsessively, complaining about the weather in Utah or Utah in general, wearing stinky perfume, showing up 15 minutes late for everything. But, oddly enough, the thing that bugs my husband most is when I use the word "awesome." I can't help it. I can't get enough of the popular '80s adjective. It works in so many situations. You can use it sarcastically when your 1-year-old child sneaks away: "Tyler, that's awesome that you are drinking out of the toilet. Again." You can use it in moments of true wonderment: "Oreo Cakesters now come in 100-calorie packs? Awesome!"

There's a whole host of products displaying this super-cool adjective on their label. I recently purchased a bottle of LA's Totally Awesome Carpet Spot & Stain Remover at a dollar store in American Fork. I was dubious about the name at first, until my 3-year-old son used a red Sharpie marker to draw dots all over my carpet. The $1 cleaner was totally, totally awesome.

Entrepreneur, pitchman and former Utah gubernatorial hopeful Dell "SUPERDELL" Schanze has named a handful of companies after my favorite word. Totally Awesome Computers makes for a fairly pedestrian-sounding business, but you have to love a store called Totally Awesome Guns and Range. I have never been in a TV commercial, carried a handgun, or lost a part of my finger in a freeway motorcycle accident. It's fair to say that SUPERDELL and I have little in common. But we are wed, so to speak, by our affection for one awe-inspiring adjective. Also, we both drive my husband a little crazy. And what could be more awesome than that?

-- Elyssa Andrus

Published Jan 4, 2009 in the Daily Herald.

New Year's Rockin' Eve

I'm married and I don't drink alcohol, so New Year's Eve celebrations of late have been a little bit anticlimactic (no champagne in Times Square, no kissing a stranger at the stroke of midnight). This has especially been the case after having children. Sure, I can get up with a baby 10 times in the middle of the night if said baby screams loudly enough, but ask me to stay up past 10 p.m. and forget it. I always have good intentions of toasting the New Year at midnight, but after a few hors d'oeuvres and a glass of sparkling cider, I'm usually sacked out on the couch. Trying to liven things up, my husband and I actually went to Las Vegas a few years ago, thinking that traveling would force us to literally get out of the house for New Year's Eve.

We stayed with my sister-in-law in a nearby suburb and had every intention of heading to the Las Vegas Strip to ring in the new year. But I was pregnant at the time, and after dinner I got very, very sleepy. I just wanted to sit for a minute. Then I got to thinking about all the people who would be crowding The Strip, and how parking is always a nightmare, and that it probably wasn't even safe to be driving with all the drunken drivers out and about, and wouldn't it be nicer to just stay home and watch a movie? I was asleep an hour later.
I come from a family of 11 children and on New Year's Eve, we would all go bang on pots and pans and shout "Happy New Year" to the cul de sac as soon as it got dark. I'm sure our neighbors rolled their eyes at us. But I think my parents had it right. Who needs to stay up until midnight to celebrate? The New Year isn't going anywhere. It will still be there when I wake up, refreshed after my preferred 10 hours of sleep and ready to get a good jump on 2009.
-- Elyssa Andrus

From the Daily Herald, Dec. 31, 2008.

The Diagnosis

The diagnosis: Of all the TV dramas airing this season, my favorite is FOX's "House." The show stars British actor Hugh Laurie as a misanthropic genius with a knack for diagnosing complex medical mysteries. Each episode, Dr. Gregory House writes the patient's puzzling symptoms on a whiteboard and consults his team of specialists, always identifying the disease just in time to save the patient from imminent death. I'm a hypochondriac by nature, and watching "House" has introduced me to a host of obscure illnesses I had never considered. A pulled back muscle or upset stomach has changed from a minor annoyance to a sign of imminent demise. Maybe I have some sort of heavy-metal poisoning, maybe I have an infection eating away at my brain. I probably need an MRI, PET scan and brain biopsy, STAT.

My dad is an emergency room doctor in Arizona. I am cheap and impatient, so I never go to the primary-care physician mandated by my insurance. I just call him instead and run through my laundry list of symptoms.

Because he works in an emergency room, he's rarely impressed with anything except heart attacks and bullet wounds. When one of his 11 children has a health complaint, he rolls his eyes and prescribes "rest." If the child whines loudly enough for several consecutive days, he might recommend the allergy medication Benadryl. It has the very appealing quality of making the user sleepy and, therefore, quiet.

But I call him anyway. In the spirit of cooperation (this is the cue for all doctors to groan), I always Google my symptoms before dialing. That way, I can lead him in the right direction, away from amyloidosis and toward Monkey Pox, for example.

The only problem is that my physician is not engaged or curious like Dr. House. My dad never lists my symptoms on the whiteboard; he refuses to consult his team. He just sighs and pretends to have another call, muttering in parting: "There is nothing wrong with you. You clearly need rest. And some Benadryl."

If only Dr. House were available for a second opinion.
-- Elyssa Andrus

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.

Around our House, Josh Wears Many Hats

To state the obvious: Potty training is going really, really well. In the first picture, Josh is wearing his "Cars" underwear beret-style. I was there when he put it on his head. I wasn't there, obviously, when Josh decided to wear the toilet seat as a crown -- or a halo. I only came after I heard screaming. (Sadly, this happens a lot). I can only imagine the thought process went something like this: "This is so fun to sit on that I better put it on my head."
It tooks about 15 minutes for me to figure out how to get the thing back over his ears, and he was shrieking the whole time. A better mother would have started solving that problem immediately. I just grabbed a camera to document the humilation. Let the therapy begin.

If You're Reading This ...

I didn't actually write 43 blog entries in the course of a week. I've just posted all of my old newspaper columns from The Daily Herald to this blog (with permission, of course), so that I could have them archived in one place. The column that runs in the paper is called "The Skinny." It's a reference to the article's thin column width, not my obsession with body weight. (If the latter were the case, I'd call it "The Fat," no matter how many Weight Watchers meetings I attended. But I digress.) Anyone who takes the time to read anything posted after this entry will notice the columns fall mostly into three categories: 1) My obsession with plastic surgery and Britney Spears 2) How being a mom is, like, exhausting and 3) Complaints about snowmobiling, camping and pretty much anything else Dave enjoys (we make a great couple). If you can handle that kind of superficial rambling, read on (or make better use of your time and invest in TiVo). If not, Grandma, I promise not to take it personally.
-- Elyssa

America's Next Top Mother

Heaven knows, there are plenty of nipped and tucked models on the catwalk, but I don't think I've ever heard of a fashion show dedicated to plastic surgery itself. Still, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Dressed in designer duds, several patients of New York-area plastic surgeons took to the runway to showcase their new breasts, noses and tummies. The cosmetic-surgery fashion show debuted at the Carlyle on the Green manor in Farmingdale, N.Y., last Thursday. Much like well-enhanced country singer Dolly Parton, I have never embraced the idea of natural beauty. I love highlights, concealer, spray tans. I'd wear fake eyelashes to bed if I thought my husband would believe it. When I was 12, I slept in sponge curlers at my church's girls' camp, so I could, I guess, have my hair in ringlets as I hiked in the mountains and cooked over an open fire. It made sleeping in a tent that much more uncomfortable, but somehow I managed it. (Pretty much everyone at the camp rolled their eyes at me, even the leaders.) But until recently, I've never been comfortable with the idea of plastic surgery. Seems painful -- I'm a wimp -- and very permanent.
Still, after having children, you only have to stare at your stomach for about two seconds to see why tummy tucks are such a popular surgery. They are among the top five cosmetic surgical procedures performed by plastic surgeons in 2007 (along with liposuction, breast augmentation, rhinoplasty and eyelid surgery). And the number of tummies tucked has risen 137 percent since 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Call me Humpty Dumpty: After having two boys in two and a half years, I sometimes just want to be put back together again.
But if I do some day go for an extreme makeover, you certainly won't see me strutting my new stuff down the catwalk. I've learned a thing or two since girls' camp. Sometimes your beauty secrets are best kept ... secret.
-- Elyssa Andrus
This article appeared in The Daily Herald on June 18, 2008. See http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/270422/149/

Holy Hannah Montana!

Holy Hannah: I have a confession to make. I am 30 years old and I really like Hannah Montana. If there is anyone left in Utah County who missed all of this year's Stadium of Fire fireworks, here's a quick primer. Hannah Montana is the fictional alter ego of the very real and adorable 15-year-old Miley Cyrus. There is a Disney Channel TV show called "Hannah Montana," about a young pop superstar (played by Miley). Cyrus is, herself, a young pop superstar. Confusing? A little bit. But ask any 11-year-old girl, and she can work it out for you.
Organizers of the yearly Provo Fourth of July event Stadium of Fire must have promised to change the name of the state (a second Montana, perhaps?) to get Miley to come, but it's a huge deal. Huge. Her concerts routinely sell out in a matter of minutes.
I'm the oldest of 11 children, many of whom are still teenagers and pre-teens and religiously watch the "Hannah Montana" show on Disney. I, personally, became more of a fan of the show and of Miley when my son Tyler (now 3 months old) was born. Literally.
I was in labor and my husband -- sweet, considerate man that he is -- was watching the inane vehicle-makeover show "Trick my Truck" on CMT. When I realized that Tyler was about to be born, I started freaking out about bringing a child into the world with a bunch of big-rig mechanics yammering on in the background. I told my husband to start flipping channels, and he landed on the "Hannah Montana" show just as Tyler made his entrance into the world. Coincidence? I think not.
And Miley Cyrus will likely be Tyler's first concert. Through some stroke of dumb luck on the computer, my husband was able to get some tickets before they sold out. So Tyler and I will go, but my older son and my husband will likely stay home. There are way too many other people in my family fighting over the tickets. These are people who would never choose to watch "Trick my Truck" when they could be watching "Hannah Montana." They know what a good thing she's got going. They know.
-- Elyssa Andrus
This article appeared in The Daily Herald on April 9, 2008. See http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/261648/149/