Eli being cute

Mother's Day Came Early

This is where we ate lunch on Friday ...Dallin and McKay's thank you to dad for doing their taxes. It was also BYU Graduation so there were lots of people. The boys were not that impressed and we had to laugh as we were walking to the car because they sounded so much like us after we spent a wade on a dinner. After the lunch Dallin, McKay and I went to the Provo Temple and did baptisms with the names my mom gave me. I just had to think how we pass the thighs, quirks and mannerisms on in families and how grateful I am that we came through a line of such great people. Saturday came early and we all worked throughout the day on the broken fence, the garden, and the attic. It was cool weather and McKay kept saying how warm the attic was and how he was thinking it might be nice to live up in the attic or at least sleep there. He and Dallin cut boards and moved boxes with the master plan of organizing everyone's "stuff". McKay and Dallin settled down to watch the Jazz game after a long day of working while we went to Niki Cook's reception and visiting with the Knights. Today, Sunday, the boys sat with me in Church. That was nice. McKay is off to Amy's cabin in Logan canyon with lots of x country skiis for tomorrow and Dallin has declared the raspberry cheesecake to be a great creation of his. McKay's room is so full that he can't move around and he promises to get it packed away before he leaves for Portland...whenever that is. For more pictures of the weekend, visit my Picasa. The bees are busy!!!

portland

what a fun trip it was! this view of the city was taken from a tram that goes from downtown up to a hospital. you get some really cool views of the city and the river from up there. the hospital was really neat too--it's huge and they just built this new building and they have some fun sculpture gardens outside. it was fun to explore. this other building was my favorite--it the adidas headquarters, or where they do their product development or something like that. there were about 5 building in the complex and they each had a different accent color--which corresponded to the country they represented. outside they also had a soccer field where people were playing a game, a tennis court, basketball court, and a playground. looked like a way fun place to work! then this other picture is of the 6 of us, we rented bikes and biked around the city and across some bridges on saturday. way fun. this week it was back to work as normal though.
my headaches were pretty bad this week so i didn't do much more than go to work. but the race yesterday was good, hard but good. i mostly just tried to keep up with alicia and i was glad she was there running with me. church today was really nice, i met a few more people. and i'm going over to a friend's house for dinner which is always fun. hope everyone is well and has a great week!

TyandNat 4/20

This week the weather improved dramatically... it has been near the 70s for most of the week. Of course, we did have a 5.2 earthquake, but those happen all the time here in Indiana (like once every 20 years). We made the most of the weather by playing frisbee, going on long walks and jogs, and we even met for lunch on Wednesday and walked around downtown. I'm busy wrapping up the semester, preparing a literature review on professional development, and this evening I'm doing a youth fireside. Natalie has been extremely busy illustrating her book: On the Money: AP Giannini, The vegetable peddler with the midas touch. Our townhome offer was accepted and the bank has given us a provisional pre-approval on a loan (we have to pay down our car first to improve our debt ratio) so things are moving along there.

Someone clicked the link I put on one of the blogs a few weeks ago about the Animoto slideshows and signed up so we got a few months for free (and they got $5 off a year pass). Anyhow, we're going to make slideshows for each month. Here's our first, for March 2008.

All in a Day's Work or Long May the Honey Flow

We had a fun time on Saturday. We got down to Salt Lake in enough time to park and take pictures of Brooke at Sugarhouse Park. She was plugged in to her ipod and didn't hear us until Kim caught up to her and jogged along. Then we went to Liberty Park and jogged with her and Alicia. We tried to make it to the finish but the crowd was incredible being a 5 k, 1/2 and full marathon with bikers and kids race thrown in. We were there but not at the finish and after much searching found her, Alicia and room mate Tiffiany. We were excited for Brooke to complete the 1/2 and to do it in such good time! We then picked up the bees and took them home. It was pretty funny watching the guys read the book and try to figure out what to do next. It was an extremely windy day all day and the book said to defer getting bees in the hive on a windy day but they just couldn't wait. They all have such cute outfits but in spite of good looks, many were stung including innocent bystanders. Ghelfie got stung on the head 4 times ( we think it was his hair gel smell that attracted them), Barb Hall got one on the head and her husband Kevin got one under his eye. I got one on my eyelid and it is still swollen up puffy and one on my finger. It was a fun event and hopefully will prove to be a great enterprise for all. For more pictures, go to Wynette's picasa site!

Anniversary Adventure

Kim left work early and we packed up the bikes ( we can now that we have a van!) and drove out to Benjamin. We rode along the irrigation ditches and saw lots of fun creatures. I saw a muskrat or beaver diving under, some beautiful red winged black birds, wrens, ducks and lots of dogs in fenced in areas. It was a fairly cool day and as such I decided to put my gloves on about the same time as my pant caught onto the water bottle holder and over the handbars I flew...kinda a reinactment of your dad last summer. I was grateful to land on a nice patch of grass and mostly just came away with grass stains. Afterwards, we walked the Spanish Fork River trail to stretch out our legs and we saw these furry creatures on the lawn. We are not sure what they are but here is one in his hole by the river. Then Kim had a meeting he needed to attend and after that we made strawberry jam. Yum. It is about the only cheap food I have seen lately....$3.99 a flat! Now that's a deal!

We Should Have Been Doing Yard Work!

After spending the morning running errands and going to the BYU Outdoor sale to get more skiis, we just couldn't resist the last run of the season at Aspen Grove. Now McKay doesn't have to rent skiis when he asks a girl to go skiing because we have a pretty good selection and Kira and Natalie will have a pair to wear when we go because we got boots for their sizes also. It was a fantastic day to be out and who would have known that it snowed the day before? It was sunny and warm but the snow was starting to be slushy. It was probably the best run we had of the season and we didn't have to work to ski down at all. It had been a fairly uneventful week here in Spanish Fork. I went to the temple early on Tuesday morning with dad and we fasted for Bryce. I have felt a peace since then and hope that it is because Bryce is working through whatever is hard. On Tuesday night, I took a sister that I visit teach to Provo to hear the University Chorale. Paul Broomhead ( dad's executive secretary) was the director and it was excellent. He really knows how to pull the best out of the students. On Friday we went to the Chillon to Ila Mills reception. It was so crowded! We sat with the Knights and Dave Voorhees and had a great visit. Then as we were leaving we saw Tony and Marielen Christensen and found out that they really did sell the store and that Matt is in school to become a nurse anathesiologist. I don't know how to spell that. We were excited on Saturday to hear details of McKay's internship to Oregon. We are especially impressed with the way that he pursued the opportunity of an internship and is making things happen. We went to the bookstore to pick up digital pictures ( finally getting some hard copies) from Bryce's disk and saw some good books marked down so we got them for gifts for outgoing bishops and high councilmen, had them wrapped and charged them to the stake and found out that we got an additional 20 % off because it was for the church. We are converted to doing more shopping that way! Our lettuce, spinach, and onions are doing well and I keep looking at the peas but they are slow to come. It takes forever it seems to get things done and at times it is overwhelming but somehow it all works out. Next week...Brooke's 1/2 marathon and the arrival of the BEES! Life is pretty sweet here in Spanish Fork.

Animoto video of Spring Break '08

I just found out about this cool place called Animoto today. They provide a service that allows you to upload your pictures and music and then they mash 'em up and produce pretty neat slide shows. You can creat 30 second ones for free or make any length videos for $3/video or $30/year for unlimited. I'm thinking about doing the year pass--there really are pretty cool. There's a discount for getting your friends to buy in as well so if anyone does this and wants a referral code, mine is "nxgjikcz" (I think that gives you a few dollars off). So here's my first video...



Here's a little background on the photos. For spring break this year we took the kids and went up to Shipshewanna, IN right on the Michigan border. Eli especially had a great time, but we all loved being in Amish country and enjoying the peace and quiet.

TyandNat weekend

We had a great weekend. Saturday we were all up bright and early for my first 1/2 marathon. It was a tough race but I really enjoyed it and look forward to many more at that length. My official time was 1:46:24, a few minutes faster than my goal time. Nat and the kids were out cheering me on and Eli was really sad when I kept running by (see picture below). After the race we went to China buffet and then came home to watch conference on our laptop. I really enjoyed conference and included some of my thoughts on our blog (www.tyandnat.com/blog). Saturday evening between sessions we had friends over for a bar-b-que. We also got news that Blake Elzinga (Tiffany's boy... the sister that set us up) was born, 4 months early, but in pretty good shape. 1 lb. 11 oz. We'll give you more details when we have them. This week I'm teaching a course for a faculty member that is away to a conference. After class yesterday I realized how much I miss teaching and look forward to the fall when I'll be back at it again. Hope you're all having a great week.

Georgia

I just got back from student career days and it was crazy good times.

Yep. You can look at pictures here: http://christensen.negimaki.com/gallery2/v/Student+Career+Days_+Atlanta+Georgia/

Conference Weekend

Title of Picture: That's a my boy! This would be us at Conference. It is such a great blessing to get tickets and be able to go and rub shoulders with people from all over the world. I was standing to stretch my legs before the beginning and looked behind me and said hi to a couple that was in my first BYU ward that dated and got married later. It was fun talking with them. He has been a mission president and is on his second time being Stake President over the stake we were in ( 52nd BYU Branch back then) for the 2nd time. Holy Cow. I recognized him because he has been over the Freedom Festival and on the board many times thus his picture on those nice booklets. We had a great time seeing if McKay could make it free standing the whole way back to Sandy on Trax but when there were seats that opened up he gave up going for the title and sat down. Brooke and I had a lovely time shopping while the boys were at Priesthood and of course we went over to theVoorhees to wish Brent a Happy Birthday for the next day and eat ICE CREAM. Papa Murphy's before Priesthood was the rule of the dinner choice even though I had everything for navajo tacos. What's a tradition is you break it? The van was taken on it's maiden voyage and the air works great in the back. We even learned how to open the back door and to turn the radio off in the back. We ate all the pie we wanted at Grandma's while we watched the second session and for those that stayed awake, enjoyed the lighter side of President Monson. This is not news to anyone reading my email to Bryce or that called to visit but it looks great on paper. Have a great week Christensen family. We love you.