El Turned 5 and 1/2

June 8th was El's half birthday. She was very proud to turn 5 1/2. She had to wake up at 7 am so that I could see her open her present. She really wanted this cake set from Target. She told her daddy and he actually bought it for her. She was very happy. We are glad to have El in our family!

April

I'm having flashbacks...Oh wait I just haven't updated my blog in 3 months. So April is the month that Steve and I were married. This was the big 10 year. We wanted to do something special, like San Diego, or Las Vegas. But we also wanted to get a bigger table. Not saying that a cozy dinner isn't nice but we had a "newly wed" table for 10 years and it was time to get more than 4 people around the table.
So that meant that we called in a favor to a friend who owns a great little gem of an A frame cabin in Strawberry, AZ. It was an awesome little get a way and it was nice and chilly up in Strawberry. We wanted to hike a bit up on the Rim, but there was still snow and downed trees on the road so we couldn't get our car any further back into the woods.
Then on the way home we stopped and picked up our dream table we found on Craig's list. We feel like grown ups now (kind of).
I can't believe that 10 years has passed but at the same time it feels much longer than that. I am grateful for my family and especially for my Steve! Love you dude.

A trip to the Zoo

Who doesn't love feeding the Giraffe, with it's long, black, gross tongue?

A white tiger

Steve has a thing for ostrich

El is looking for a new friend-are you available?

She Loves the baby goats!!!

For her mother's sake, petting the turtle

El's pre-school class went on a field trip to the Wildlife World Zoo. We are so lucky that it's on this side of town. Steve was happy to tag along with El. They had a great time. El loves the petting zoo where they house baby animals.

Now for March

The most important thing in March was Ki's Baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. She got baptized on the 5th. It was a big day for her and for our family. She is such a good girl and she is a great example to her sister. I know that she is working hard everyday to make good choices. We are grateful to be able to be her parents because she is so wonderful!

A Few more Pictures from Taiwan

This is some fancy Hotel

Brandie and I, not a great picture but my eyes are open

and it's the only one I have of us

The beautiful trees

The cherry blossoms had just started when I was leaving.  At the bottom of the hill they live on there are a few cherry blossom trees. I saw a few wedding parties by the trees and so many people on the side of the road taking pictures of them. I guess they are kinda rare, but sister has some in her yard-lucky girl.

It was a trip that I will never forget. It was so eye opening to what we really do have here in America. My sister and her husband and kids are getting along very well there, I am so proud of them. What an amazing experience they will have and I am glad that they shared a little bit of it with me.

I love you guys and miss you much!

February

As I mentioned I got a ticket to Taiwan to visit my sister and her brood. I have to say that flying internationally made me a bit nervous.  All in all it went well. The hardest thing was getting used to the 15 hour time difference. On the way there and home you don't notice it as much b/c you are flying all day which has become two days. But you definitely feel it the next day. I flew into Taipei around 1:30 am and couldn't believe the amount of traffic on the road at that time of night-they are night time people there. I was also there during the Chinese New Year, turns out it lasts for a week. On Monday morning my sister and her husband were having a Super Bowl breakfast party for Jere's co-workers. We watched the Super Bowl but there weren't any American commercials-that is my favorite part. 3 of my sister's kids get on the bus and then at Taryn has pre-school which Brandie has to drive her to at 8:30. Then Taryn gets picked up at 1:30. I have to say that I was in awe that my sister is cruising around a crazy town filled with compact cars and scooters and millions of people. You can't tell where you are by landmarks such as 7-11, b/c there is one on every corner. It was so crazy! I can say that I couldn't last 30 minutes there by myself. Brandie and Jere do a great job navigating around Taipei. 

I visited the National Palace Museum, the Taipei 101 building, a fabric market, The pottery town of  Yingge, The Taipei Taiwan Temple, And Georia Pais Hair Salon-for a Chinese hair wash-the best ever neck, shoulder rub, and hair wash ever! I didn't get very brave when it came to eating weird food. Dumpling are delicious though. Really it was just a great visit with Brandie, Jere and the kids. It was very fun for me to be Aunt Torrie for a full week. I even got to help Ainsley with her math homework. The cherry trees were blossoming while I was there and it was beautiful! My sister has several of these trees in her yard and neighborhood and people drive by just to see the blossoms. I had a relaxing and great time with the Statham family and hope that I can do it again before they leave.

San Fransisco Airport

I am going to get on that giant plane in an hour

Taipei 101, world's 3rd tallest building

Me and the kids, minus Holt

at the bottom



and now at the top looking down

it was a cloudy day but you get the idea that there are a lot of people and buildings down there

 As far as you can go up, who knows what's on those floors

 A view from the top

A giant ball made out od logs in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, I thought that it looked cool, so did Tye

                                       

This is the National Palace Museum there are 5,ooo year old pots in there. Needless to say no flash photography inside. We wore translator headsets as we learned about the different artifacts and history of the Chinese Dynasties.

As we were leaving the Museum there where these people gathered wearing yellow tunics and having prayer time.

This was a small garden park down the street from the Museum grounds. I thought that it was kind of cool

This was a view from outside a friend of Brandie's apartment. I just thought I'd capture how most people live in Taipei, apartments in high rises.

Another view of the buildings

Mom, this one is for you,

It's a squatter, most of the places we visited had toilets. We were at the Fabric Market and the building was older so no modern toilets to be found. That also means no flushing toilet paper-YUCKY

at least this one was freshly cleaned.



On our way back to the car after the fabric market, it was down by a water front park. Scooters are transportation of choice on the island.

This was a road side temple for worship. People would buy special money to burn and incense and then pray by this thingy.

The day we went to Yingge it was raining. Yingge is a cool cobble stoned pottery town we did some shopping and Brandie was able to get some clay and glazes so she can start using her home studio.

On Friday it was ward Temple night. The Temple has an English speaking session on Friday nights. My camera was not behaving well but that is the Temple.

After that we went to T.G.I. Fridays-yep they have one in Taipei. We ate ribs they were delicious!



Take a Break if you need to I am on a Roll

January rounded out with a birthday of yours truly. Notice no pictures. No cake and no candles. I didn't feel good and I was getting ready to leave for Taiwan-that was the supreme Christmas/Birthday present!!!

January Continued

When I was growing up my Grandparents lived in a small town in Montana. Steve's Grandparents lived in the same town for many years. I remember visits that included seeing The Christensens. Steve Grandparents have been a part of my life for many years before my Mrs. Smith years. I was very sad in January when Grandpa "Jack" died. We were fortunate enough to con Penny into watching the girls for 4 days so that Steve and I both could go to Washington for his funeral. So much family gathered to say good bye to one of the most loved men I have ever known. It was a beautiful service. The burial was humorous in a way that is irreverent but so memorable! We were so luck to have such an amazing man pray for us every night, by name along with the other 64 of his grandchildren. We miss Grandpa but we know he's playing tricks from the other side now.

 A beautiful hand crafted casket for Grandpa

This is Reed and Lora aka Homer and Wart

It was SO cold in Washington!

The Smith kids who could make it-Steve, Rob, Lora, Reed, Ron and Kelli

Spouses and Little man Bryson

And then things start to get interesting...

Brian had to go get the tractor to plow a path for the truck to lower the cement vault containing the casket into the ground

What's that?? The hole isn't big enough? Grandpa was for sure laughing at this because he was not a tall man, and the fact that he was to big for something was just classic. It was dug my hand and the shovels were still on site, so a few of the grandsons dug and dug  and dug until finally the vault fit

And then they got to cover it up. I have to say this isn't your traditional grave side but it was very classic of grandpa and his posterity, working hard and enjoying the work you do.

And in the end, on this beautiful country, road side cemetery, is the perfect spot for

Anton Robert Christensen.

We love you and miss you Grandpa!

Earlier this Year

I admit that I have been AWOL for far to long. I have time today so I am using it to catch up on things. What were we up to in January? Well Ki turned 8. Big deal! In an attempt to say what she means to me,

Eight things I love about Ki:

1. She is very thoughtful

2. She is an excellent big sister!!!

3. She is very responsible with her school work

4. She makes me laugh

5. She is always thinking about how things can be improved or done differently

6. She has an amazing imagination!!!
7. She loves to organize her things and drawers

8. She likes to do crafts and make cards with me

 She has a similar problems as her mother-our eyes don't always stay open when our pictures are being taken

She got her ears pierced, she was given some earrings and was very excited about that

 She got a card from Grandma Lora

The next night, we (just me and her) got to go out on the town and watched Shrek the Musical at Gammage Theater in Tempe-she loved it!