Christmastime in NH

It is Christmas Day and we are enjoying the wonderful holiday in New Hampshire with Richard's family. It has been very fun so far. We have been here since Sunday and it is a lot of fun, Richard's whole family is here so needless to say, it is a very full house.

We got lots of fun toys (including the new netbook that I am currently blogging on :) )! We got some movies, games, jewlery, and other fun things. Christmas is always a blast and we can't wait to have more Christensen Family Fun! :)

Thanksgiving Day and Then Hiking

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving with my family. We got to my parent's house around 10am where we played and helped get the big feast ready. We ate around 1:00 and it was delicious. It was a lot of fun to share the day with my family: parents, brothers, aunt, uncle, and cute cousins. After dinner we went to the movie theater and saw Planet 51, thinking it would be really cute, but my review is DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME! The concept had the potential to be really cute, but it was not at all. After the movie we went home and ate lots of delicious pie.

Around 8pm we headed over to Richard's grandma's house to play some games with her and one of Richard's aunt and uncle.

Richard absolutely loves to hike and his family has the tradition of going on a hike on Thanksgiving. We didn't have time to hike on Thanksgiving morning, so we did it the day after. I am not a hiker, but I was a good sport and went so that Richard could enjoy it. He was sweet enough to find a nice and easy hike so that I would not be completely miserable. It was very beautiful and ended up being quite enjoyable.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

My Christmas suprise to Richard took place on the day before Thanksgiving, because it was pretty pricey we made a whole night of it and called it our Christmas present to ourselves.
Richard picked me up from work at five and we headed up to SLC for dinner and a show. We went to the Garden Room at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was DELICIOUS! And it was so fun to sit at the top of the building with such a beautiful view of SLC.
After dinner we headed over to Energy Solutions Arena for an AMAZING Christmas Concert. It was put on by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was soooo cool. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Two of My Favorite People

Last night I got to hang out with two of my favorite people in the whole world! Diane was supposed to leave for her mission on January 6th, but it got moved up to November 18th so she is leaving next week!

We got together for one last time before she leaves on her mission! It was so fun! We went to Zupa's for dinner and then we got kicked out of there around 930 so we went and sat in the car and talked until like 11.

It was a lot of fun to catch up. Even though we live close we don't get to see each other very often because unfortunately LIFE IS BUSY! Who knows where we will all be when Diane gets back Spring/Summer 2011...things change so quickly!

Love you girls! Diane, you will be GREAT! :)

This is when being competitive jumps WAY across the line of being okay...

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4628040

Quiet Way Gallery

Quiet Way has a fantastic art gallery going on right now in Salt Lake City at Pierpont Place. The art featured is a Kenyan series by Eric Dowdle and a Kenyan series by photographer Justin Grant. Both of these artist's recently traveled to Kenya with Quiet Way and as a result are sharing their wonderful talent with us. If you are in town or want to go to town to see a fantastic art gallery here are the times that it is open...

Friday: 6pm-midnight
Saturday: noon-8pm
Sunday: noon-6pm

There are beautiful pieces of art on display from both artists so go check it out!

You can find Eric Dowdle Folkart and Justin Grant Photography on Facebook to get a preview of what their art is like (but real life is WAY better).

ESPN GameDay! Unfortunately the cheering didn't last through the game. :( But, I must say that this is a great picture, especially considering we'd been up since 4 AM! :)

GameDay

Tomorrow is a huge football game for BYU. It is BYU vs TCU (undefeated) in Provo. And it is getting national attention....tomorrow morning ESPN College GameDay will be live from BYU Campus! :)

And yes...in case you are wondering...there are people camping out in the parking lot of Lavell Edwards Stadium.

Football Fun

We went to a little tailgate party before one of the BYU football games and they painted our legs for us.

My Brother Can Date???

On Saturday my brother, Justin, went on his first date. I can't believe he is old enough to date! (The weirder thing is that on Monday he picked me up in his car to go to the mall to help him find a tie...he is supposed to be sitting in the passenger seat...NOT ME!!!) Anyways, the date was for the homecoming dance. Before the dance him and his date and one other couple went to the BYU football game (which could not have gone any worse...the game, not their date), but they had fun. And then they went to the dance and afterward they got ice cream. It sounds like they had a great time. Here are a few pictures.



My brother and his cute cute date

Masquerade!

On Saturday Richard and I went to a Masquerade Ball fundraiser. We were volunteering at the event so for the first few hours we were working and then we got to play and enjoy the evening. It was so great! There was all sorts of amazing entertainment. They had jugglers, belly dancers, fencers, ballroom dancers, and a live band for dancing. It was a really fun night and it was so fun to see everybody's costumes and how into it everybody got. The fundraiser was put on by an organization called "In Our Own Quiet Way". They are so great! Check them out at quietway.org

Congratulations Diane!!!

My best friend Diane opened her mission call last week! YAY!


Here is Diane holding her call before opening it.

Reading the call

Cauayan Phillippines!!! She reports to the Provo MTC on January 6, 2010 where she will learn to preach the gospel in the Tagalog language!

NEW RANKINGS

The first week of college football rankings (besides preseason) are out! BYU has jumped ELEVEN spots becoming the 9th ranked team in the nation! :D We passed 8 teams that were ahead of us in the preseason poll. Those teams are: Cal, LSU, Boise St, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, TCU and Utah. And also, 2 other teams that were ahead of us, Oregon and Florida State, have dropped out of the top 25.

GO COUGARS!

Labor Day

Labor Day was great, I always love the days when Richard gets to be home for more than just a couple of hours in the evening!
In the morning we had a little breakfast with some couples from our ward, it was fun and delicious!
Then we went to Park City with my family, it was really fun. We went to lunch at Baja Cantina, which was delicious. Then we went and walked around the outlet mall for a little bit. I found some really cute naturalizer brand shoes on sale for 15 dollars and I was really excited, so I bought them! :D It was a very fun way to spend the holiday

#20 BYU Defeats #3 Oklahoma 14-13

HURRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reminiscing

Last night my freshman year roomies came over for dinner and dessert. It was so fun to see everybody. Even though we are still all in Provo we don't get to see each other very often. One of my roomies is getting ready to go on a mission so I am glad that we all got to get together because in 18 months when she gets back, who knows where we will all be...here is a picture of us our freshman year with some of our FHE brothers.

Love you girls!

Why I hate Laguna Beach...

So we have always heard such wonderful things about the beaches that are south of Huntington Beach so we decided one day to make it a big beach day and drive south on PCH until we hit Laguna Beach. The drive was absolutely beautiful, and about 45 minutes later we arrived at Laguna Beach, paid for parking, and set up our towels. The waves were HUGE and crashing super close to shore so we couldn't boogey board or anything like that. So we were just kinda standing in the water when the lifeguard came over and told us that we couldn't be in the water because we were too far away from the lifeguard stand. So we got out and went to lay on our towels and read. Richard was reading and I was just laying down resting. Richard made a comment about how one wave came within like 15 feet of us (note: we were not even close to the water! It was a steep beach and we were at least 10 feet behind the dropoff) and I thought that was pretty crazy. Then about 2 minutes later, I hear..."Oh crap!" I was resting so I just said "What?" as I looked up to see a huge wave coming to get us! It completely soaked us and because I didn't have time to react this is what happened to my book...and yes...it belongs to the library...well I guess not anymore...it grew about 4 inches in width.

So after that wave completely overtook us we decided to move and we were gonna go closer to the lifeguard stand so that we could swim, but as we were walking over there the lifeguard came up to some other people and told them they couldn't be in the water so we decided to call it a day and go home. Needless to say...I think we will stick with Huntington Beach from now on.

Play Ball!

While we were in California we went to my first ever MLB game! We went and watched the Angels play the Tigers. Unfortunately the Angels lost 5-3, but it was a lot of fun still. It helps that neither of us really cares about what happens to these two teams helped. But I absolutely loved my first experience. And even better...we got FREE tickets! Thanks Auntie Pam, you are the best!

Standing in front of the stadium before the game

We wish we could afford these seates. ;) But the lady let us go take a picture down there before going to our seats. :)

Richard really liked this kid's hair so he went and asked for a picture and the kid and his dad loved it! Haha!

YAY BASEBALL!

Fun at Disneyland and California Adventure

Waiting in line to get on one of Grandma's favorite's..."It's a small world afterall, it's a small world afterall, it's a small, small world..."

Our favorite picture of the day, all of us with Sulley from the class, Monsters Inc.

Watching the Pixar Parade in California Adventure

Group picture in front of Disneyland, notice Richard's "First Visit" pin. :) He loved his Disneyland experience! Guess we'll have to go again. :D

Grandma's Favorite Ride!

Tay's Wedding Continued

Coming out of the temple

Me and Jord with Tay at his reception

Me and my BFF, Tay

Leaving the reception

Tay's Wedding

Also in July we went to my cousin's wedding in Spokane, WA. Yay! Congrats Tay and Beth.
These pictures are of the boys cliff jumping at the Bachelor Party. While they were enjoying the Bachelor party I was with the girls at the Bachelorette Party. We went and got pedicures then we went to Applebee's to get some food. It was really fun.

Richard jumping

Tay jumping

Jordan jumping