Zooing with Miriam

As a part of our new date system, Miriam and I got to go to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. We got there right when it opened at 9 a.m. (first ones through the gate!), and I'm glad we got there when we did. As we were waiting for the penguin feeding, we heard two gigantic claps of thunder, followed by a downpour. Since we had already been at the zoo for an hour, we had seen most of the animals by then. We followed up our zoo date with a milk shake from Arctic Circle.

 Miriam with a monkey. A gibbon maybe? 

 This mama wallaby and her joey were right inside the walk-through gate at the Australia area, but I wasn't quick enough with my camera to get the shot before she hopped over the low fence.

Obligatory picture by the lion statue.

 Obligatory picture by the tiger statue.

 Enjoying some Smarties in her nest.

 Obligatory picture by the giant chicken.

 Since it was special occasion, I figured a little puddle jumping wouldn't cause any harm.

 I think her sneakers are still drying out.

Good girls

Any parent knows that sometimes a quiet house means children are up to no good. You know, flushing-jewelry-down-the-toilet, putting-Mommy's-makeup-on-the-baby, finding-the-secret-stash-of-Christmas-presents kind of "no good."

And sometimes a quiet house means that your children are just being sweet, well behaved girls.

This is how I found all four of them one night while I was making dinner and the house seem quieter than usual.

 Rebekah playing with Gwendolen on the love seat in the living room.

Miriam and Analee looking at library books on the couch in the living room.

Wirkus reunion 2013

Sometimes I get bogged down and don't blog about happenings until they're a month in the past.

But (hallelujah!) school started today, which means I can do a little bit of catch-up on some of the things I've slacked on.

So on to the Wirkus reunion which took place August 10!

We met at our usual park in Ammon and enjoyed in the festivities, which included food, cousins, visiting, snow cones and pictures.

Analee playing with a foam bat somebody brought.

Grandma Scott feeding some of her snow cone to Winnie.

It turned her mouth blue.

Miriam is the friendliest 3-year-old on the planet. She sees most of these people once a year, yet she sits right down next to them and starts telling them her life story.

Caleb helping me make snow cones. I borrowed an idea from another reunion and brought our little snow cone maker to the reunion with six different flavors of syrup I had made the night before. I thought the little kids (and even the grownups) would enjoy the cold treats ... only to discover that our picnic shelter didn't have any electricity. Which is weird. Because the other picnic shelter at the same park DOES have electricity. So we hauled the cooler full of ice, the snow cone maker and the syrups down to the other one, and, like the Pied Piper, the children followed us and enjoyed their cold treats. Caleb was my right-hand man. He was in charge of putting more ice in and pressing the button to shave it.

Seth pushing Miriam on the swing.

Seth and Andrea. We like each other!

Seth gesticulating while Miriam sits on his lap and plays with his hat.

Gwendolen doing her spider monkey crawl through the pavilion. She doesn't like most surfaces touching her knees, so she gets up on her feet.

Grandma Scott talking to Rebekah and carrying a load of snow cones back up to our picnic shelter to share with the older family members who hadn't come down to the electrified shelter.

A group picture of the people who were there when we shot group pictures. Some people had left and came back later for a shot of their own.

To see more pictures, click here.

10 years

 Seth and Andrea outside the Idaho Falls temple following our sealing 10 years ago today. 

Seth is my best friend. He's the father of my beautiful daughters. He's my confidant. Although I love and enjoy the company of many other people, if I had to choose someone to spend 50 years with on a desert island, I'd pick him. He makes me laugh. He comforts me when I cry. He understands my quirks. He knows I'm not perfect, and he still loves me.

A few specific reasons I love Seth:

• He shares the load. Even though I'm at home all day and he's at the office, Seth doesn't assume that I'm the one solely responsible for keeping house. He does dishes after dinner. He cooks on the weekends. He often bathes the girls. He usually does the vacuuming and dusting. He occasionally folds the laundry and asks the girls which clothes are whose because, for the love of Pete, he can't remember if this size 5T shirt is Miriam's or Analee's because they BOTH can wear 5T.
• He's fiercely protective of me and my time. He knows my days are filled with diapers, feedings, whining, stories, shopping and naps. When someone outside our immediate family requests that I dedicate a good amount of time to something—whether it's baby-sitting, volunteering at the school or something else—he gets defensive on my behalf. It's nice to have someone who can say “no” for me if I have a hard time saying it for myself.
• He and I are nerds of a feather. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Star Trek are just a few of the things we adore. And even the nerdy things we don't share—I love grammar and editing, he loves programming and computer games—we respect.
• He seeks my permission. A short time ago , he asked me if it would be okay if he takes a week off of work to go hunting in September (archery season). Seth has taken a week off of work in September to go hunting nearly every year we've been married. Could he assume it was okay and just request the time off and make plans with his dad without consulting me? Sure. But he knows that rearing a family is a two-person job and that if he goes to Island Park for a week, I'll be left at home alone with four children. He sincerely wanted to know if I would be okay with him going. And if I had told him it would be too hard or I'd rather he wouldn't, he would change plans in an instant.
• He cares about my comfort and well-being. He rubs my shoulders when I'm stressed out. He gets me a drink of ice water (with extra ice) after the girls are in bed. He gets after me when I haven't seen the chiropractor and my back is still hurting from pulling up the headgate more than a month ago.

Now, that isn't to say that our marriage is perfect or that we don't disagree about things from time to time. If marriage is nothing else, it's a test of adaptation and compromise. Taking two people with different backgrounds, families and ways of life and throwing them together for time and all eternity creates a few wrinkles. But if both of them have the same priorities, namely the Lord and their family, then I believe they can work through most — if not all — problems that arise.

We were married 10 years ago today. With that in mind, I spent months trying to execute a plan to get him a surprise gift. (In the end, I had to 'fess up before I could give it to him, but the gift announcement was still a surprise.) A month after I ordered his present, it was ready for me to pick up. On the way home and with four little girls riding in the back of our van listening to Magic Treehouse on CD, I tried to formulate a little expression of my appreciation to say as I gave him his gift. This is, more or less, what I told him:

“The past 10 years have been the happiest, craziest, most stressful and by far most rewarding of my life. There's nobody I would rather have shared them with than you.”

If you couldn't tell, I'm not the greatest speech writer. I guess I was going for “short and sweet.” The point is, I view our marriage as a “pearl beyond price, a treasure of infinite worth,” to borrow a quote from Elder Clayton's recent Conference address. I'm grateful beyond words for the support, guidance and love that Seth gives me every day.

(Nearly) 10 years ago at our reception. We were married August 22, 2003, but had our reception the next evening, August 23, at the Iona City Building.

10-year anniversary

Seth and I celebrate 10 years of holy matrimonial bliss this week, so we made arrangements to leave our young'uns and have a little mini vacay in Island Park/West Yellowstone/Yellowstone.

Friday evening, we dropped off all four girls with my parents (Seth's parents had them for the second half of our trip) and drove to Rexburg where we stopped at Gator Jack's for some Gator Bites and sandwiches. We continued on to Island Park and watched a movie (The Great Gatsby ... I liked the movie better than the book, which is unusual for me) at Seth's grandparents' cabin before calling it a night.

Back in February, Seth won a horseback ride for two at a PTO silent auction. Since its expiration date is next month, we knew we had to redeem it while we could. So we scheduled a ride with Diamond P Ranch in West Yellowstone for Saturday morning.

Funny horseback riding story: 

The morning of the ride, Seth said, "I know our horses will already have names, but you have to give your horse another name. And it has to come from an '80s or '90s TV show or movie."

"I already have my name," I said. "It's 'Screech.'"

"Ooo, good one," Seth said, "I already have mine too. It's 'John Stamos.'"

"Or you could call him 'Uncle Joey.' No, wait. That was the funny one. What was the other uncle's name? The cool one? Oh, yeah! Uncle Jesse!" I said.

Later when we got to the ranch, the staff brought out a horse and told me, "This is Jesse. You'll be riding him."

Seth and I looked at each other with our jaws on the dusty ground. Then Seth said, "You don't choose John Stamos. John Stamos chooses you."

After some deliberation, the staff informed us that Seth would, in fact, ride Jesse while I would ride Arizona. So Seth got John Stamos after all.


Our lovely guide Jaime took us and the other members of our group (a father/mother/son from Yorkshire, England) on a nearly three-hour ride on some mountain trails. Since Seth and I have next to no horseback riding experience, we were a little nervous at the thought of riding these fine beasties, but we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

 Seth on his horse. The lady in front of him is Leo from Yorkshire. She had the most awesome purple boots.

 Andrea riding Arizona.

 Seth and Andrea atop their noble steeds.

 Seth riding back down the mountain. The guide asked if we'd like to have our horses trot a while. As we found out, a horse's trot is MUCH more uncomfortable than its walk. Seth got a second or two of honest-to-goodness galloping, and he reports that it's much smoother than trotting.

Our guide leading us across the highway. One bicyclist took our picture.

After returning the horses, undoubtedly under-tipping our guide (What's the going rate for horseback guides these days?) and turning down an offer for a CD of seriously overpriced pictures, we drove into Yellowstone, had a picnic and did a little bit of sightseeing. We stopped at the Artist Paintpots, walked the 1.5-mile Back Basin loop at Norris and drove along the Firehole Canyon.

 Seth at the Back Basin loop.

 Geyser-watching.

Seth informed me that the light was lovely on my white hairs. (It's okay ... I know I have them and I honestly, truly don't care.) He took a picture to show me.

Then we drove back out of the park in time to eat dinner (a Gusher Special--basically a supreme pizza) and watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the Playmill. We also got to say hello to a few fellow BHS graduates: Brooke Silvester and Mark Hancock. Good times.

The next morning, we compared notes on our sore backs/legs from the ride, cleaned up at the cabin and drove home in time to collect our girls and go to church. Seth even made it to bishopric meeting in time.

Perhaps the cutest, scrawniest baby you've ever laid eyes on

 Told ya so.

SRRYJ 2013

It's that time of year again. The time when we throw caution to the wind, don our paint clothes and let loose at the Idaho Falls greenbelt.

It's time ... for the Snake River Roaring Youth Jam.

We have a long tradition of going to the Youth Jam. (Last year we didn't go because they had it indoors due to greenbelt construction. What kind of messy art projects are done indoors?!) For the most part, this year's Jam didn't disappoint. The one exception: the Xtreme Xylophone. There were no paintbrushes there, and no one manning the paint dispensers. Although the xylophone is fun to play, it's MUCH more fun to paint. I'm still not sure what the deal was there.

Regardless, we had lots of fun and made more crafts than I know how to display.

The Junk Jam is always a highlight.

Miriam blowing bubbles in paint so a helper can carefully dip her paper in and make bubble art. 

Analee sharing some of her cotton candy-flavored snow cone with Winnie.

Miriam doing some hands-on painting at the mural project.

Two new statues have been installed at the greenbelt in the past month or so. We enjoyed looking at the elk statue, but the bear statues are much more fun to ride on.

Rebekah and Analee playing guitars.

Analee was mesmerized by the acrobat troupe.

Rebekah showing off her concoction: blueberries, Crispex mix and a cracker. After all the Youth Jamming, we unpacked our picnic lunch from the van and ate on the lawn of the church across from the greenbelt.

Miriam came away with the most paint on her.

Although Ana's hand had a fair amount of paint around her fingernails.

Rebekah smeared some green in her hair.

To see more pictures, click here.

Egbert reunion

For this year's annual Egbert reunion, I had the honor of taking Grandpa Wirkus. Usually that falls to my parents, but when they called my mom to be an assistant camp director, they had already scheduled camp over the date of the reunion. So I took a van-load of people (our four little ones, plus Aunt Jessica and Grandpa Wirkus) to Tetonia. (Seth stayed home to tame our jungle ... er, lawn.)

Gwendolen had a good time crawling all around the picnic pavilion. Several distant cousins plucked her up from the ground and held her. In the background, Grandpa Wirkus is visiting with his brother- and sister-in-law, Bill and Verna.

Because this reunion is for the descendants of Hyrum and Annie Egbert (my great, great-grandparents), we all have to wear name tags because we're sometimes distantly related. Miriam told me she was going to take hers on her chest and put it on her tummy. I didn't realize she meant on her bare tummy.

These two are so cute together. 

Rebekah and Analee made friends with Annie. After playing in the hammock for a long time, they decided to show off their baby sister.

Egbert reunion funny story:

We have our reunion at the Mountain View Lodge. Behind the lodge, there was a corral with three horses in it, one of them albino. Bekah and Ana were having a good time naming the horses and feeding them grass. "Lightning" had a lighter streak on its forelock, hence its name. "Roan-eo" was named because "I think it's a roan," Bekah said. (I gave her extra points for incorporating Shakespeare.) The third, the albino, was "Snow White."

After the girls came back over to the dining pavilion, Bekah glanced at the corral and said, "Oh, no! Snow White is lying down! Let's go check on her."

She and Ana ran back over. I followed at a slower pace.

The girls were relieved when Snow White seemed okay. "We think she was lying down because she's pregnant," said Ana.

I took a closer look at the albino horse.

"No, I'm pretty sure she's not pregnant," I said.

"How can you tell?" Ana asked.

"Snow White is a boy," I said.

Believe me when I say the girls' reactions were priceless.


To see more Egbert reunion pictures, start here.

Miri-ism #16

We had just finished with family scripture study and prayer and were heading upstairs to put the girls to bed.

Seth: Miri, do you want me to give you a horsey ride?
Miri: No, Daddy, you are too poking to me!
Seth: How am I "poking to you?"
Miri: The spikes on your face!
Miri: (caressing Andrea's cheeks) Mommy, you don't have spikes on your face.