Sunday, July 12, 2020

Christensen Family Reunion 2020

Loving wearing our masks at a restaurant on the way to the reunion.  We love coronavirus!
We had the Christensen Family Reunion in St George Utah.  It was a blast.  We rented this huge house that had 7 master bedrooms with bathrooms and 2 rooms with lots of bunkbeds.  The grandkids all slept in the rooms with bunkbeds.  We had a boys room and a girls room.  We did lots of fun things swimming, biking, mountaineering, volleyball, basketball, going to a waterfall, going to the lake, board games, visiting, and staying up way too late. 

The house had a beautiful pool with a slide, a rock cliff to jump off of into the water, a waterfall, and a hot tub.  The kids all played in the pool for hours.  The teenagers liked to swim at night after all the little kids had gone to bed. 






















On Monday Katie and Tanner went mountaineering with Mark and Lacey as their guides.  They loved it.











Kirt went mountain biking 3 different mountain biking 3 different times on the same trail.  On Monday he took Brett and Aaron.  Tuesday he took Garret and Sam.  On Thursday he took Mark and Brad.  Everyone thought it was a great trail since someone dropped them off at the top and then it was mostly downhill. 
Monday 






Tuesday







Thursday



We went to Toquerville Falls on Monday afternoon.  Everyone had fun jumping off the cliff into the swimming hole below.  It was about a 12 foot drop.  You had to tuck at the bottom because the water was only about 5 feet deep.  We all sat in the cool water and watched the kids jump over and over.  Carson,  who is 5, jumped with no fear, while some of the older cousins had to really be persuaded to jump.  There were lots of little fish that would nip at you when we were sitting in the pool watching people jump.  










The road to Toquerville Falls was treacherous. It was so bumpy and rocky and full of ruts.  It took us about an hour to go 5 miles.  On the way home, Sam decided to take what looked like a shortcut.  We followed him, but soon stopped because the road looked really scary.  Kirt ran down the road to catch up with Sam and talk to him.  Sam decided it was took scary to head down anymore and turned around.  The road was too steep and he couldn't make it back up, so he turned around and decided he would have to go down.  We weren't so far down, so we were able to turn around and go back out the way that we can in.  We were so worried that they wouldn't make it down.  But they were there waiting for us when we made it to the point that the "shortcut" that they took met up with the main road.  Cindy said it was so scary.  Sam of course thought it was loads of fun.  

On Tuesday another group went mountaineering
Trying to make homemade ice cream in a bag.  It didn't work super well, but we still had fun trying.  And it was still yummy to drink. 




Trevor was patient and his actually set up like ice cream. 

On Wednesday we went to Sand Hallow Lake. It was a pretty lake with really soft red sand.  We had lots of fun just sitting in the water.  It felt very refreshing after how hot the pool is even though they said that the temperature of the water was 80 degrees.  I guess that is cool when it's 105 degrees outside.  It made us wonder how hot the pool must be, probably at least 90 degrees.  Kristie brought her paddle board and we all took a turn on it.  Some of the families went in on renting jet skis too.  (We didn't because we have one that we get to ride all the time.) Unfortunately some of us ended up with swimmers itch from the lake.  

Good thing someone thought to bring these shade canopies.  It was unbearable in the sun unless you were in the water. 














All dressed up for family pictures.  Kim took our family pictures at for all of us.  



The house had a full court indoor gym.  We had lots of fun playing basketball, volleyball, pickle ball and more. 


Lots of card games and board games were played

(look at the cool triple bunkbeds)
And of course some x-box games
More cousin games on the lawn

Random cute cousin pictures.

Blake wearing Tanner's shoes



Lena and Korinne loved getting tickled by me.



Tami wanted a picture with Tanner so she could show people how tall he was.

Beautiful sunset 
Taking some pictures of the beautiful house and yard before we leave on Friday morning.  




Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Katie's Week of Fun

Katie had a very exciting week this week.  

On Tuesday during the day she went to Tubs Hill and went cliff jumping with Olivia and Rhett Hatcher.



 Tuesday night she went on a double date.  She went with Rhett and Mady went with?? They went to Coeur d' Alene and walked around the board walk and ???


 Wednesday night she had a sleep over with Mady and Olivia.



 Thursday night she had a birthday party get together for Mary. 
Alice Gubler, Alice Carothers, Mary Gubler, Tanaeya Thompson, Olivia Tolley, and Mady Crandall. 





 Friday she went to another birthday party for Mary.  (Mary's mom had planned one for her and Katie had planned one for her, so she got 2 parties). They went and played at the public beach in Coeur d' Alene.


 Saturday they went to breakfast at Little Euro for Mady's 18th birthday.  

25th Anniversary

Kirt and I have been married for 25 years.  I can't believe it has been that long.  For our anniversary, he surprised me by taking me to Hills Resort at Priest Lake where we went for our honeymoon.  We drove up Tuesday afternoon.  It started pouring rain as we drove up and the temperature dropped to 55 degrees (on July 7th).  So we didn't get in the water, but we had fun hiking, reminiscing about the past 25 years and enjoying each others company.  

 Kirt made me a delicious stake dinner.
 We hiked from lower Priest Lake to Upper Priest Lake along the thorough fare.  It was a 6 mile hike roundtrip. 
 Upper Priest

 The start of the thorough fare from Lower to upper Priest Lake



Monday, July 6, 2020

Aaron Palmer Visits

Kirt's friend from Oregon, Aaron Palmer, and his 2 sons, came to visit today.  Kirt, Tanner, and Garret went to Hudson's Hamburgers in Coeur d' Alene and then went and walked around the board walk.