Happy New Year and Stuff

Happy New Year everyone!

Just a few things that have been happening with us lately. W hope you have a fabulous new year and hope to see you soon.

Participated in Living Nativity in Alpine

Presents on Christmas morning

Skype with Mark on Christmas

Lobster Bisque! (See Studio C)

Christus on Temple Square

Lights on Temple Square

Joe ice fishing with Grandpa S.

Ryan ice fishing with Grandpa S.

Donut Party

We had our annual Christensen Cousin donut party tonight. It was quite the shindig. Uncle Roger and Aunt Julie happened to be in town and we convinced them to stay a little longer to come to the party. Grant, Sharon and Jay came down from Henefer. Joe and Kim came up from Price. Jonathan and Sarah came down from Layton. Taylor Topham came. The usual cast of Deardens and Christensens came as well. All in all we had over 40 people here. We made three batches of donuts (which Lauren calculated at about 110 donuts and corresponding holes.) By the time everybody left, we had one and three quarter donuts left. As you can imagine, it was very loud. A good time was had by all.

Many of the people in attendance

Cutest master donut chef in the world

Rat Dog

We took Belle to the groomer yesterday.

She went from looking like a sheep

To looking like a rat

After visiting the groomer, we call her the rat-dog.

The Departure

So today was the day we said goodbye to Mark as he left for his mission in Taichung Taiwan. We had quite the week leading up to the send off.

Just before the farewell talk

The farewell was on Sunday. Mark and his good friend Davis Crabb both spoke. They also played "Be Still My Soul" as a violin duet. The talks were both excellent. We felt like we should have been taking notes.

We had over 50 people at our house afterwards for pulled pork sandwiches, salads and a bazillion kinds of desserts. Thanks to all who donated food, chairs and support.

We were glad to have lots of Lindseys, Sorensons, Deardens, Warrens, Whitefields and Hancocks here just to name a few.

We were able to go with the Crabbs to an early morning session at the Salt Lake temple Tuesday morning. Thanks to the Lindseys for getting the other kids out the door for school while we were gone. It was nice to get the two missionaries together to see that someone else is going through the same thing. It was nice to get the parents together for the same reason.

Mark with grandparents

Mark was set apart by our new stake president, President Lyman last night. It was a very nice blessing and very spiritual. There were some very nice and specific promises given.

Mark and Lauren

Mark, Ryan and Joe

Mark said he was a little bit stressed out last night, but after a good night's sleep, he was good to go.

We took Mark to Panda Express for lunch. He said it was his last chance to have fake Chinese food for a while.

On the way to the MTC

Vaughn in action

The drop-off went well. Since there are so many missionaries going in to the MTC, there isn't time to say goodbye there, so we went up by the temple. We no sooner had gotten out of the car than Joe had to go to the bathroom. That broke up the tension a bit.

Vaughn Christensen was working security at the MTC. He was in the guard house so we just said hi as we went past.

Mark with his host missionary

There were lots of host missionaries there to help the new missionaries get to where they needed to go. They all looked so happy it was fun to see the excitement and made the drop off seem easier.

On the way down from the temple to the MTC, I asked Mark how he felt. He said, "Great!" He was really excited to get going.

We all held it together pretty well.

Mark, Mom and Dad at the drop-off

再見 Mark

A lady in our ward left a bag of chocolates and a pouch of Kleenex on our porch for Marsha.

We have started a missionary blog for Mark. We will post mission news, photos and letters at that site.

The adventure begins.

Kauai Vacation

Mom and Dad weren't going to use their timeshare on Kauai this year. We arm-wrestled the Theriaults for it and they were nice enough to let us use it even though they beat us.

We wanted to take a family trip before Mark leaves for Taiwan. We thought this would be a perfect opportunity. Turns out that tickets from SLC to Kauai are very expensive. After looking at all our options we decided that the best one was to fly out of LA. Marsha's Uncle Dennis lives in the area and was good enough to let us stay with him before our flight out.

We stayed just 10 minutes from Hanalei Bay and spent quite a bit of time there body surfing and boogie boarding. (We rented two boogie boards for the week.)

Marsha and Ryan boogie boarding and body surfing at Hanalei Bay

Mark in action at Hanalei Bay (One of our favorite pictures)

Did I mention that the sunsets were pretty amazing as well?

Lauren at sunset on Hanalei Bay

We rented snorkel gear (mask, snorkel and flippers) for everyone ($12/person/week) at the Kapaa Beach Shop. We kept it in the back of the van and could pull it out when we needed it. We probably snorkeled four times during the week. Everyone loved it - even Joseph who originally said he didn't want to do it. We saw some really cool fish, coral rock formations and sea turtles (more on that later.)

Ryan Snorkeling at Anini Beach

Red headed snorkel guy at Hidden Cove

Lauren Snorkeling at Anini Beach

Mark snorkeling at Anini Beach

 Marsha and Derek Snorkeling at Hidden Cove

We had most of our meals in the condo. We found that it worked well to get up, eat breakfast and just let everyone mess around for a while without a ton of pressure to get out of the condo. We would then go on a shorter morning outing. We would come back for lunch and then go on an afternoon outing. If we wanted to do something in the evening, we could do that as well.

Some of the outings we went on were:

• Hiking on the Kalalau trail along the Na Pali coast. We hiked a half mile in. Beautiful, lush, green trail with great views of Ke'e beach and the Na Pali coast.

Hiking up the Kalalau Trail

View of Ke'e beach from Kalalau Trail

Family Swimming at Ke'e Beach

• Snorkeling at Ke'e beach. This was probably the most diverse underwater scenery we saw while snorkeling. Marsha saw a humpback whale way out in the water from the shore. Parking was horrific.

Na Pali Coast from Ke'e Beach

Lauren at Queen's Bath Trail Waterfall

• Queen's Bath. This was very close to the condo that we stayed in. The Queen's Bath are some natural pools created by lava flows. There are lots of warnings not to swim if the tide is high and the surf is rough, but we had neither, so we were able to swim in it.The hike to Queens Bath is probably about a quarter of a mile. There were some really cool waterfalls on the hike. Queen's Bath was one of our favorite places.

Family above pool 2 at Queen's Bath

Marsha and Lauren swim at Queen's Bath

Mark and Lauren at Queen's Bath

• Kilauea Point Lighthouse. This is a postcard location that is just beautiful. The lighthouse itself had been under renovation for several months. It just so happened that the day we went was the re-dedication of the lighthouse. They had a Hawaiian minister who prayed both in Hawaiian and English. There were dignitaries and camera crews there. Some local school children sang and danced. It was really interesting.

  

  Family at Kilauea Point Lighthouse

  
  

  

  The postcard shot

  

  Dedication Minister

  
  

  

  Really blue water off of Kilauea

• Tunnels Beach - This is supposed to be one of the best snorkeling beaches on the North Shore. The day we went was pretty windy and the water was choppy so the snorkeling wasn't that great. The

  

  The kids at Tunnels Beach

  water was incredibly blue and beautiful though.

• Buying local fruit - We bought a fresh coconut (quite a bit different from what you can buy in the store), pineapple, mango, papaya and rambutan.

  

  Ryan drinking fresh coconut milk

  

  Joe was not a big fan.

• Snorkeling at Anini Beach - The water wasn't as clear here and there wasn't as much coral reef and cool fish, but we did get to swim with some giant sea turtles. They were really cool. The sea turtle pictured here was actually at Poipu Beach.

• Lizard hunting - Every spare moment, Ryan would go lizard hunting. We spotted green anoles and some other lizards. Ryan caught one of each. That was the highlight of his trip. We didn't see too many geckos, but we did see some.

• Hawaiin Ice - Good stuff. See for yourself.

  

  
  

  

  
  

We had to check out of the timeshare condo on Friday. We didn't fly out until Saturday, so we stayed in another condo close to the airport. We spent the day Friday seeing some sights on the southern part of the island. We tried to go to Waimea Canyon (the Grand Canyon of HI) but it was totally socked in by fog that day, so we didn't see much. It's apparently the rainiest place in the US with about 440 inches of rain a year.

Spouting Horn

Monk Seal / Legend Guy

We saw the spouting horn by Poipu Beach. There is a small flea market there where we bought some souvenirs. As we were getting ready to get back into the car, we were flagged down by a Hawaiin guy (can't remember his name) who was a monk seal rescue worker. He pointed out a monk seal on the shore and then told us a Hawaiian legend. He was pretty funny.

We went to Poipu beach but didn't swim. There were a lot of sea turtles there too.

We went to dinner at a place called Chicken in a Barrel - very delicious.

Opeakaa Falls

Wailua 

We also saw the Opeakaa Falls and Wailua Falls (from the beginning of Fantasy Island.) We got to Wailua falls pretty late, so the picture is a little dark.

We flew home on Saturday and drove home Sunday (Marsha's b-day). As a bonus, we had a tire problem, so we got to get new tires for the van before the trip home.

We had a great time and highly recommend a trip to Kauai.

Hawaiian Sunset