Monthly Archives: August 2008

This past week brought the return of Emily Elmer. Wahoo! I’m so excited to have this dear friend back here close where we can do art projects to our hearts content. Yesterday she came over and helped me make a chocolate cake, and we talked about all our great ideas for projects.

Calvin is officially a walker. He’s been walking as far as twenty feet at a time for a couple weeks now, but we always had to trick him into it . . . get him going and then suddenly let go, or push him in the direction of someone cooing and calling at him. But suddenly on Friday he decided he could do it himself, and started letting go himself! At first it was only two or three feet at a time – from the couch to the table, or one side of a door way to another. Then he would still hold on to the couch, wall, what-have-you to continue on his way. But today I saw him let go of the wall at one end of the hall and walk the entire distance, right down the middle! He still likes to get “somewhere” where he can again grab onto something, but he doesn’t hold on to stuff while he walks. What a big boy! SUPER CAL!

I’ve done some rearranging of database info on the website this week, and without going too into it, let’s just say I’ve redone the “Scrapbook” section of the website. Hopefully you’ll like the cleaner, but more colorful and fun look. I still have a few little problems to fix, but I’ve added some functionality that wasn’t available in the old pages. So check it out!

This week my youngest sister, Beezy, came to stay with us. She spent three days here before boarding a plane for China. She’s going to be living and working in China for the next semester. She will be a volunteer English teacher with ILP, a non-profit that all of us girls have done volunteer work for. Leslee and Carrie both went to Kunming three years ago, and Wyatt and I went to Urumqi, China in 2001. Good luck Beeze! I know you’re going to love it. You can check out her adventures on her pages. I’ve set up just a little blog for her. You’ll probably have to wait a few days though, as the only things that are posted on it currently are test articles and fake-photos. She’s still in transit, so it will probably be at least another week before she’s able to post.

On Saturday we went hiking with Jared and Velda to the waterfall by their house. It was a fun little hike, and I got a picture of me and Calvin on the bridge, just like I have of me and Olivia.

This is Cal and me last weekend.

This is Olivia and me last summer when we went on the same hike.

We spent the weekend at Jordanelle, wave running, boating, and camping. Jared proposed the idea four or five months ago, and so it was the first “sorta” Christensen family reunion. Wade and Katie didn’t make it to town, but Wynn and Heidi and Jacob and Melinda did. It was a fun weekend.

On Friday Jared & Velda and kids and Jacob and Wyatt and I and our kids headed up bright and early. Jared very generously rented two wave runners for the day, and we spent the day cruising around the lake on them. Later in the day Jena and kids and Harry & Lois and Heidi and kids came up. We had lunch, set up camp, and took turns on the wave runners. Later that evening Lance came with a boat, and Wynn flew in and got in late that night.

The next morning and following day we spend the day boating and wave running. We had thunder storms off and on for the two days, so it was a little hit and miss. The lake was pretty choppy so only the really good water-skiers got up. The rest of us just enjoyed boat rides. I was dragged though the water three times in my attempts at skiing.

Parley’s Canyon closed early that day due to construction, and there was a Ward Party that night that I was in charge of. So Wyatt and I had to take off about three to get through the canyon in time. We made it home and to the party, which went off without a hitch. Then we headed down to Highland to switch cars (we left our Jeep with the camp so they could pull the wave runners home). By the time we got to Highland at 8:30, everyone else was just barely getting home (in fact we beat some of them). We hung out another couple hours before finally heading home to get our crazy tired babies to bed.

We had so much fun camping last weekend that we decided to go for round two. This time we went with my siblings . . . Carrie, who returned home from her mission last week, Beth, who’s in town to go to training for her upcoming adventure to China, and Thomas, who just bummed a ride with the girls.

We didn’t even leave Salt Lake until after six on Friday night. We stopped in Oakley for dinner at the Road Island Diner . . . we’ve watched it being built for the past year, and were so excited to try the second restaurant in town (second to “The Polar King.”) Wyatt declared it his new favorite resturaunt. While the food was good, the atmosphere was to die for. It’s an original diner that they shipped all the way from Rhode Island, where it first opened in 1939. It’s all sorts of art deco fabulousness.

We then headed up and set up camp just as the light was fading. We had a few major problems: 1) The batteries to our lantern and air mattress pump died. We were okay without the light, but it was a long, rocky night’s sleep. 2) We left Cal’s one and only bottle at the diner, so he had a hard time falling asleep. Luckily he fell asleep so late that he slept through the night, not waking and wanting his baba. But other than that everything went pretty smooth.

The next morning we headed up to Smith and Morehouse for some fishing. Unfortunately no one caught anything. But it was nice to sit in the morning sun in the beautiful outdoors and not have to think about anything in particular.

After some lunch and a few card games, we broke camp and headed home. It was a fun weekend–even if it was a short trip. YEAH for the Road Island Diner!