My Crazy Weekend

I could go into tons of detail about my weekend, but maybe this makes more sense.

My sweetie is on Las Vegas with Curly doing this.

Scout took care of Baby Doll at this (they took 2nd place again!)

I got to do this.

 

Yeah, we have cookies! If I have an order for you, I will see you soon...

Update from Sister Crafty

We found out about two weeks ago that Sister Crafty would be returning to the Philippines asap to finish the last 6th months of her mission. It was a whirlwind of Amazon searches for me, just trying to get her ready to go. She finally let everyone know right before she left Wichita.

Surprise! I'm leaving for the Philippines early on Wednesday! It's been almost two years since I was a missionary there so I can't believe I'm going back. I am not sure if I will have a lot access to Facebook there so you might not see me for a while (aka 6 months).

If you need to tell me something personally while I'm gone, please email me at kaylan.christensen@missionary.org

If you are looking to get closer to Jesus Christ or to understand more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, please reach out to my friend Catherine Brady. She is a wonderful missionary and she will be able to help you.

I love you all! Kitakits!

I got half an hour to talk with her while she was at the airport. Mostly, we ran through the Tagalog flash cards I had purchased for my Girl Scout meeting. Her flight was running late. 

Then it was time... and she was gone. 

She mentioned that maybe she could call again in Denver or when she got to Los Angeles, but I guess she didn't have time, because I didn't hear from her again until early Saturday morning.

Then I got this:

Hey mom, I just wanted to let you know that I am alive :) 

Warmest regards, 

-Sister Christensen

I can hardly wait to actually talk to her tomorrow. She was expecting to spend a few days in Manila at the MTC before leaving for her original assignment in Naga. It's all SO exciting!

I will keep you posted.

Wanna Be a Writer: Haikus in the Park

Today is my mom's 84th birthday. Even though she has been gone for many years, I still miss her. She was always busy taking care of her 8 children, but she still found time to play with us, even before she discovered video games.

We made up little dances and exercises. We sang and we played cards. One of my favorite activities was making up little verses and rhymes. 

She and Drama Queen have very similar personalities... they both loved a good pun or couplet. 

I thought of her that day in the park when Baby Doll, Scout, and I sat together and watched the boys while we made up 3 silly little Haikus.

Trucks are wandering,

blue skies over sailing ball.

Winter days are gone.

Haikus in the park

more fun than doing homework.

Let's stay here all day.

Words play on paper,

the meaning doesn't matter.

Haiku is the game.

And one more just for your birthday, Mom.

Work all day and night

cooking, cleaning, kids asleep

love unfeigned, my mom

Update From Elder Sport

Hey everyone! That last couple weeks have been pretty crazy, and kind of a blur to be honest haha. 

I lifted a recliner above my head moving it to a third story attic apartment for this crazy guy who worked secret projects for the government, had Wendy's with a retired Catholic priest, moved a former basher for 3 hours, tried to eat a 3 pound burger, got a brand new $40 board game for free, slipped on ice 3 separate times, stole fictional treasure from one of the members in Hero Quest, had one of my roommates turned 21 and get bit by a dog, had to yell to teach an old dude who doesn't have hearing aids because he's scared of 5G, and had a former tell us he is Jesus Christ. Yup. 

We met an awesome dude, Porter on Facebook, we send 20 sec videos, and he sent a video back! That never happens, haha. We had 2 lessons already and he came to church! We found a couple other people this week, one who we just happened to get in a locked apartment and find. He is a former who is interested again. 

We also had our friend Billy-Jack come to church for the first time in 15 years. We walked in and he had friends run up and hug him in the middle of the chapel. It was so awesome. I also had this cool experience, we were in and ordinary feeling member lesson, and someone mentioned the Sacred Grove. I immediately had the spirit bask over me for like 30 seconds and it was a very special gift, I never want to forget that feeling. 

Scripture:

In Alma 2 a part of the Nephites want Amlici to be their king. They rebel and start a civil war. The Nephite army drives them out of their land. Suddenly the Nephite spies find out the unthinkable. The Amlicites had joined with the Laminites, and were headed toward Zarehemla, to destroy everything. They hurry back and a massive battle takes place. When all is said and done the Nephites win, and head back home. We are the left to read the first line of Alma 3:2.

Alma 3:2

2. Now many women and children had been slain with the sword....

After everything the fought for, they came back and were too late. These men went through so much, just to realize who they had fought for had been taken from them. After all this they don't give up, and they fight again when the Laminites come back. 

That chapter just hit me really hard this week. 

My sister, Kaylan is off to the Philippines this week, which is so exciting!

My trainer from Dickinson, Elder Leonard goes home this next week, so best of luck to him, and I know he'd say to remember to Launch out into the Deep! Luke 5:4

Hope you all have a great week, mine will be a very cold, snowy one!

-Elder Sport 

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Birthday, Twizlet

Stop the Clock

After unpicking and restitching for most of the week, I handed off 10 pairs of resized baseball pants and one resized shirt. (I still have one shirt I'm working on. Curly took this terrible pic for me right before he turned them over to the coach.

So excited that the season starts this weekend! One more shirt to go...

Baby Shark Doo Doo...

We have had SO much fun swimming this past week! On Friday, after DARE graduation and then after the zoo, we went swimming with our girl scout troop. So along with 13 of my 15 scouts, I had Princess's little guys and since Bossy is a troop leader, she was also there with her 2 little guys. It was pretty crazy!

After our scout activity, my sweetie, Curly, and I drove for an hour each way to take take Tadpole and Polliwog home. I was exhausted by the time the day was done.

Then on Saturday, The Beast called to see if I wanted to take his boys swimming while he and Curly spent some time upstairs in the gym. Of course Bossy and her boys were up for another trip to the pool; she bought a new swimming suit on Saturday morning!

I forgot to take any pics while we were in the pool, and Baby Doll got after me for grabbing these in the locker room, but I figured everyone was decent so it was ok.

At least I hope so...

Baby Doll DAREs

We did a lot of fun things this past week with Princess's boys, but one of the most noteworthy was Baby Doll's DARE graduation. (They didn’t love it, but they did get a cookie at the end, so that's good...)

As you probably know, DARE is an empowering program to teach 5th graders to avoid drugs, bullying, and other harmful stuff.

They have a police detective from the city come in over the course of about 6 weeks and teach these techniques. The kids love it!

They get a tshirt and a pencil and a fistbump from the mayor. But my favorite part is the song. I can't seem to upload it for you, but you might want to google the DARE song.

Watching the Animals

Today was our last day of watching Princess's boys for nearly a week. She and The Frog enjoyed another cruise to Mexico. Hopefully she will write another post for us so we can be jealous again.

Just kidding.

Mostly.

I wanted to tell you how much fun we had at the zoo this morning. 

Bossy came along with her littles and Burrito. He turned 15 today; Happy Birthday, Burrito!

We had a great time.

Back to Baseball

Curly started practicing for the upcoming baseball season the first week in January, and they have their first baseball tournament next weekend. Coach called me on Monday to let me know the uniforms were in.

As usual, some of them are running too big, so he asked me to meet up with the team on Tuesday night to see what needs adjusting. Of the 12 boys, 5 have pants that need at least 3 inches taken out of the waist!

 

But it gets worse...

The pants come in both blue and white, which makes a total of 10 pairs. Each one also has that lovely stripe down the outside that has to be removed and replaced.

So do the beltloops on both sides.  I have one week. Start the clock...⏰

Wordless Wednesday - Look Who Came to Visit

Happy Valentine's Day to my Sweetie

We started out with great chemistry...

Things just keep getting better and better.

Happy Valentine's Day, Sweetie. Love you the most!💕

Scout's First Sweetheart's Dance

She didn’t want to go. But I said, "You are an FCCLA Officer." She looked annoyed. "You have to go." This argument took a month before finally last week she agreed to go...IF she could have a new dress. "Ok," I grumbled. Then she promptly invited Burrito to be her date.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but after about 30 seconds, I smiled and jumped in with both feet. "Taco needs a date too. Then you will have a group." He invited a cutie from the Cupcake Club and we were off and running.

The theme was 50s, so I ordered a dress on Amazon. It was my job to procure flowers, give haircuts, and take pics (although the pics were my idea; I could hardly get them to stand still long enough for me snap a few).

Turns out they had a great time! They did a cookoff which took care of dinner (thank goodness I was at a volleyball tournament; they trashed my kitchen). Then they came back afterward and played games until 11:00 PM. First high school dance... done. 

I win.

Baby Doll Plays Volleyball

We crawled out of bed this morning at dark-thirty. My sweetie packed our camp chairs and some drinks in the backpack with his computer. We had been driving about 20 minutes when the sun peeked over the mountain. It was SO beautiful.

We had to be in Spanish Fork by 7:45 on a Saturday morning because Baby Doll was super excited to play volleyball. The sunrise was just a bonus.

The morning started with pool play; 6 games and a chance to ref, all before 11:00 AM.

Baby Doll's team qualified for the silver bracket and now it was win or go home. 

They seemed almost surprised when they won the first match in two games. They took down their second opponent in 2 more.

The championship was within their grasp as they won the first game against the pink team. Unfortunately, the pink team pulled off a win in the second game by only 2 points.

The final game to 15 slipped away from us by a few points, but I was so proud of my awesome girl. 

It was definitely worth getting up early.