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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Sunday, March 2, 2008

Spokane Bound

Crystal reminded me that I had not updated everyone on the status of our lives since my last post. We are going to be moving to Spokane, WA in the next few months!! It was such a great experience with Sprague, Ray's future employer. When he went in the meet with the owner of the company, Alfie, he told Ray that he wanted him to tell him exactly what he wanted, holding nothing back because he didn't want Ray or his family to feel disappointed with the result. Ray and I had talked about this the night before and Ray decided to ask for more than he was initially thinking in order to make it worth our while. Anyway, he told them what he wanted and they didn't bat an eye, they gave him exactly what he wanted without any arguments!! They were very impressed with Ray and Ray is finally feeling appreciated professionally. We are really excited to be moving back to the west. Spokane is so beautiful, surrounded by mountains and pine trees everywhere. We are SO excited to be only a 7 hour drive from mom and dad, only 5 hours from Cascade :). So now we just have to get our house sold! They are being very flexible with the start date and are willing to give us a few months to get our house sold. He told Ray that he has seen how much stress it causes to have families separated or dealing with the financial strain of 2 mortgages and doesn't want to see that happen with us, so they are being amazingly flexible. I almost keep waiting for the catch. We feel so blessed and really see this as an answer to our prayers. I won't have to work anymore, which will definitely make things easier for our family. So now everyone just needs to pray that we can get our house sold!

PS-many many thanks to Leslie and Alex for watching Grace and Elliot, you have no idea what a relief it was to have someone take care of them who we can trust and who really love them. I think it was an eye opening experience for them!!  Grace and Elliot had so much fun, Grace won't stop talking about it!




5 comments:

abbynormal said...

Wow, that is such, SUCH good news!! Of course they loved Ray, what's not to love?! You'll totally sell your house. We'll all be praying for you. Good thing Colin and Lori are in Ohio, so we still have some sort of midwest representation, right?

Jason and Dana said...

YAY!!!!!!!!

Crystal said...

Awesome, I am glad things worked out the way you wanted, lucky family! I love Washington too! The pacific northwest is gorgeous! Best of luck selling and buying a house!

Colin & Lori said...

Oooooh, I am so jealous! What a blessing for you. The drive is actually a bit longer to Pocatello. It would usually take 8-9 hours but hey, that is a heck of a lot closer than where you are now!! I am sure you are so excited. You will really love it there, especially for the summer with all the lakes. It makes me so homesick!

Jason and Dana said...

So, now what are you going to call your blog? Not Olkahoma VanderLouws? Durlouws? Spokanators? Spocompton Vanderlouws?
I'm very excited for you. I bet you will have a blast back in the north west.
Jason