Beach Week 2009

We love Beach week!!! Spending time with family is the best, and no matter where you go during beach week, there they are! Here are some of our favorite pics from our family reunion


Ezra LOVED being buried in the sand. I don't know why we didn't think to do it until the last day.
Jess and Danny let Ava and Ez go for a little boat ride in the ocean's waves. Ava loved it. Ezra loved it until the first wave and then wanted me to hold him. He hasn't got his sea legs yet.



Almost all of the attending Christensen Great-Grandchildren. Aren't they a cute bunch?


Thanks for letting me copy you Bek! Gotta love modest swim suits from hapari!


Of course we built (well, mostly I didn't build, but tried to keep my children from destroying) a magnificent sand castle. These pits helped keep the waves off the castle, and because of them, the castle survived over night!

Jess was such a great help with my babies! Mike had to work most of the week, and I couldn't have done beach week without her!


Av and Jess playing baseball. Ava actually hit a few all by herself!


Got to love that look of determination. She's too cute!


Grandma Paula with attending grandchildren. We missed you Koch kids! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the wonderful week!

Uncle Mark is one of Ezra's favorite people. Whenever we'd go to Bekah's this summer, he'd ask, "Where's Uncle Mark?" Mark's such a good uncle and father.

Ava wearing a birthday dress, and Ezra thrilled to be included with the girls. He took a good liking to Ellie, but whenever Ava mentions Ellie, Ezra always follows up with, "...and Meg!"


Settlers for the adults!


True love!

Grandpa and Grandma brought back a Flamenco dress for Ava. She loved it and wore it to the church for FHE Sunday night. Too cute!


Ezra was so sweet with Grant. Everytime he wanted to hold the baby, he'd rock back and forth. My little boy is so sweet!

One of Ava's birthday gifts-she wears them in the tub everytime we take baths. She sure misses our LA pool!

Ava's Birthday Party

Lucky for Ava, her birthday fell once again during beach week. That means she had lots of cousins to party with her! We had a fairy party where we put sparkles on each guest, helped Tinkerbell fix her wand (pin the star on the wand), played following the leader (the lead fairy got to wear a pair of wings), and then each girl got to decorate her own pair of wings with jewels, flowers and ribbons. I asked Ava what her favorite part was, and she said singing "Happy Birthday." That definitely caught me by surprise, because she had seemed so shy and hid her head in my shoulder. It's a good reminder that every child needs lots of positive attention, even if it seems to embarrass them.

Ava, Mommy and some cousins hard at work making our fairy wings shine!

The Fray

A night out with the family (minus the babies). Such a good time! Good music, good company, and we all piled into the non-air conditioned Bonneville to ride together. Fun times.

Orange County Fair

Mike and I went to the Orange County fair four years ago just before Ava was born and thought we'd try it again, this time with the kiddos. Bekah, Mark, Russ, Jess, Loralee (my lovely cousin), Taylor and Cameron also joined us.



Ava loved the rides, and although Ezra looks pretty happy here, he did thought we were going to fall out the entire time and was scared to death. He wouldn't even go on the pony ride, poor little scaredy. The Orange County was a perfect trial run for Disneyland, and although we had a good time, we figured Disneyland would have to wait until Ezra is ready for a little more adventure.

Ava and Ezra loved seeing the animals. Particularly interesting to them was the llama, thanks to "The Emperor's New Groove." Along those same lines, Ezra's new favorite catch phrase is "No touchy touchy!"
Bekah and Mark diggin' into the delicious fair food. "If your belly button's knawing on your backbone, come on into Juicey's. We got all the best food in the world right here!"

Skirball Museum

One of the advantages of being in LA for the summer was getting together with some old friends. One of them, Mari, suggested we head over to the Noah's Ark exhibit at the Skirball Museum. You can see her little guy in red, above. The kids absolutely loved it. There were animals to climb on and play with, puppets, dancing, a climbing gym, toy food, so much! I loved it too. The animals were made from found items, and were really quite intriguing. A pair of flamingos were made from pink purses and pink spools of thread among other things. It was beautiful art to me, and the kids loved to just run around. A must for toddlers on up!

He's a Boy!

So, I am way behind on blogging, but this guy deserves his own little post. I am 27 1/2 weeks pregnant, and we are having another little boy. We went and had the 3D ultrasound done around 17 weeks to tell the gender, so here are some of the pics. He's handsome, isn't he? I'm sure he's much rounder now.

Summer Fun

Thought we'd keep you posted on some of our summer fun. There's been lots of this going on (pretty crazy Ava styles)

...and this going on (fun times catching up with friends-good to see you Wells!)

...some of this going on (family hikes)

...LOTS and LOTS of this going on (we LOVE our heated pool-just the right temp)

...and some of this too! We love the water, sun, and family down here in CA!!!!

P.S. Check out Justin's blog for their new arrival!

Fun times with Grandma Paula and Grandpa Mark

Look at all the fun my kids had while I was gone. More than me!! jk Grandma Paula and Grandpa Mark spoiled them with fun activities. One day started at the library for princess time, moved to lunch at Wendy's and ended with a volleyball game for my cousin, Eric. Ava asked Grandma, "How many fun things can we fit into one day?"

THANK YOU GRANDMA!

Bahamas!

This was another successful step to post-move recovery. We got spoiled! We went on a weekend cruise to the Bahamas and Grandma Paula watched our kids while we were gone. There was TONS of rain on our cruise, but the patches of good weather were all at the right times so we were able to enjoy a beach day at Nassau's Atlantis Resort, and go snorkeling off Freeport's coast in a sail boat. Both times as we headed back to our ship it began pouring! We were so grateful for the timing! We also got lots of reading done and movie watching. So relaxing!

The Move

Disclaimer- This is not us although it very easily could have been. Please read below to find out!

This move was our most adventurous yet. We’ve moved lots, and have been really blessed with furniture staying together, finding our new homes, quick truck packings and emptying. This move was not about efficiency, rather all about adventure.

Usually I can pack the entire house in a week, no problems. This time, being pregnant and having two very capable trouble makers I gave myself two weeks. Regardless of the extra time I would not have met the deadline without my friends: Jennie, Linda, Rachel (all three of you Rachels), Angie and Shari. They watched kids, brought a meal, brought boxes and helped me fill them. I have never had someone come help me actually pack boxes, but let me tell you with these girls, it was the way to go. They really made our move possible. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!

My 36 hours before arriving out west consisted of: packing, fevers, vomiting, emergency doctor appointments too expensive, try again tomorrow at the regular doctor, more packing, OB dr. appointment, pharmacist visit, sending Mike home to get another bag to shuffle our stuff into to avoid major luggage fees, children running around like crazy while I re-sort and pile our clothes and household items spread over the airport, flight one with only minor behavior issues, taught Ez to kick down instead of straight forward and into the back of the seat, lay-over, dinner, 125+ pounds of luggage draped on my shoulders, arms back and double stroller, Ez pulls the stroller on himself, hits his head on the wall, bites his tongue and bleeds, Ava climbs all over the chairs while Ez runs up and down the terminal trying to catch whatever flight is next, SCREAMING from both children for the first 20 minutes of flight two, Ava is handed over to a lady who has a window seat and puts her to sleep holding Ava's head on her lap for the entire flight, Ezra finally falls asleep, the captain helps me carry my carseat to the open arms of Carole and Dennis. I made it, and got a three hour nap the next day to help my recovery process.

Mike had his own shares of adventure packing the truck (the first 45 min. of the scheduled move nobody came and he was trying to come up with a back up plan-where do you find cheap labor at 7 at night day of?), taking down hardware (couldn’t get the electric drill to work), police visits (our neighbor was upset that he’d parked the car carrier in front of her house at the top of the hill where it wouldn’t roll into the busy intersection below), sleeping on the floor with just a blanket and forgetting to turn on the heat, and going under a few 9’3” stone bridges with a 12’ Uhaul. Talk about MIRACLES! Mike showed up late to the storage unit, but thanks to Ben and Jenn we had a unit to unpack in.

My take-away from the experience. We live in a good world!!! I had so much help with the kids in the airport despite all my crazy experiences. Someone was always watching Ava while I chased after Ezra, people being patient with my screaming kids, the lady taking Ava on the plane, the captain carrying my carseat- people are helpful and patient. Their attitude made my experience easier. And hello? All the friends previously mentioned, Benn and Jenn, our families for taking such good care of us once we got there. Life's not bad.

Blogging Technicalities

Anyone else having html problems when they try to cut and paste text from word into their blog text? What do I do?

6th Anniversary

Okay, okay so our sixth wedding anniversary was in April, but I'm pregnant, moved our stuff into storage in Boston and flew across the country for a summer in LA. Please cut me some slack! We ended up spending the day doing shifts in the Washington D.C. temple. It was a beautiful day, we arrived early and got to see the tulips blooming brightly. The tulip was our wedding flower, so I was especially happy to see them on our anniversary. While Mike was doing his session I was able to hang with the kiddos on the grounds and get some great shots. We were also able to meet up with a really good friend from college, Joy, but forgot to get pictures with her. We also forgot to take pictures of Mike and I on our special day, but hey, you guys really just want to see the kids, so here they are!