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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Friday, July 23, 2010

Idaho Power--My new BFF



So, I was out walking Wednesday, nice warm weather, and I see some BLACK clouds behind me.  No rain until a little bit when I got home.  I am in the laundry room, sewing and we hear this gigantic crash of thunder, and everything goes black (remember, I am in the laundry room).  No power.  It amazed me how much I could not do with no power.  Dad was trying to leave for work but said he couldn't because he had to deal with it.  I told him I would  'deal with it', so I called Idaho Power.  I called Hills, their power was out, too.  Just us, Hills and Norma (up above).  Idaho Power told me there were no power outages reported.  Hmmm.  They came up, and the Idaho Power experience began.  At first they thought it might be a fuse blown on the power line.  They thought it was fixed, I came inside, and a minute later heard a huge BOOM, and looked outside and saw black smoke.  Not a good sign.  Outside I go, following the Idaho Power guy around.  Peppering him with questions.  He opened up the green box between us and Hills.  Lots of cobwebs and icky stuff inside.  He said it looked fine.  They were thinking maybe it was the transformer.  It wasn't.  Then, maybe it was the cable buried under the ground.  Under our driveway.  The cable not in conduit.  If it had been, they could just pull out the old cable and fish a new one through, but alas...  They were really, really hoping it was not the cable.   Idaho, electric code changed in Dec, 1987, requiring all electric cable to be buried in conduit.  Our service was installed in June 1987 - No conduit.  So they dug up the old cable in a couple of spots and tested it, using very interesting instruments.  Both spots on the cable were fried.  Sigh... cable couldn't be repaired.  They would have to replace all 250 feet of it.  Bear in mind since around 9:30 a.m. I have had no power.  it is now later afternoon.  

I had been calling Dad, giving him updates.  These photos are all day three.  I should have taken some yesterday, that is when we had vehicles up and down the driveway, in the cul de sac, and behind us.  So to finish up day one, they couldn't repair the cable.  Need to replace the cable.  Have to dig 5 feet under the ground to do that.  It is 7 p.m.--still no power.  Decide to lay temporary cable above the ground - all the way around the back of the house, to avoid putting it across the driveway - and hook it up to the green box (above) just so the three affected homes can have power until the permanent cable can be replaced IN CONDUIT under the ground.   So we had power restored from day 1 evening until day 3  about 9:30 a.m.  In the interim, they trenched and bored 250 feet under our front lawn and driveway and Luther's back yard and then down the alley to install conduit and permanent cable.

 The above picture is the guys replacing the cable.  You might notice that the bush on their right has been hacked up a bit to allow them room to work.  Very sad for Dad, especially.  It was a really pretty snowball bush.  Power is more important to me, at this point.  

This is really just a smattering of the vehicles we had in our driveway, etc.  There were also many vehicles down at Wilson's driveway too (the one below us).  Addendum.  Talked to Jan Wilson day one to see if their power was out.  She said she was outside when the lightning bolt hit.  Said she could taste it in the air.  Yikes!  Day two they work all day, many, many Idaho Power workers, who were all really nice, boring (the Idaho Power guys were not boring, the machine was boring into the dirt, under the ground:)), digging, working on the Cat, guiding the underground bore, advising, standing, talking.  There was even one guy whose job it was ALL day yesterday just to watch the above ground cable so no one got hurt on it.  Safety first.  Little orange flags were marking the easement, etc.

Here is the Cat working at Luther's.  The easement went along his fence.  He had big, big mounds of dirt in his back yard.  They even had to remove a section of fence.  You can't see here, maybe you can enlarged, but there are 8, that's right 8 men working on this trench.  The borer could not go the rest of the way because of all the rocks in the ground, even at 5 feet down.


This gives you a little better idea of what went on with the trench in Luther's yard.  No back yard playing for Lucas and Patrick today.  They finally got the conduit in, cable replaced.  Oh, did I mention that the cut my telephone wire as well as McKinlay's the afternoon of day two.  We didn't have telephone service last night.  They were good enough to replace it, at no cost to me.  I think!  I can't  imagine how much this little adventure cost.  All three days we had many workers here, all day long.  I should have made them cookies, I should have given them water.  What kind of a hostess am I?  What kind of a best friend am I.  When I got home from the grocery store today, they had all gone.  


Until the next adventure,  appreciate your electricity.  Think about what you would do without it.  I hope your days are relatively uneventful.  Just wanted you to see what is happening on 20th.
Love,
Mom

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Our Little Florida 50s Bungalow

So...long time no talk. Sorry everyone. We've been pretty busy this month with home buying, wedding attending and a family building adventure. Between that and work, we haven't had much time for anything else. Hope you're all doing well. Miss and love you!



Apparently, now they sell houses on you tube. It was the only link I could still find online for the listing.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Well Deserved

For those of you who did not watch the ESPYs, which is probably everyone except Jason and maybe Mom, enjoy this video. Lebron James is a moron.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

The Dad Life

I know Fathers day is past and gone for this year, but I just came onto this item, and had to give it some air time on the blog. It's for all of you dads, or would-be dads, but I'm dedicating it to Ray, because we all  know how partial he is to RAP.  If you can't see the full screen on this post, got to this link.       Enjoy.
Love you all,
Your Da-Da-Dadio

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Asher in the paper ;-)





Pretty great story and a big ole picture of Asher. I have to say, I did not know I would be in the paper. I thought we were just getting Asher, I got a text from one of Valerie's friends saying, "You and Asher are in the paper!" So funny.





























Sunday, July 4, 2010

Thoughts and Prayers...





GRR! My camera has really left me upset this day. It will not take photos with a flash, it will not zoom-in, but I have been able to do flashless, in-focus pictures outside. Now that is not even happening. I am at a loss... I think it is because it has had over 10,000 images taken with it and is just losing function. Still though... Sad!









So, most of you probably know although Matt and I have kept it quiet... he was fired Friday. What a smack in the face. This time, I feel, very sad for Matt and at the point of anger of the guy who owns UMA. Matt finished the project- it needs to be painted- and he was fired.

The infuriating aspect is that it was done. That we were supposed to (finally) get health insurance and that Matt had been promised a raised at the end of the project. The fact that he was fired left me feeling like the breath had been knocked from me.

There is real concern for me here... considering that this is the fourth time... Considering that yes, I do have a great job that starts in August, but since I work 9 of 12 months, my salary is not stellar (though much better than before) and I have no plans to be the provider for our family long-term. I took this job as a "do what I have to for now" sort of thing.

We really need clear direction as to how best to move forward. Both of us have individually felt the best way to not allow this to happen again is to open a business. Matt absolutely DOES take a "long" time to do things, but to his credit, he is meticulous. The problem is, he is meticulous to a fault in the eyes of an employer. The only way for this to not be an issue is for Matt to be his own boss (well, he and I), I am certain. The impression has been undeniable. However, figuring out what to do with this is what needs to be determined next.

In other (sad) news (what a weekend)....

I found out 2 Mondays ago I was pregnant. Of course, I was of mixed feelings about this since we have no insurance and honestly, since Asher is such a handful... but I started getting really excited about it in the last several days. We told Valerie, Jennifer and Debby. This morning, we were just talking about boy -v- girl, names, where "the baby" would sleep...

I am miscarrying. The interesting thing was that I actually saw the embryonic sac. I am a developmental embryologist by training, so I spent a lot more time than a normal miscarrying mother inspecting it. I even called Matt in. Sad. This is our SIXTH miscarriage (for one pregnancy that ended with an Asher). I have protectively sort of been like, "oh, well..." but it really is sad. Maybe some day in the future...

anyway, we just wanted you all to know what is going on and I do not feel like putting it on my blog since I have so many frequenters (which is why I added ads to my blog)...

Here is the thing, though:

My best friends had to have their baby delivered by c section Friday because of pre-ecclampsia and something (scarier) called HELLP. They had been medically controlling it for four weeks, so the baby (Madison) had be administered four doses of steriods. It was looking incredible, because Madison started kicking and screaming at birth. That is unheard of in a 25 weeker. Clearly, the steriods really helped speed her lung development. Instead of a ventilator, "all" the needed was a CPAP to keep positive pressure in her lungs.

Well, last night, the NICU ( army hospital, Hawaii ) had to intervene to save Maddi... Come to find out, the blood pressure-lowering medications to control the pre-ecclampsia Krissy was given decreased flow to her placenta. What that meant is that the baby was getting much less reduced blood flow. That caused her GI tract to start dying and decaying. Also, in 4 weeks, she did not grow at all.

It is a horrifying nightmare. As you can imagine, this can get bad quickly. Please pray for this family. They really had to work to get this baby and with all the complications, Krissy and Joel decided to have a tubal ligation at c-section.

This all made Matt's job loss seem almost... Not as serious. I found out she was going to be born about 5 minutes before I got home from Asher's photoshoot where Matt told me he had been fired. It was not good, but it seemed so small in comparison to the imminent birth of a baby 25 weeks gestationally... but my miscarriage feels all the more sad. One thing I plan on asking my Heavenly Father about is why these things happen. It is so hard on us mommies...




I hope you all had a great fourth. Ours was good. We even had a sparkler-induced grass fire.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Croshaw Family Trait

Look at that tongue!! I have seen it on many-a Croshaw.

In the last week, Asher has REALLY burnt his poor fingers (healing nicely), stacked up 4 food-storage cans of "beef protein?!" then tripped and cut his head on one of them, THEN got stung by a wasp on his cheek playing outside, and FINALLY pulled down hot water that I had ladled off the top of the boiling-over pasta a few minutes before... I pushed it away from him and caught the brunt of it (not burning hot, thank goodness), but he definitely cried... Probably more from me saying "NO! HOT!! HOT!!!"

Anyway. He is still happy and full-throttle. Tomorrow he has a photo shoot with the local paper. Details to come. (I am hoping his sweet face is not too symbolic of his week tomorrow)