Shutter bug

Thank goodness for digital cameras these days: Lucy is continuing a tradition her dad engaged in -- taking the parent's camera and shooting up all the film. The nice part about the digital camera is that after she fills it, we can view the pictures and empty the camera and it did not cost us developing film.

Lucy shot a ride range of objects in her last photo session, and I have decided to share some of the best of them with you (and I most say, a number of these are not bad for a 4 year-old).

Studies of color, shapes, lines and textures:



Product placement (had to scan these as we have lost the digital images):



Celebrity photography:



(I would have posted other *celebrities*, but I was threatened with sleeping on the couch for a month if any incriminating photos were posted.)

Still life studies:



Self-portrait of the photographer:




Pretty impressive. As a side note: out of the 97 pictures she took, not a single one had a thumb in the frame!

Playing Football

On the day that Anders turns 14, what better way to celebrate than to post some football film and pictures from his 8th Grade season at Linn-Mar.

Anders was a starter on both offense (right tackle) and defense (left or right defensive end). During the course of the season he made a number of very good plays, and in fact, most of the teams after testing his side of the line, would run most plays away from Anders.

You can get a sense of his size (he is #75) as compared to the other defenders on his team. He started the season a little over 5'9" and 160 lbs. He finished the season 5'10" and around 165 lbs. Like most Christiansens, Anders goes to the school where Soccer and Basketball reign supreme, and football can seem like an exercise in futility. But the guys show up every week and work hard. One great thing about the program as well is that they combine the kids from the two Linn-Mar middle schools into one team, so Anders gets to know guys he will see in High School next year.

In this video, you can watch Anders pick up a fumble and rumble towards the goal line. Does he make it? (Sorry for the jumpy video, but the camera-lady was a little excited!)

In this second video, watch Anders shoot through the gap (sorry about the jumpiness, the cameraman was excited!) ...

While Anders preference was for defense and hitting guys, he did a very good job on offense as well. Here you can see Anders throwing a block on the opposing team's #75.

Anders continued his starting ways all season long and played almost every single down. He was a true ironman. We look forward to his pursuits in the high school realm starting next year.

Jenna's Baptism

A great event happened on August 23 -- Jenna was baptized by her dad, and then confirmed a member of the Church and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost by her grandfather.

Jenna was very excited that her Grandma Goodrich, and Grandma and Grandpa Christiansen were able to come to Iowa to participate in this special event.

It was a long baptismal event as Jenna was being baptized with 4 of her friends who also had August birthdays: Alena, Sara and James. The family survived the event, and even had the ability to smile for the camera afterwards (although I think that was because of the amounts of cookies and chocolate milk that was inbibed!)

The following Tuesday, the family made a trip down to Nauvoo to see some of the sites: the blacksmith where Jenna received a "baptismal" horseshoe and the family learned about how many processes went into making a wagon wheel (the spokes, the tire, the wheel, the axle, the wheel hub, the chiseling, bending, shaping, curing fitting with no nails used; the bakery where each of us received a yummy sample of molasses cookies and learned about one family's conversion story; the Lucy Mack Smith house where the Prophet Joseph's mother lived after his martyrdom until she passed away (the kids weren't sure if a trap door that locked them in/parents out was a good or bad idea).

One of the most interesting places that the family enjoyed was the Family Living Center where they had many demonstrations and some activities you could do yourself: candle making (at left) had the girls really interested, and we all learned to tie a rock to keep your wick taunt; rope making (right) was one activity where you could actually make a rope and keep your handiwork; there was bread making (where you had a sample of fresh bread where instead of "yeast" you would use "potato water" to leaven the bread; rag rugs (both square and round), barrel making and pottery making were two other activities.

But the most fun the kids had? Throwing rocks in the Mississippi River (of course); but, there is some history behind the place where they threw in the rocks: it was at the end of Parley Street where the Saints drove their wagons across the frozen Mississippi River in February 1846 to Montrose, Iowa to start the trek to Utah, or after the thaw, took ferries across the 1 mile wide river to start the trek.

So while the children tossed in the rocks, their dad took a moment to provide them an historical lesson. "Aw Dad. Enough with the history!"

Crazy Train: Part Two

We decided to take a day and go visit Boone, Iowa.

Why?

Can you say TRAINS?

There is the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad & Museum. We thought the kids would enjoy it -- especially the youngest one.

One thing we didn't count on: Boone, Iowa gets a Union Pacific train roaring through about every 30 minutes. We didn't need to get tickets as Levi would have been thrilled to just watch the trains roar by.

At 1:15 PM we loaded aboard the train for an almost two hour train ride through the hills, across the valleys and over the Des Moines River.

There were plenty of window seats for each kid to sit at and look out (or hang out of as the case may be). Levi enjoyed looking ahead every time he heard the train ring its bell or blow its whistle.

The other great aspect of the train ride besides the family friendly atmosophere and the sites along the track was the ability to pack a lunch for the family to eat on the train.

Levi was having one of the best days of his life so far: watching lots of trains, riding a train and eating pizza all at the same time.

Levi was not the only one having a grand time as all the rest of the kids were enjoying the ride as well.

At the end of the ride, there were many happy smiles. Mom and Dad are even thinking about going and doing the dinner run sometime.

Row B: 101 102

Jenna and I took a whirlwind trip to New York last weekend. We were supposed to leave Thursday night, but a radar went down in Chicago -- so we left at 5 AM on Friday morning.




After the taxi ride, we went bowling with people I work with in New York. I am big enough to admit that she actually had a higher score than I did the first game. And for her 3rd game, she bowled a 100 which is really good (she bowled two strikes in that game).




On Friday evening, I surprised her with tickets to The Lion King Broadway musical and imagine my surprise when our seats turned out to be front row, right on the aisle! The play opens with the title song, and you have all of these "animals" that come walking down the aisle and up on the stage right past you. When the song ended, Jenna closed her mouth (her jaw had hit the floor when the song started) and said "This is AWESOME!"

After getting back to the hotel after midnight (she was hungry, so we walked from 40th street to 60th to find an open McDonald's at midnight) we crashed.

Saturday started at 10 AM with Jenna putting down 3 bowls of cereal and 6 strips of bacon + a donut. Then we headed off to "the Museum" -- the American Museum of Natural History (or as most kids know it -- Night at the Museum from the movie).

Of course we had to find her favorite characters -- "Rex" the T-rex who chases his own rib, and the talking head who wants "gum gum".

After finding all the neat stuff in the museum, we headed off across Central Park to find the Balto statue. On our way we stopped at the Carousel -- this thing is fast! I had troubles taking a non-blurry picture of Jenna flying past.

After a couple of wrong turns, a water, and a popsicle we found the statue.

Now it was time to go to Toys R US to check out all the fun things. Jenna was most excited by the Barbie store as you can imagine. We finally decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel to get ready for the 6 AM flight back to Iowa.



Still, that 6 AM flight gave Jenna enough time to have yet another bowl of cereal to snack on.

All aboard the Crazy Train

To say that Levi is "crazy" about trains isn't even the half-of it. He has a number of favorite train videos he likes:

Numa numa train
Brio Train
Union Pacific "Big Boy"
Amtrak Milwaukee Trains

And his favorite: Trollet paa Tur (because it has a bus, and a train and a car ...)

Anyone notice it is the Scandinavians who post the most toy train videos?

Modern Art

The girls love to decorate their rooms with many different looks -- here are their latest efforts using nothing more than what they could get their hands on + masking tape:






This reminds me of a building in San Francisco where the artist attached a bunch of furniture to the outside (I guess it has a name).

Family Traditions

Ah, July 4th, a time of family traditions.

Denise and I have been cognizant this year of many of the family traditions that we have had either growing up and that we incorporated, or ones that we have created over the last 21 years of our marriage. Family traditions are ways of distinguishing between families ("They must be Christiansens...") or different lines of the same family ("They must belong to those Fairchilds...") or even within the same family ("They are definately HIS kids!")

This last Memorial Day, Denise and I did what I called the "Fairchild Memorial Day" tradition -- we went and visited a number of graveyards in Illinois of Fairchild ancestors. Afterwards, we went to a park and played on a number of old, 50s era park toys (they are made out of what appears to be lead pipes, and they have uncovered screws and other sharp corners available for the horde to get all bunged up on. Reference picture with Denise and Anders), and we had a traditional family feast -- courtesy of Culvers. Todd is going to say "Wait, you missed the one BIG important tradition!" and he was right. So I saved it for July 4th.

July 4th dawned with nice blue skies, warm, not too hot and thankfully not too humid either. It was going to be a different July 4th for us since downtown Cedar Rapids was wiped out in a flood 3 weeks ago. I have spent much of the last weeks working 20 hour days salvaging the old office, preparing the new office and trying to keep production moving at OmniLingua Worldwide. So our plans were simple -- stay home, do a little grilling, and light the great assortment of fireworks that you can legally light in Iowa -- snakes and sparklers. Little did Denise know that there would be two new traditions added to the horde this year: water fight (there you go Todd!) and Greek barbecue.

I awoke early and made my plans:

Water fight check list

1. Hose that dad controls - done

Okay, so the water fight was prepared for. Now the Greek barbecue:

Greek barbecue check list:

1. New grill to grill with (no gas!)
2. "British sugar"
3. Pork
4. Lamb
5. Pork
6. Souvlaki
7. Feta cheese
8. Pork
9. Saganaki
10. Pork

This being Iowa (Pork: The Other White Meat(c)) lamb is hard to find, but after some diligent searching, I was able to procure some lamb chops for an exhorbitant price! Feta -- took the only two packages available that was "fresh feta" cheese (comes from sheep's milk, shhhh, don't tell the kids). Saganaki -- couldn't find anything appropriate to combust the cheese, so scratch that. And for other Greek substitutes, instead of these nice cured pork strips you can get in Greece, I had to make do with thick sliced Amana Bacon, and I used Italian Sausages (somehow I am going to have to figure out how to sneak in the appropriate meat!).

So armed with all the ingredients, and after putting the legs on the new grill wrong not once, but TWICE, we were ready to start the festivities. Enjoy the slide show.

Oh, and the water fight -- let's just say it somehow started when Denise "accidently" fell into the little kids pool, uhm, head first. Three broken truces and a little "rub-raw" from sliding around on the trampoline later, the water fight was ended ... for now ...