Jivin' July

So I’m the biggest slacker! I can’t believe we haven’t posted since May. Ugh—time flies by too fast. Well, I guess we should start with the highlights from June:

We had several friends and neighbors that have had babies, and Whit’s been awesome to make dinner for them. So we’ve been out a-visiting and I’ve loved holding all of these sweet little newborns.

We had a “family reunion” for our immediate family on the Christensen side. Whit’s dad and stepmom graciously let us use their cabin, that is up near Kamas. My mom and dad and brothers McKay and Dallin came all the way from Spanish Fork, my grandma came from American Fork, my brother Tyler and his family came from Bloomington, Indiana, and my sister Kira came from Tucson, Arizona. Since we are all spread out, we don’t all get together in the same place at the same time very often. So it was wonderful to have 3 full days together up at the cabin!

 

Dad loved playing with the grandkids :)

My family loved 4-wheeling, even though in this pic Kira looks scared to death

One of my favorite hiking photos!

The gang at a lake that we hiked to

My brother Tyler organized a family olympics--we had several different events that we competed in.  My grandma aced the discus :)

The next weekend Whit ran in the Ragnar Wasatch Back. He was in a team that was organized by one of his high school buddies. Well, that friend had something come up at the last minute, and wasn’t able to run the race. So Whit ran the race with a bunch of strangers :) He said they all got along great, and they had a fun time together. I went up to cheer Whit on for the last leg of his run. It was fun to see him come in and finish. Made me want to be a runner and not just a spectator though :) But then the next day when Whit couldn’t walk because he was so sore, I was glad I didn’t run it myself!

My cousin Kari-lynn came to town, and she brought her son over for dinner. My dear friend Heather came over with her son too! Heather was roommates with me while I was going to the U. Then she moved to Ogden and was roommates with Kari-lynn there. It was so fun to get together with them. Whit made us a yummy dinner and we spent the night talking about baby stuff :)

That weekend we had a bridal shower for one of my favorite friends Kasey. She is marrying a golf pro, and is quite the golfer herself. So we had a golf-themed shower that was super fun. My friend Holly is so creative and came up with all of these golf-themed food ideas, we had “club” sandwiches, chips (I guess chipping is a golf term), “green” salad, sand traps (vanilla pudding with crushed wafers on top), and golf ball shaped cake balls. It was darling! And we all had a great time holding those precious babies—they are just so cute!

 The bride to be!

My friend Carla and her cute baby boy.  We can't wait to have play dates for our sons!  :)

Before you know it, it turned into July! To celebrate the 4th, we went down to Spanish Fork Sunday night. Whit wanted to check out the Spanish Fork river, to see if it’s a good time to go fishing there. So we all piled in my parent’s van and took a Sunday drive up the canyon. We got out to check out the river and had to tromp through a field to get there. We were quite the spectacle, walking around in our Sunday clothes. But I think the only ones to notice us out there were the mosquitos! They attacked in full force. We tried to take some fun pictures, but the mosquitos got the better of us and we ended up running back to the van. And just in case you’re curious, there is still too much water in the river for really good fishing :)

On the 4th of July, we went to my parent's annual neighborhood breakfast. We ate tons of food and then played this soccer game where you hit a ball with these swimming floaty noodles. It was quite the game. Whit, Dallin, and Brother Beatty took on the rest of us, and of course they scored way more goals than us—even though we outnumbered them about 3 to 1! However, the highlight of the game for me was when I was close to the goal line. I was just about to score a goal when Whit stole the ball away from me. He then hit it really hard to go back into the playing field, but it hit me instead. Right on my belly where the baby is. And then it bounced into their goal line. So I like to say that our baby has scored his first goal! It was pretty funny :)

Well, that about wraps up what we’ve been up to. I’m enjoying summer, just not the swollen ankles that come with it! :)

Marevelous May

We have had so much fun these past few weeks! We went to the U2 concert in Salt Lake and it was fabulous. I was a little nervous about the weather, since it had been raining non-stop and the concert was outside. But it didn't rain a drop on us and it was a beautiful night. The stadium was totally packed, the stage was super awesome, and U2 totally rocked! It was pretty much the best concert ever :)

Then the next day we flew out to Chicago! We went for a little anniversary celebration. That's right, we've been married a year :) We had a great time in Chicago, despite the rainy weather we had every day. We got to do loads of fun stuff--like go to the art institute (Whit loved that one), a cubs game (Whit really did love that one!), the top of the Sears tower, the aquarium, planetarium, museum of natural history, the science museum, the Robie house, top of the Hancock building, and we took an architectural river tour. We went to church at a school where we had sacrament meeting in the school auditorium, Sunday School in the library, and Whit went to Priesthood in the 5th grade Social Studies classroom. We thought that was a pretty interesting experience. Our flight coming home got canceled, so we had to spend most of Monday (Memorial Day) at the airport getting re-routed home. But Whit taught me how to play backgammon on his ipod and we eventually made it home. Back to work and back to reality.

Whit was very patient as I looked at all of the fantastic art

He was very excited to be done with the art institute

and so happy to be at Wrigley Field!

Sitting in the glass box that pokes out from the top of the Sears Tower was super scary! It was so high up!

It really lived up to it's name as the Windy City :)

and it was super rainy too! This is what we usually looked like by the time we got home each night.

But we did have occasional bouts of sunshine :) What a fun trip!!!

Then this weekend my brother Tyler and his family came to town and we got to spend some time with the nephews and niece. Whit took them for a ride on the motorcycle and they totally loved that :) Then Whit went for a ride with his friends and I got to hang out with the little ones. We built forts, made cookies, went through the car wash, and then went to the park. They totally wiped me out but it was a fun time.

Ready for another week of fun as we work for a few days and then head up to the Anderson cabin for a Christensen family reunion. We're all looking forward to spending some time together in the mountains. Yay for summer!!!

Another funny story

So, Whit prides himself on being an individual. After he proposed, he was quite distraught to find out that my parents also got engaged around Thanksgiving. When we were deciding when to get married, we thought April would be nice, until Whit found out that's when my parents got married. We got married in May.

When he took my parents out to dinner, to ask for my hand in marriage, he told them where he was thinking of taking me for our honeymoon. He told them that he thought it would be fun to go to Disneyland. My mom laughed, and said that they went to Disneyland on their honeymoon, how funny he wanted to do the same thing! That was the end of that idea, we went to Monterey :)

The night that we got married, Whit said he had a gift for me. He gave me a beautiful brand new set of scriptures, with my new name embossed on the cover. I was so excited! And I thought it was so sweet because that's what my dad gave my mom when they got married. Whit wasn't very happy when I told him that, he thought he was so original :)

So, we got our ultrasound tonight! We are having a boy!!! Yay! I always wanted to have a boy first :) We've been thinking of names forever, and Whit really likes the name Winston for a boy. I like that too, since my Grandpa's names are Wynn and Darwin, and my mom's name is Wynette. So Winston kind of follows along those lines, and Whit likes it because it's the name of a fishing rod company :) When I called my parents to tell them we are having a boy, I told them we were thinking of naming him Winston Bryce Anderson. My mom gave out a shout and said "I love the name Winston! I tried to get your dad to name one of our boys Winston." So my mom likes the name (but I guess that means my dad doesn't). When I told that to Whit, he threw his hands up in the air and said, "it's over! I give up." I told him it's not a bad thing to have the same ideas as my parents, but I don't think he's buying it yet :)

Anyways, we are having a boy, thinking of naming him Winston, and are way super excited!!!

In other news, here's some pics from this last week :)

We went to Temple Square last week to look at the tulips. We were walking around and we came upon Julie (Whit's mom), Katie (Whit's sister), and the Pettey boys (Katie and Greg's sons). It was so fun to run into them, what a small world! And the flowers were gorgeous!

Whit installed this awesome shelf in the garage! You can lower it down with a crank, load it up, and hoist it back up to the ceiling where it's out of the way. We got another one that' he'll put up sometime soon. Yay for more storage space!

And for Mother's Day we went up to Brigham City to visit Grandma Christensen. We had a nice time up there. It's good to see her and spend time with family.

Yay! We're having a boy :)

Hamburgler

Well, Aunt Jo tells me that my blog is boring since I never post. So sorry about that! We have done some fun stuff, it's great having Whit back to a normal schedule. We have been able to visit family, gone to a couple of movies, and get some things done around the house.

Here's a couple photos of the Easter Egg Hunt of the century! My mom and dad spent the afternoon hiding eggs for me and Whit, Mckay, and Dallin. All adults. I think my parents will be so excited when there are some grandkids close to home :) Until then, we'll have to do.

Here are some of the things that we've done around the house--Whit installed hardware on all of our cabinets, Yay!

I planted a little herb garden. I hope we can keep them growing.

We also got an entertainment stand for the tv. I think Whit did a great job of putting it all together. It's so handy to have a man around the house to do those sort of things! :)

I also got to go to a day of Women's Conference down at BYU with my mom and grandma. It was great fun. I've never seen so many ladies crocheting in all of my life! :) We got to go to some great classes and it was really fun for me to get a break from the office for a day. Although I discovered that it is much more tiring walking around campus and going to different classes that just sitting at my desk working all day. I was totally beat by then end of our day! It was really good though :)

On Saturday we took a break from cleaning and running errands, and Whit grilled us hamburgers for lunch. They were so good! Huge but good. We love our little grill and are looking forward to warmer weather and fun times ahead!

Two Peas in a Pod

I thought this was pretty funny. But it's kind of a sappy post so I won't be offended if you don't read, or even if you read it and then gag afterwards :)

So, I've been complaining for months about how much Whit has been working. I'm sorry. But it's been a hard thing for me, I think mostly because I have been feeling icky with morning sickness and it's no fun to feel not good when you are home alone all of the time. I kind of like being babied a bit, and Whit's really good at that when he's home. So I've really missed him a lot!

Well, I decided I needed to have a better attitude and realize that at least I didn't have to work that much, and I am so grateful to have such a hard working husband :) Plus, all of the overtime pay that he's been getting has been wonderful to put towards our baby fund. So it really has many positive benefits, and I'm trying harder to focus on those.

This week however, was especially rough. The deadline was Friday at noon, and Whit said they still had tons left to do. So he got up at 4 a.m. on Monday morning and went to work! He worked all day and didn't get home until midnight. Repeat that on Tuesday and Wednesday. So by Thursday he was so super exhausted. We accidentally slept through his alarm that morning, and didn't wake up until the late hour of 5 a.m.! So he jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and left right for work. They still had a lot left to finish up, so he called around 7 to say that he would probably be really late coming home that night.

I felt so bad he had to work so much and was so tired! I wanted to do something nice for him, to let him know how much I appreciate it. So I came up with the idea to make him some orange juice and blueberry muffins, since he likes those. I thought that was pretty clever, since when he came home it would be early morning. I thought that would be a fun snack and then he could take some for breakfast if he had to go back in on Friday. So I wrote a little note and left it all out on the counter and went to bed.

I woke up Friday morning at 4, and Whit wasn't home. I called and he had to work all through the night! I told him I would bring him in a treat when I got into work. So I took him the muffins and the note, and he just looked beat! So I told him to call me when he was done and I could drive him home. He called at 11 and said he couldn't work any longer. So he drove to my work, I hopped in the driver's side, and saw some flowers in the back seat!

Whit told me that he wanted to surprise me. He got the flowers the day before and was going to set them out on the counter so I would see them on Friday morning when I went to work. He was bummed that he never made it home so he could do that. I just thought that was so sweet!

So here I was, trying to do something nice for him--and he did the same thing for me! Great minds really do think alike! :) Aren't we just too cheesy for words?

I'm getting better at baking!

I've been home alone a lot lately, and so to bide the time I tried making bread yesterday. My mom sent me a new recipe for wheat bread and I gave it a try. And it worked! I'm so excited--I've tried making bread so many times and this time it finally worked. Aren't they pretty?

Last week I made these sugar cookies. We mixed up all the letters, and took them down to my parent's house for Sunday dinner. Some of them fell over in the truck and got a little smashed, oh well! When we got there, my dad ate an "I" right off the bat, so I had to be quick and tell them that the letters spelled out a message. I thought my brothers would like trying to figure out what the message was, but they got bored with it really quick. So my mom went over to give it a try, and she looked at it for a minute and then said "you're having a baby, aren't you?" She is one smart cookie! Ha Ha. She said the pastel colors gave it away. So the news is out, we are having a baby!

So I would say I'm getting to be a good baker don't you think? Cookies one week, bread the next, and a bun in our oven that's growing like crazy :)

Family fun and stuff

Well, I haven't posted for awhile, it seems like we haven't been doing too many exciting things. Whit has been working working working, but the light is finally at the end of the tunnel--he will be done with the project this week. Yahoo!

We did go to Grandma Fife's last week. We had dinner with mum and dad, Dallin, McKay, Uncle Rey, Auntie Jo, Shay, RJ, and of course Grandma. We had a yummy roast that Grandma made and after dinner we played the name game. It was way fun. Sadly, this is the only picture we took.

Also we went to a concert last week, that was fun! I don't know if any of you have heard of Joshua Radin, but I would recommend him :) He gave a great concert and it was totally worth standing up for 3 1/2 hours, and two days of sore feet afterwards :) Note to self: wear tenny runners to next concert where there are no seats. Luckily though--I was standing near a pole and could lean on that.

And yesterday we went up to Whit's sister's house in Bountiful and had a nice Sunday dinner with Julie, Greg and Katie and kids, and Lamar and Linsey and kids. They are super sweet and had a birthday cake for me :) Dinner was super good (I can't wait to try their recipe for crock pot lemon chicken, yum) and we played the name game with them. Fun times!

So that's about it. Pretty boring post but hopefully we'll start doing some fun stuff soon! :)