HISTORY

A Little History:
Our story begins in Pocatello, Idaho, circa 1972, when the lovely Debby Christensen agreed to a first, though fateful date with admirer, David Croshaw. Long story-short, he bade her follow him, and they went arm-in-arm to the Logan, Utah temple for establishment of an eternal family unit, Generation 1, on May 23 1973.

From their first blissful summer in Salt Lake City, educational pursuits took them to Provo/Orem, Utah, birthplace of Leslie and Rebecca, and to San Francisco/Oakland California, birthplace of Colin and Matt. Then, for establishment of livelihood, expansion of the tribe with Abby and Dana, and for raising/unifying of Generation 2, it was back to the roots in Pocatello for a rewarding sojourn.

In time, driven by a raging, but commonly shared sense of adventure and independence, one-by-one, Generation 2 escaped the homeland to distant regions of the country and the world, each ultimately developing their own tribal expansions by pairing with worthy mates and initiating Generation 3.

Now sensing fulfillment of their purpose in Pocatello, Generation 1 has also left those roots and transplanted to Cascade Idaho, from which base, they anticipate more abundant contact with The Posterity, Generations 2 and 3, in the future. That contact however, awaits fulfillment of a call to LDS missionary service in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, wherein they hope to help the state of the world by sharing the love of Jesus Christ.

So now, including Generation 0 (Grandma and Grandpa Christensen) home base includes Yuma, Arizona, Pocatello, Idaho, Cascade, Idaho, Vancouver, BC, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Spokane, Washington, Boise, Idaho, Los Angeles, California, back to Boise, Idaho, and on and on (Generation 3+) to infinity.

Our Mission Statement:
This is the blog of our eternal family unit. Initiated years ago, it served well as a journal, but even more so, as an archive of our personal interaction. It was a gathering place, a confabulation instrument, a unifying force for four generations of widely dispersed and progressively prolific posterity, and their valued associates. Though it served these purposes well for many years, it eventually took a back seat to new-kids-on-the-block, Facebook, and Instagram, and was sadly forgotten.

We now move to resurrect this blog with an added functional purpose of archiving the missionary experiences of Generation 1, of their movements and activities as they participate with The Gathering of Israel in the land northward. In so doing, we hope that via their own comments and posts, this blog will again serve to gather and unify the posterity and their friends.

As in the past, that the young and vibrant may know the old and tired, that enduring bonds may be fostered and maintained, that experience and encouragement may be openly shared, that posterity may embrace truth, and that hearts may be knit together, we must resist detachment despite our geographic divergence. We shall do so here.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

AMERICAN IDOL TOUR!!!!!!!

Wow.............that is one word I could use. This was the GREATEST concert ever!!!!!!! Every single person was an amazing performer and had an incredible voice, except one girl, but who's counting? And I'm not sure if I'd go as far to say Sanjaya has an incredible voice, but he was a great entertainer!!!!
Mom and I got seats on Ebay that were 8th row. We found out when we got to the concert that they were more like 3rd row seats!!!!!!!! The stage came out about 5 rows in the middle, so we were sooooo close!!! You'll be able to tell in the pictures. Here are some of them.

I tried to upload the pictures, but they were cut off cause they're big, and I don't want to re-upload them all, so go here:

http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r38/danadelga/AmericanIdol/

and "june" is the pword.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

The blog conservation project

I had to work a 24 hour shift yesterday, so I didn't go to church after I got home this morning. I guess this is in place of church. I gave a talk last week (after we had been in the ward a total of 7 days) and I shared a quote from Elder McConkie where he talked about how different people have a talent of believing and following truth. He talks about an instinct that we have coming into this life that we can choose to follow or not. I shared the stories of Neils Christensen and how his wife divorced him and he came to the US and crossed the plains with his children. Our great great grandmother was his 3rd wife and she was disowned by her parents when she joined the church at age 18. I talked about the difference between people who accept the gospel the first time they hear it and those who will never believe it no matter how many times they hear it.
I started reading Lectures on Faith and, today I read the 2nd chapter. It talks about how mankind first became acquainted with God. Of course Adam learned directly from God in the garden and continued to do so after he was driven out. All of Adam's family learned from him about God. It then goes into the story of Cain and Abel. Abel was righteous and Cain was not. But both of them knew God. The scriptures talk about Cain having talked to God after he slew Abel. The interesting part of all this is that both sides knew about God and his nature. Cain was the origin of wickedness on the earth and he still knew very well of the nature of God, having talked with him, even after his transgression. He had full knowledge of God at the time.
That's interesting to me that from the very beginning both the righteous and the unrighteous knew of God. I think that's how it is still, no matter how much people want to deny the existence of God. Can I get an amen!
Anyway, we're doing well here. Work's going well. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and hope we can have lots of people here. I hope everyone had a nice sabbath.
Colin

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Blog Attrition/Blogger Apathy

Check out the waining trend of blog entries. Starting with 40 during the maiden voyage of April, the number has dropped consistently each month, down to 8 in July. That is sad, because I like to read about all your lives and see your pictures. It would be great if everyone would enter at least one piece per month. I think some family members may have forgotten that we have a blog. Seems like I have yet to see any entries from some of you. Maybe we need to send out a new email invitation for everyone to frequent the blog??
Dad

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Time for a New Photo

Leslie, or Colin, or whomever knows how to do these things,
The family photo on the couch in Cascade is a really good one, but we've outgrown it. While in Mex, we need to take a new one with Crystal, Valerie, Alex, and Maggie included (am I forgetting anyone?), and replace or add to the old one.
Dad

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Good news

For those of you who don't know (which I'm sure everyone does, knowing our family), my friend Justin was baptized today. It was a wonderful and uplifting experience for all.
And, he's coming with me to Mexico. No need to read into that too much, but I'm excited for everyone to meet him, and so is he.

A Little Motherly Advice

Dad suggested I write this for everyone. I called Colin, but will repeat to all of you. Do not, I repeat, Do Not go to "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry". It is the worst movie I have seen, at least this year, and was extremely vulgar and gross. We should have known by the subject material that it was going to be bad, but I really do love a good comedy and I think Kevin James is sooo funny. He proved me wrong. We all left and got our tickets refunded. There is no way they could edit it enough to ever put it on television. It would maybe be 10 minutes long. It badly bruised my spirit. OK, I guess I have made my point.

On a happier note, I am going to include a quote I heard from a BYU-HI devotional while exercising yesterday. For all the married and sometime to be married in our family--I guess that covers everyone. Good advice for all of us.
When you are married, be fiercely loyal one to another. Selfishness is the great destroyer of happy family life. If you will make your first concern the comfort, the well-being, and the happiness of your companion, sublimating any personal concern to that loftier goal, you will be happy, and your marriage will go on throughout eternity."
Pres.Gordon B. Hinckley, BYU Commencement, 1995

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Leslie & Tracy's Big Adventure



Our adventure started at 6am Friday morning. We left San Francisco, destination: the ALAMO! My friend, Tracy, was nice enough to take Friday off work and come with me. You'll all meet her in Monterrey, if you haven't met her already. (She's also the talented clothing designer making my dress.) We drove across the Bay Bridge and down I-5 all the way to L.A. (Photos are: classic L.A. traffic and windmills near Palm Springs)



We also saw this awesome bright red hearse somewhere in California.



A little north of L.A., we turned left and the rest of the trip was spent on I-10. (Did you know it goes all the way from Santa Monica, CA to Jacksonville, FL?) We drove through Redlands, CA (Hi, Knapps!), Palm Springs, Phoenix and Tucson, AZ.

The first night Tracy and I made it to the Arizona/New Mexico border. We stayed in a little town called Lordsburg, NM. The amount of bugs we drove through and saw in Southern Arizona/New Mexico was beyond all belief. This, we believe, was only one of many bugs in our hotel room. Ray, I now understand why they needed you in New Mexico.



The next day we spent about a total of 1 1/2 hours driving through New Mexico. We passed through the pretty town of Las Cruces, NM. Then we entered Texas and there was a welcome sign, but when we saw this truck we knew we were REALLY in Texas. On the front it said "Tonka".


We drove through El Paso and then drove for about 7 hours through the vast expanse of nothingness known as Western Texas.



We arrived in San Antonio at 7pm CDT, 35 hours after we'd left SF. The stars and stripes are big and bright....deep in the heart of Texas!



The Alamo!!

San Antonio's a very beautiful place. I highly recommend visiting downtown and the River walk...just maybe not in July. It's a little warm.

Sadly, this is where we stopped taking pictures. Y'all know how I am. I had all of the best intentions...I really did want to take a picture at the border. If I didn't have Tracy, none of it would be documented.

Late Saturday night Alex met up with us. We went to a small, newly-split ward on Sunday, and dropped Tracy off at SAT so she could fly home to SFO. We then dropped my car off (which included a 3 hour detour), and made it to Monterrey at about 12:30am on Sunday night. Alex was a true sport, especially considering the fact that he had to work at 8:30am on Monday. We're VERY happy and relieved to finally be together. Can't wait to see you all in about 2 1/2 weeks!

Besos,
Les

Friday, July 13, 2007

Eva started walking!!

It was soooooo all of the sudden. She hadn't shown any signs she was going to walk. In fact, just yesterday morning she started standing up all by herself. Then when Jason got home from work he stood her up and she started walking to me! She's already walking so much better than she even did last night!

Monday, July 9, 2007

Celeb Look-Alikes

Go to this website http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/face-recognition.php to see which celebrity you look like.
It's so fun!! Here's an example of Jason and me. For some reason, it won't let me put a title on this post.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Just after I posted the comment on Colin's thing that it wasn't working for me, this showed up. So I guess it is working.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Colin's Graduation

wanted everyone to get a feel for what it was like for us at Colin's graduation. I really should say olin and Lori's graduation, because he could not have done it without her. It was a great day. Right before the video starts the man asked Colin if he still had his 3 wood. Colin must have said yes, or shook his head or something, because he then says, "That's your graduation present!" which you hear. The second video was a better close up. Way to go Colin and Lori!