Long time. No Post.

It has been awhile since I've posted anything, but need to catch up on what we've been doing around here. I will start with the most recent and work my way back.
Grandpa Hawkes came to visit and got the 'Royal' Treatment. He had a business trip that had him flying in and out of the Spokane airport. He postponed his return trip by a couple of days, rented a car, and drove over to see us. Knowing he is a true farm boy at heart, we called our good friends that own a huge dairy operation to schedule a tour for grandpa. Boy did we call the right people. The Allred's not only took him on an amazing tour of their dairy, but also all kinds of other great things
Some of the Allreds, Christensens, and Grandpa Hawkes at the dairy.

Above, Grandpa discusses the finer points of dairy operations with Jerry.

Below, he was able to tour the Allred's Apple Packing facility, as well. They even gave him a big box of Washington Apples as a souvenir. Delish!

After Derek and Jerry showed him the intricacies of modern farming, they took all of us to a delicious gourmet restaurant at the Gorge in George, Washington. I had no idea this place existed and it is amazing. We also spent a wonderful evening at their house eating pizza, carnitas, and cake and watching the Jimmer score 52 points. The Allred's sure do know how to host a great party. Thanks to them for their kindness.

Carter went on his first date! Terin asked Carter to Sadie Hawkins. He had a blast! As if I didn't already feel old enough celebrating my last birthday in my thirties, it didn't help having my son go on his first date. As I was helping Carter decorate Terin's car in answering her, it hit me hard that I was doing this for my own son, and it really didn't seem like that long ago I was doing it for my friends and myself as high schoolers. Then to top it off, the theme of the dance was the 80's. Apparently the 80's were long enough ago that kids are now dressing up in what I wore to high school as 'retro costumes'. Too weird.

Chloe loves being artistic and while I was chatting away on the phone, she discovered her brother's markers and proceeded to color herself like "pinky pie" from My Little Pony.

After going to put her in the bath, I discovered she was very thorough in applying the layer of pink and was able to get a nice layer on her tummy!

She had a fun dress-up play date with 3 of her friends, Campbelle, Madison, and Case. All wanted to be princesses, with the exception of Case. He was only willing to be their prince if he could do it in a football costume.

Corbin finished up his season playing AAU basketball. I believe they were undefeated.

I celebrated my birthday. It's my last year in my 30's. Yikes! I got a lovely floral bouquet delivered and a gorgeous charm necklace arrived in the mail (one side says New York and the other has the statue of liberty). Thanks mom and sisters for the awesome surprise!

Larry and the family took me to Spokane for my birthday weekend. I woke up to 30 plus helium balloons floating over me with my kids singing Happy Birthday. While I thought Larry and the kids were down having breakfast while I slept in, they were actually blowing up all the balloons and writing sweet messages on them. We had a great, relaxing weekend together.

I guess they got up a little too early while I got to sleep in. I was on one side of the room watching Food Network and didn't seem to notice that the family was migrating one by one over to the other side of the room to climb in bed together and get away from the TV noise. This is how I found them once I was ready to go get in bed. Funny.

Corbin was in a regional competition with his Hi-Cap classmates in Spokane. They had a really great time competing against other teams from around western Washington.

He also competed in the District Spelling Bee in Soap Lake, Washington.

He had one more competition, and that was in the Pinewood Derby. He and his dad worked hard on designing and building his car and he was quite successful in his races.

Carter got a fat lip. He was talked out of playing on the golf team by his friends on the baseball team. Even though he'd never really played baseball, peer pressure won out and he decided to go be another much needed player on the baseball team roster. His second day of practice a ball bounced and hit him right in the mouth !

The shoes Chase designed for his birthday arrived. Pretty sweet-huh? He's in 8th grade and wears a size 12!

Caleb is conspicuously missing from this post. We have lots of video footage of him shooting guns (something he spends a lot of time doing). Seeing as I am rarely around when he is participating in gun shooting, it is on Larry's phone and I don't have it here to download. I will do that in another post. He has been doing all kinds of great stuff, but I don't have photos of any of it on my phone. Sorry, buddy.

A weekend in NYC

In honor of our mother's birthday, I met up with my sisters and mom in NYC for a fabulous weekend of celebrating! Here we are at the 21 Club enjoying a fantastic birthday dinner for mom.On Thursday, Lisa left Indiana; Laura left Idaho; I left Washington; and mom and Haley left Utah. We all arrived at JFK within a few hours of each other, checked into our hotel, and were led by Lisa into the closest department store for a little freshening up. Let the fun begin.
Here I am getting 'Cargo-ed'. Whatever that means?! My make-up artist seemed to know.
Lisa helped coordinate a gorgeous look with the MAC makeup artist for Haley, while Laura was getting her own expert eye treatment from her artist.
After our makeovers and late night dinner, we slept in a little the next day and then headed over to the Chelsea/Meatpacking District Food tour. Larry and I took the same tour with the same guide in October and loved it so much, I eagerly went on it again. Curt, the tour guide is hilarious! This picture is of our group.
That night we went and saw the new Broadway show: "Spiderman: Turn of the Dark". It was so awesome. The music and lyrics are by Bono and the Edge from the band U2. I loved it--the music, set, singing, dancing, costumes--all fantastic!
The following day it was time for a tour of Brooklyn and it's most famous pizzerias. It was freezing, but we toured in a luxurious mercedes bus outfitted with a movie screen that played movie clips of the places we were seeing on the tour. It was very fun. Our tour guide Paula, a native Brooklyn girl, was wonderful. The pizzas, thin crust at Grimaldi's and thick sicilian crust at L&B, were to die for. My sister Haley, took amazing pictures all along the way. Check them out at http://www.haleyjan.blogspot.com/.
Here we are with Paula and a couple of other ladies from our tour group.
MMMMMMM.
After our Brooklyn tour, we hit the subway to head out for a little shopping. I was impressed with the talented break dancers in the subway, and got so caught up in the beat, I even ended up doing a little dancing myself. What was I thinking?!

I can't remember when I've laughed so hard, slept so little, shopped so much, eaten so well. It was so much fun hanging out with my mom and little sisters. I just hope we don't wait so long to do it again.
Seeing this John Deere hat on canal street reminded me of my country life and that I would soon have to stop posing for pictures with my newly acquired pucker face, and say farewell to my homegirls and the city. Thanks for the memories, girls.
Thanks for one last taste of New York (the most authentic according to Michael Scott) at the airport, Mom & Haley.

Happy Birthday, Mom! I loved the trip and know I will never Fuhgettaboudit. Ever.

Happy Birthday, Carter!

What do you do when your sixteen year old doesn't like cake, pie, cookies or anyother dessert for his birthday party? You bake giant breadsticks in the shape of 16.

Carter celebrated his sixteenth birthday yesterday. Watch out ladies, he can officially date now. Just one thing may be putting that on hold, and that is the lack of a drivers license. Due to his basketball schedule, he has been unable to take drivers ed, which is offered in the evenings and conflicts with practice and games. Bummer.
Ok, so Carter's brothers look a little dopey in this picture, and no Larry isn't Carter's secret service agent with an earpiece. It just so happened that Carter's birthday coincided with the BYU game and Larry needed to keep himself and Carter updated. Thanks Jimmer, for scoring all of those points for Cart's big day.
Being Carter's mom has been an amazing experience. He has always been a very responsible, rule abiding kid. He develops a keen interest in many things and when he does, he becomes an expert in it. He has always been an avid reader and would plow through books like Harry Potter as early as 1st grade. As he's gotten into sports the last couple of years, that constant desire to read has been focused on books about sports figures and the history of basketball and football. This has created a desire in him to become a sports broadcaster some day. He's intense, focused, and extremely bright. I love to talk to him and am always amazed at his perceptions, insight, and wisdom at such a young age. It's been exciting watching him grow from a little boy into a wonderful young man. Happy 16th Birthday, Carter.

Trophies

Trophy Speller:
Corbin shows off the trophy he won as the second place speller in his school spelling bee. He will never forget that petticoat is not spelled pedicoat.

Trophy Hunter:
Larry shows off his trophy coyote. He couldn't resist the call of the wild the other night and went out with his brother for a 3 hour coyote hunt. I awoke the next morning to see this picture that he texted me. Does anybody have a good coyote recipe? Joking.

Happy Birthday, Chase!

Almost a week has passed since Chase turned 14. Fourteen?!!
On Chase's birthday, we woke up to the news that school had been postponed and then found out they were going to cancel it. The roads were too icy and cars were sliding off right and left. We actually had a driveway full of people waiting to get back on the road. That said, it's not a bad way to start your birthday to find out school has been cancelled. Chase spent the morning designing his own custom shoes on the Nike website. He is very artistic and frequently draws pictures of shoes with custom logos, so this was the perfect birthday present for him. We are anxious for the shoes to arrive. After the road conditions improved, we headed into town where Chase looked for something to buy with his birthday money from grandparents' Christensen and Hawkes. He settled on the NCAA 2011 videogame. Then we headed over to TimeOut Pizza, a local pizzeria decked out in sports paraphanelia and flat screens broadcasting games. Chase chowed down on Meat Lovers pizza, checked out the LeBron shoes--those are some big feet, and then headed home to play basketball at the school with the old guys from church. When he got home, we ate some delicious Whoppers cake I baked from a recipe in the Baked cookbook. It's a must try recipe, it was so good.
Chase is an AWESOME kid. He is so kind and peaceful and treats our family members with love and respect. He has a great sense of humor and is frequently laughing and finding the humor in situations. He is very creative and artistic and expresses himself with his wonderful drawings and designs. He is an amazing athlete, but is also a good sport. He works hard in school, is intelligent, and gets good grades (sidenote: he & his friend just won 1st place in the school science fair). It has been a blessed fourteen years watching Chase grow and develop into such an incredible young man.

You better watch out. You better not pout.

Thanks

For 40 years of marriage and being wonderful parents, grandparents, and in laws.

For letting us all celebrate with you at a wonderful dinner where we ate yummy food and had lots of fun visiting and playing with cousins.


Uncle Nate and Millie.

Chase, Carter and Aunt Haley.

The Christensen crew stand in front of the lemon tree room at La Jolla Groves.

Thanks for all of the good times--even though it was bitter cold.

Thanks for letting us celebrate your birthdays with you, Laura and Karin. It sure was fun getting to make pizza, hang out, and for the mommy's to get some much needed spa treatment.

Chloe and Katie make a pizza.

Laura, Hazel and Bridger wait for their pizzas to arrive.

Elizabeth, Anna, Jim, Karin and Joseph are excited to see how their pizzas turn out.
There is much to be thankful for and Thanksgiving week was a wonderful time to reflect on our many blessings and good times spent with family.