Monday, June 25, 2012

Spit Bubbles

Kaylyn has a great new trick that she came up with all on her own: blowing big spit bubbles. It is often accompanied by the sound of "mamamamama" and a whole lotta drool. We couldn't be prouder parents! :)


Micah sometimes does his own spit bubbles to mimic our little Chancha, but I told him that for some reason he just doesn't look as cute as she does;) For those who would like to see it live here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g67fjW4Bwc

Sunday, June 17, 2012

First Father's Day

For Micah's first Father's Day I made him a special brunch of fried eggs with ham and cheese on an english muffin, potato cakes, and OJ (sounds a lot like homemade McDonald's breakfast:). After church we had a little nap then Micah got to go on a "hunt" for his presents. 
Happy Father's Day to the best dad!
This Father's Day had a BBQ theme - grill tool set and a grill cleaner. Aluminum foil was the wrapping paper of choice - very manly and practical;)


Kaylyn and I also got Dad some BBQ sauce shipped in from Texas. We tried this sauce at Seth's house in Seattle months ago and Micah hasn't stopped talking about it. http://www.rudysbbq.com/store/c-2-sause.aspx

Since it is Father's Day I told him that we could do whatever he wanted. He said he just wanted to hang out with me and Kaylyn and maybe go on a drive. I packed a little picnic and we drove up to Sundance. It was a perfect day. 
My two favorite people on Earth.
Licorice lovers.
Classic Chancha food face

   


Happy Father's Day! We love you!

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Weekend Gostoso

We had such a great weekend full of a wonderful variety of people. On Friday night we took Kaylyn camping for the first time with Trent and Megan Vukich for Trent's birthday. We got there quite a bit later than everyone else and they took such great care of us. Trent's friend and brother helped unload our car and set up our tent. Trent & Megan brought camp chairs for us without talking about it before hand (they knew we didn't have anything except for one stadium chair that we had brought camping with them last summer). They had dessert for us and even let us in on their delicious dutch oven breakfast the next morning. All we brought was boring oatmeal, like we always do:) They definitely camp in style. Our only redeeming act was bringing birthday Sobe bombs. They were a hit! The second one was so good that it got a deep voiced and  involuntary "Oh yeah!" from Micah when it went off. It was a great night!
Kaylyn all decked out in pink in our new tent. We actually got this tent from Mike & Jen for our wedding, but haven't used it yet. Now with a baby it'll come with us every time.
What a cute little pink sleeping bear.

Kaylyn slept great! She only woke up once in the night then  was up a little earlier in the morning because of the light.  Hopefully we'll have a summer full of camping!
On Saturday evening went to dinner with the Zimmers to Pizzeria 712. It wasn't just dinner, it was a dining experience! Ben and Brynn ordered for us and we tried a little big of everything. I really loved the gnocchi and of course the pizza. Everything was so delicious! Great conversation probably adds to the deliciousness of everything. We love spending time with them.

After dinner we headed over to Orem Days to meet up with Grauling, Jeremiah, Dallas, and their dates. We walked around the carnival (it was windy and cold) then watched the fireworks. Kaylyn slept through her first firework show! We also randomly ran into Jeff & Casey on our way there. It was great to see them. They gave us their extra ride tickets. We didn't end up going on any rides, so of course Micah sold the tickets to someone.

On Sunday evening we went for a walk around P-town and ran into our friends the Princes. We hadn't seen them for a while since they moved out of our ward, so it was great to catch up with them. Their little Stella is growing up so quickly! We also found out that Joe and Ben serve in their stake together. What a small world!

The whole weekend was so enjoyable because we got to spend it with such a variety of friends all of whom we love so much. Our relationships make life so sweet and so much fun!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Aloha Feels Like Home

We had such a wonderful time in Hawaii with our best friends/cousins Eric & Nakita May 25-June 2. We were visiting Seth & Amy who have recently moved there for 6 months and are now quite the locals. Hawaiians (by birth or simply location) are so generous and giving. We felt so blessed and loved while there. I have to say that my favorite part of the vacation was being with Seth & Amy and watching Kaylyn being smothered with love and attention by her four cousins. I suppose we could do that in any state, but everything is extra wonderful in Hawaii.
 Kaylyn LOVED playing in the sand. It's so cool to watch her discover and experience new things.

 Shark's Cove


 Kaylyn has the most fun with her daddy!

 I love that toothless grin! It was pretty windy, but look...you can see her hair blowing in the wind! That's some real progress:)

 Castle's Beach
 These two love each other!

 Eric and Nakita got the troops to build a sweet sand castle.

 Sam found a crap to go on top of it!

Love that face

 We all piled into Seth & Amy's minivan to go watch the sunset at Pipeline - a recent Christensen family tradition. Notice Sam, Ellie, and Jayne in the very very back where the boogie boards and bags usually ride.
Kaylyn LOVES Jake. She made this high pitched squealing sound and all of her limbs went into motion whenever he was around. She always got the best welcome from Jakey, "Baby Kay-yin! Baby Kay-yin come home!"

 Tim and Rose were also visiting Seth & Amy from Seattle. They are such wonderful people. The kids call Rose "Grandma Rose." It was easy to see why they loved them so much.

We got to be a part of a real life Hukilau on Hukilau Beach! Here was the text conversation I had with Amy:
Amy: We were just told there is a Hukilau at Hukilau beach this morning at 8. We're going to go watch it if you want to join us.
Me: Sounds awesome! What's a hukilau? Is it a fish? A party? Either way we'll be there:)
Amy: It's a fish party:) I don't know either. It's an ancient way of catching fish. They go out into the water and clap to scare the fish into their nets. 

For official info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukilau.

We stayed in a really cool house in Hauula that Micah found for a great deal (of course!). He also found this housemate in the bathroom one evening. Luckily the rest of the stay the spider stayed in this cup. Eww!!

I asked Amy if I could bathe Kaylyn at her house a couple of times during the week and she said, "Sure! As long as you don't mind if Jake joins  her!" She loved having a bath buddy. She cracked up whenever he splashed her. 
Back left is Jakey's Hawaiian twin brother, best friend, and neighbor...Vincent.

This to me looks like love at first sight. He was so sweet with Kaylyn and kept kissing her on the head.

"She a howlie?"

Kaylyn doing the Haka. This is one of my favorite pics!

Jayne is not only a fashionista, but a salon beautician. Amy was her first victim.

I was next. I'm holding cups of water for her to dip the comb in.

Kaylyn even got in on it, though she doesn't have much hair to comb, Jayne didn't mind.

Tada!
Playing at Waimea 

Kaylyn was so happy in the water. She loved splashing and kicking her feet.

These are our favorite howlies on the island.

Micah stepped into his office to make a phone call. Not a bad view;)

Kaylyn chewed on this pineapple the whole time we were at the Dole Pineapple Plantation.


Uncle Eric buried her in the sand. She was quite interested. 

I'm not sure if she knows that those are her toes or not.
This is one of Kaylyn's favorite things.



I love this picture of Nakita. She's so pretty!

Hiking Maunawili Falls, well, sort of. Micah and I were deep in conversation as we started the hike so we actually missed the turn off on the trail to go to the falls.

After almost 2 hours of hiking we decided to cut through the jungle to walk on the golf course back to our car. It was much easier walking. What a beautiful trail! We're glad that Eric & Nakita got to the falls and we weren't leading the way!
Morning nap. She's holding my arm, so sweet.

Daughter of founder of Laptops Unlimited, go figure;)

Canoe ride at the PCC.


Eric the Canadian drummer on the island of Tonga. 

My nephew Sam is a seriously good fire knife dancer. He's only 11. Watch out world. He made fast friends with Josiah at the PCC. Josiah's uncle is Sam's fire knife teacher AND the world fire knife champion. He's also Vincent's dad.

We hiked into another waterfall and this time we found it! Kaylyn slept peacefully by the pond as we grabbed the rope swing.

Though the actual waterfall was dry, we each took a turn swinging on the rope into the pool. 

Back in the carrier that Amy's neighbor let us borrow. So happy.

So asleep. She sleeps with her eyes open.

Amy & Seth's neighbor David got work off one night to take Eric and Micah spear fishing. Scary! They speared an octopus, lobster, and unicorn fish. I think that Eric was especially in heaven. He is the king of exciting adventures! 

Eric & Nakita jumping off the rock. Micah got some great shots!

Rachel jumping off the rock. 
Kaylyn didn't jump off the rock, but this is the next best thing:)
Girls longboarding in Laie

Eric & Nakita at Food Fest on BYU-Hawaii campus.


 Tribute to the Cousins:
Kaylyn loves her cousins so much. They took such good care of her making her beds, sharing toys, wanting to feed her everything they had, and giving her lots of kisses. 
Sam has grown up so much. He helps with everything and loves babysitting his brothers and sisters. One night Amy asked if he'd rather come to Kahuku Grill with us or babysit, he quickly said, "I'll stay home and babysit!" What 11 year does that? He also has amazing focus and skill when it comes to crab catching and fire knifing. He is a such a wonderful and special young man. I hope we have a son like him someday! Check him out:

Ellie is so much fun! She's a behind the scenes kind of girl not needing to be in the spotlight, but is a great observer and always knows what's going on. She has a great little sense of humor too and can be very witty. I could hang out with Ellie all day long.

Jayne, what's not to love? She is hilarious and always sharing her talents and love with everyone.  She loves fashion, performing, and her new pink high heels that we found for her in a free box at a thrift store. She is too much fun! Check out her skills:

And then there's Jakey. There's never a dull moment with Jones around. He has a wicked "hi-ya" chop, can throw with the best of them, shakes his knees like a Tahitian, and has lots of kissy faces to give out. We love this little guy so much that we adopted him into our family. A-hu-ha! (that's "Aloha" in Jake language:)

Laie Temple

By the end of the trip Kaylyn was really getting those hula arms down.

We had such a wonderful trip. We were so grateful that we got to be there with Eric and Nakita when Seth, Amy, and kids got to speak and sing in sacrament meeting; Gary Crittenden gave the BYU-Hawaii Devotional; Micah got to be a guest speaker in Seth's entrepreneur class; and Seth spoke in the Entrepreneur Lecture Series. Seth and Amy are not only some of the funnest people on the planet, but they are amazing examples of faith, strength, and they do things the right way by putting the Lord and their family first. We love them so much and can't wait for them to be in Utah...or maybe we should all just pack up and move to Hawaii with them!