Our little Baby is finally here!!

Ben Scott Christiansen

Born: November 25, 2009

Weight: 6 lbs. 12 oz

Length: 19 Inches

Time: 1:52 pm

We love our little guy so much!

He is so much fun! He is very cute and so cuddly.

The best Doctor (Kim Cox) and best Nurse (Rhonda) anyone could ever ask for! They made this experience so calm and great, I am so greatful for that.

Daddy's little buddy

Our first family picture

Baby Guessing Time!

We are getting closer and closer so I thought that we would play a little game. I am hoping that this will make the time go by faster! It is the guessing game. Whoever guesses the day Baby Ben is due, how much he weighs, and how tall he is wins a SWEET prize! Kyle and I are so excited here are a couple of guesses so far...

Chels- Nov. 19, 7.2 lbs, 19 1/2 in

Mandi- Nov 22, 7.12 lbs, 20 in

Cort- Nov. 25, 7.6, 21 in

Granny Franzel- Nov. 21, 7.9 lbs, 20 in

Kyle- Nov. 12, 8.1, 21 in

Shan- Nov. 24, 7.8, 21 1/4 in

The official due date is Dec.6 but if you have seen me lately I really hope he comes before then. I don't think that I can get any bigger.... Everything is great so far with Ben. He is a healthy little boy.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Ice Caves

Rexburg has some pretty cool things to do if you know where to go and what to do. You really have to look for them. It was fun to climb all over and slide all around. Kyle and I thought about opening an ice skatting rink down there. If it were bigger it would be a rockin place to skate.

Kayaking

Something that Kyle got me into doing was kayaking. I love doing this! Kyle already had his own kayak so we went and bought me one. It looked just like Kyles but it was blue. We went a couple of times saw so amazing things. One time in particular we were on the south fork of the Teton river, we saw a white tailed deer, an owl coming out of its hole and when we looked inside its hole we saw 3 baby owls, 17 pelicans, 23 huge white swans, a couple of families of ducks and geese, a little beaver, a huge beaver that we couldn't figure out what it was until it came up out of the water 2 feet away from my kayak with a huge splash. It scared me so bad I almost jumped out of my kayak. We have seen so many amazing things on the river. I love it so much!

On May 21 Kyle took his brother Shane to the Teton Dam to kayak down. I drove them up and dropped them off. When I got home I get a call from Kyle. "Shan can you come get us now?" I was so confused because it had only been 30 minutes since i dropped them off. I asked if everything was alright. The reception was bad. kyle said "Ya everything is fine could you just hurry. Bring two pairs of shoes. We are in the same spot where you dropped us off." We lost connection there. As I thought about it longer; bring two pairs of shoes, hurry, pick them up in the same spot, I was freaking out just a little. When I got back up to the dam I went to the same spot. They were not there. I got out and looked around shouting their names I got no response. I started freaking out a little more. I drove around and finally I look across the river to see two boys sitting on a rock drenched from head to toe, no shoes, no paddles, no kayaks. I calmed down just a bit when I saw them both breathing.

It took about another 30-45 minutes for them to figure out how to get back across the huge river. They had to swim up stream to get to a calmer part of the river. Kyle went across first and turned to Shane and told him not to swim across. The river was freezing. He told Shane to hike up to the road and we would pick him up.

Kyle and I went downstream to look for the kayaks. We found mine but it was in the middle of the river stuck on the beginning of a little island. We couldn't get to it with out another kayak or boat or something. We found my paddle on the other side of the river on the bank. We looked for kyles stuff but couldn't see it.

We went back to the truck to go pick up Shane and look for the other kayak. We got to the top of the road that overlooks the whole river and saw kyles kayak going in circles in a little Bay area. We rushed down to get it but we were 45 seconds late. Right when we got there the current got it and sent it down the river. We chased it for as long as we could but got stuck at a farmers places. He had a gate on the road which lead to his fields of grains, potatoes, lamas, birds and other things. We went to see if we could find them to ask if he could let us by but no one was home. We back tracked and went to find Shane. Kyle dropped me off at the bridge at Monkey Rock so I could sit and watch for the kayaks to come while he went to find Shane. Of course my phone dies right then so I just sit wondering if Kyle found Shane. About an hour later Kyle comes to pick me up. He got a phone call from Shane telling us that he is in St. Anthony and a gas station. When we picked him up we find out that as he was walking the road is a little further then we thought. He was walking through thorny Fields (still no shoes) some workers saw him and went and got him on a 4-wheeler. They took him into town. He found a cell phone from someone else and we finally got him.

The story continues.... we drove back out to the dam to see if my kayak was still there. It was we figured out a way we could get it. We thought about swimming across but the current was to strong there and the water was way to cold to swim in. We thought about renting jet skis then we could have a little more fun after we found them, but that idea was out. Then we thought of a winning idea. We would barrow my grandparents raft and float down. By this time it was to late to go that night. Kyle had school the next day at 9 and we had to be in Preston to work at 3 so we did not get to the raft till Monday.

Kyles parents came up on Monday to help us. We got the raft our and invited my cousins Lesh, Emma and KT came up to go rafting with us. When we blew the raft up it was a little smaller then I had remembered. Only Kyle, Steve and Shane fit in the raft. So we sent them off. KT had her own kayak so we pushed her in and watched her go. On the first rapid (the same one Kyle and Shane flipped on) she flipped. I ran down and caught her kayak luckily. She got back in and went the rest of the way.

Lesh, Emma and I went to monkey rock to wait for them. About 2 hours later we see a orange kayak coming down the river! What a great day we found a kayak! So this very long, lessons learned experience turned out to be a crazy experience that we will never forget. Also we only ended up loosing 2 pairs of shoes, my blue smith sunglasses, 2 nalgene bottles, 2 caribeners one yellow paddle, and one blue kayak. It could have been worse. We were happy to at least find one paddle and one kayak. Now we just have to save our pennies for another kayak.

We sure did learn so much from this experience. We are very thankful that no one got hurt besides some scraped up feet and some scrapes.

Afterwards we celebrated finding our kayak by jumping off the bridge. This is Shane and Kyle.

Emma, KT, Lesh and me at the bridge watching Kyle, Stevo and Shane jump.

Camping

Kyle and I love to camp. So whenever we can, we head up to the mountains to set up camp. We load up on big sleeping bags and blankets and make a nice bed in the back of our truck. This time, we packed a dutch oven for dinner. I will say we have a long ways till we perfect the dutch oven art of cooking.

I love this picture of Kyle.

Turtles

Kyle and I thought it would be fun to buy some turtles at a flea market a couple of months ago. We bought two. About two weeks ago we were looking at them and noticed one was missing. We thought that it buried a spot for itself under the rocks to make its peace, but today Kyle walked downstairs and found little Amanda Jo in the middle of the kitchen floor. What a rambunctious turtle. I guess we are glad that she is back. Bobalouba the other turtle is really glad she is back.

My Favorites:

8 favorite TV shows:
1. We don't have a TV right now so we really don't watch much. When we go to my parents home we watch what they have on their DVR. So this is what we end up watching.
2. Lie to Me
3. Ellen

4. Office
5. American Idol
6. Darma and Greg
7. The Morning Show
8. CMT

8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Christmas Time
2. Summer Vacations
3. Having Big J's this weekend
4. Going to Costa Rica
5. Being busy at work
6. Doing a half marathon in my life time
7. Going to Wicked and having a fun day celebrating Chels' birthday
8. Elder Scotty getting home in December from his mission and then going back with him to visit after he normalizes...

8 Favorite restaurants:
1. Big J's and Pizza Villa
2. Cheesecake Factory
3. Jimmy Johns

4. Red Lobster
5. Mia Casas
6. Anything Italian
7. Olive Garden
8. The restaurant in Disney World at Epoct that serves the best Escargot!!

8 Things on my wish list:
1. Travel the world minus China, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, or any other STAN in general.
2. Get a yellow lab just like Daisey Mae
3. Live on every continent
4. Do a little bit of everything
5. Have a huge tree inside our house with a swing, rock climbing wall, sky light, and a couple of hammocks to relax in all year long
6. Open my own fancy Day Spa
7. Own a jet plane so that we can travel wherever whenever
8. Win a bazillion dollars

Kyle finished our kitchen today! He did such a great job. Kyle and I both agree that doing our dishes in a real sink is so much better then doing them in a bucket. It is so much fun that we can actually do dishes in the sink while looking out the window at the nice yard and apple trees. Also the cupboards are so nice to put our food and everything else in. So much better then the open shelves and unorganized mess that we used to have.

Here is the view of our living room. Our house is the BEST! Good work Kyle!

Our house under construction....

This was, in my opinion, the funnest thing to do in the whole construction process. It is no wonder why kids love to color on walls and have so much fun while doing it.

Kyle loved tearing down things. My favorite was a toss up between using the seldge hammer and just going crazy hitting the wall and throwing the ax at the wall and then doing it again trying to hit the same place twice.

Here is what our kitchen looked like without a sink and cabinets. My favorite is the lights.

Kyle taught me how to use a backhoe, I am a pro now.

Plumbing for the sink.

Happiest Day EVER!! We don't ever have to use a tiny little bathroom sink EVER again to clean dishes!! BEST DAY EVER!

Lets go fly a kite, up to the highest flight.....

Or until it crashes and burns into the river....

And we have to fish it out.

Friday it was a perfect day to go out and have a little fun with flying our dragon kite. It was a little on the cold side, but that is Rexburg for ya. The "wind" suddenly got really bad and flew our kite into the river. Dang wind....

The other day Kyle and I ran out of clean clothes and we still had another week before we were going to Preston. So we had no other choice but to go to the laundry mat. It was my very first time at a laundry mat. I will admit I was a little lost but we got it under control.

We live right across the street from the South Fork of the Teton River. It has been frozen for the entire time that we have lived here up until about two weeks ago. We decided that we really needed to go kayaking even though Rexburg is still in the dead of winter. Here is what became of it.

Ten foot snow drifts.

When we finally were at the end, Shane was drenched from head to toe, and I was drenched from my knees up. I bet another 30 minutes of being on the river would have turned us into icicles. Kyle on the other hand hardly got even a drop of water on him.

My helmet and sunglasses were covered in ice.

It was such a great adventure. It was both mine and Shanes first time. There was a part in the river where it turned into a huge opening and it was really windy at that time. That is where we got the wettest. Shane and mines kayak was meant to have wet suits with it and sat real low. Our skirts had holes in them and did not protect us as well as we would have liked. But it was all worth it!

A couple of Sundays ago we went on a drive to the Tetons. It was so beautiful and amazing! Here are some of our pictures from our drive.

Kyle thought that it would be funny to throw me in the snow. The snow was so deep!

Our Very First Home

Here is a peek of our house before we remodeled the kitchen and family room.

Our family room

Cosmo Krammer.

Whenever my Grandpa Egbert comes over he always says that he is going to take this and put it in his bedroom. We are just waiting for the day when we come home and he has taken it from our house to his.

The Unhurried Man.

This finger paint has become very valuble in our family. Scotty painted it and sent it out as Christmas gifts one year. I love it!

Scrapbook Room

Our kitchen now. No sink. No window. No cupboards.

The Upstairs

My walk-in closet.

What the??? What is that???

So, Kyle and I were just taking a little stroll by the river and we kept looking at this "rock" that looked really weird and furry. I guessed it to be a little cub bear that came from the Tetons. Maybe it got stuck in an avalance, ended up in the river, then the river froze over and the little cub got trapped under the ice and ended up over a rock in front of our house?? That is the thought that came into my mind when I saw this. Kyle thought it was a moose. We had to find out. Kyle went back and got his boots and went out to see what it was. What does it look like to you?

Turns out it was just a calf that had got caught in the river a couple of miles upstream. If you look real close you can see Kyle pulling its head up by the tag in the ear.

"Walking on Water"

About a week and a half ago Kyles sister Amy was over at our house and we wanted to go have a little fun. So we grabbed shuvel and headed across our street to the Teton River. We walked on it for a bit and then wanted to see how thick the ice was. We started digging and chopping at the ice. It was pretty thick ice.

We soon got boared with doing that and started walking some more. We walked around the bend, Kyle told us all about the kind of dirt that was on the banks. That was interesting...

We had our little snow fights here and there, made some snow-angles, we would have gone ice fishing if we had poles and attention span long enough to dig a real hole in the ice, but we had tons of fun just "walking on water".