Late July Family Get Togethers

Summer for us is a time of vacation and visiting, and we sure did a lot of it this past July.  We are so blessed to have that opportunity!

 On our way home from California, we stopped off in Las Vegas and then brought Bekah and Isaac up to American Fork to visit their Utah cousins and stay with their Christensen grandparents.  It was awesome have them along for a car ride.  Isaac especially made the time go by quickly for Lily and Amara by making up car games to play with the girls. 

I should mention here, that on our way out of California, we stopped by a joint called "In-N-Out Burger."  It is a much talked about burger franchise that all my California friends rave about.  Utah now has a few locations, but I'm told by my Californian friends that it's just not as good as the California ones.  So, we stopped at one in Murietta, California. 

 

Was the burger really that good?

 

Actually, yes.  It was.  I'd definitely go to that place again.  Now I guess we need to try a Utah location and see if it really falls below the California one.

So, when we got back to Utah, there were a few more family get-togethers in Utah Valley before we traveled back to our home in Ballard.  One get together was up Provo Canyon at the South Fork park.  We had a lot of fun up there playing with cousins.

 The weather was overcast and a storm did eventually weep upon our party, but it didn't stop anyone from having a good time.

 We played a version of tag called "Missionary Tag."  Steve got some good pictures of everyone running.

 Another occasion, we hung out at Grandma Christensen's house. 

 My nephew, Devon, also had a birthday to celebrate!  It was lego-themed and we had a hot dog BBQ at my dad's house.

He has his eyes on those lego figurines!

 

 My sister was very preggo, and hot, and tired, but she did an awesome job getting Devon's party all ready.

 Good thing we had our swimwear! 

 Happy Birthday Devon!

 Hang in there April!

 We sang to the birthday boy, he blew out his candles.

 And immediately after, he snatched a lego figurine from his cake.  Love it!

 When we were back at Steve's parent's house, the girls busied themselves by creating fairy homes and villages in the front yard with natural things they found.

 Oh yeah!  And since Amara's birthday was so near, Grandma Christensen threw a party for her.  Happy birthday to you, Amara!

And that's the rest of July for you.  I am now only 5 months behind in blogging.  But when you're having so much fun, time just seems to escape from me.  Do you think I can catch this blog up by the end of the year?  We shall see...

#ShareTheGift

Tonight for family home evening we watched a video that teaches us that the first and real gift of Christmas is Jesus Christ. Find it at christmas.mormon.org

Jesus is the gift.  What an incredible gift!  We are encouraged to discover the gift, embrace the gift, and share the gift. Tonight we set goals of how we would each share the gift:

I will #ShareTheGift by: Cleaning the road off

I will #ShareTheGift by: obeying mom &dad, helping with chores, and being nice and kind.

I will #ShareTheGift by: Spending time w/ family.

I will #ShareTheGift by: sharing my testimony online.

Have you discovered and embraced the gift yet?  How will you #ShareTheGift?

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July 24th Sea World San Diego

 Would you believe me if I told you we were tired after 3 full days at Disneyland, a 2-hour drive to San Diego, and an extremely annoying camping night listening to the huge neighboring group of foul-mouthed Irish college kids partying until the crack of dawn?   My kids fell asleep somehow, and weren't very much disturbed by the party next door.  I could hardly sleep a wink.  Before I knew it, the sun was rising, and it was time for SEA WORLD!

Steve's feet were looking better, but it was still extremely painful for him to wear shoes and walk, so we decided to rent a nice ride for him at Sea World.

It was my first time to Sea World, as well as Lily and Amara's.  Steve had gone when he was a boy. 

We had a lot of fun together. 

Check out our smilebox slideshow for more pictures and a video of the walrus that spits his lunch out for you. 

Free slideshow personalized with Smilebox If you go, here's some things to keep in mind: Don't go during "ComicCon" in San Diego, like we did.  All the hotels up their prices ridiculously.  We ended up camping at the KOA, which was only 15 minutes away, but it was also a rough night with the loud group next door to us (probably going to ComiCon). If it's a choice between Disney and Sea World, choose Disney. Go see the Shamu show first so you don't have any other shows to compare it to.  The otter/sea lion show, the circus show, and the dolphin show had so many more exciting/entertaining moments.  Shamu really doesn't do much.  It was cool when she'd flip out of the water, but that only happened like 2 or 3 times.  And P.S. the dog show wouldn't be missed if you skipped it.  If you can't get in the splash zone, look for a seat way up high because it's a little cooler up there when the breeze blows. You MUST go to one of the dolphin training things that only last like 10 minutes, but gives you the opportunity to pet a dolphin.   They are a little more strict about the foods they let you take into the park.  They say no foods allowed at all, but they allowed us to bring in our uncrustables and granola bars. The nighttime Shamu Dance party and fireworks isn't something I'd stay up for again.  They let you pay extra to park close to the entrance.  It was worth it for us because of Steve's injured feet, plus it would probably have taken us 45 minutes to walk to the entrance, get a wheelchair, bring it back to the car, and walk back into the park.

Golfing!

We golfed over Thanksgiving weekend.  Mom, April, Lani, and I faced off in an epic competition against the very laws of physics while Tom played for the mere glory of hitting a golf ball into a hole. The 4 hour nine hole game was full of thrills, spills, and almost a few kills (more on that later). 

The first hole made us question the sanity of our society as we discovered that people had built their homes right on the fairway.  This naturally caused April, Lani, and me to timidly smack our golf balls into the massive expanse of brush that stood between where we teed off, and the fairway.  What incentive drove them to offer up their homes as “golfing hazards” like the sand traps, ponds, or nearby forests?  We couldn’t fathom a reason so Mom in righteous indignation shanked a ball at a house in protest, and would have taken out a window if she had just put a little more oomph into it.  She then followed that up by casually performing the first trick shot of the day.  In the pictures below you will see that even though she swings her club with great force and hits the ball, the ball ends up behind the club!  This trick shot was so popular that the rest of us, except Tom, continued to attempt it throughout the rest of the game to varying degrees of success.  Tom just kept trying to whack the ball into the hole in as few hits, strokes, whatever as possible.  Boring!

We discovered around the third or fourth hole our style of play was more deliberate than most.  I guess not all golfers appreciate the time intensive nature and craftsmanship required to do trick shots.  I will also admit that some time may have been used by a few balls giving their lives to the game as they were hit into brush, ponds, or perhaps taken up into heaven in the Rapture (we don’t know they just vanished).  Anyway, we decided to allow some of the golfers behind us to “play through.” Some of the golfers decided to bypass us, and just go to the next hole.  Perhaps they saw Mom’s trick shot  and thought they’d be safer ahead of us instead of behind us?  Yet, other golfers decided to run roughshod over us.  One particularly exciting experience was when we pulled well off the fairway to let a group “play through.”  As we hunkered down behind our carts a ball fell from the sky landed with a thud in the middle of our little caravan of carts, and only five feet or so from April.  Then a faintly hollered “Fore!” followed like a child at the end of a great dane’s leash.  When the golfers came to see if they had gotten us, Tom kindly explained to them that they need to yell “Fore!” before ball lands on someone.  They didn’t look convinced, but Tom’s wisdom seemed on point to me.

With the constant pressure of having golfers at our backs waiting for us, we created unique method of teeing off that still allowed us to play our “style” of golf.  In the picture below you can see the lovely ladies of our group all teeing off at the same time.  This sped up our game just enough that we were able to finish without making the other golfers wait more than five or ten minutes at each of the last three holes.  Its nickname is 3T's, aka The Triple Threat, and if you had been there you would know just how much of a threat it was.

It also provided enough time that I could practice a few special shots of my own.  In the pictures you’ll see how I was able to really get under that ball.  Just look at that trajectory!  

Even though there were some scary moments, lots of duck poop, and a few mumblings about the cold weather and how it affected one’s ability to grip the clubs, we had fun, and it wasn't harrowing.