California Fun!!

We had lots of fun going to visit Andy's mom in California. The kids enjoyed playing with cousins, being with Grandma, going to the beach, and of course going to Disneyland.

Grandma took us to the Aquarium. Here are Lucy and Rachel.

I guess Lucas liked the aquarium too!!

We also LOVED the night Chef Robert made us some Japanese food.

Eat up Amy and Mike!

The kids spent quite a bit of time exploring grandma's fruit trees.

It wouldn't be Grandma's house without having fresh squeezed juice.

Beautiful Bride

At the end of our reunion Alisa and Ryan were married in the Salt Lake Temple
Lucy, Ethan, and Lucas - You can dress them up but you can't take them out!!! We had to leave the reception early because of MAJOR melt down!!!

Family Reunion Fun

We had a great time at our family reunion in Utah. As always it was fun to hang out with the family. We stayed plenty busy and it was a little crazy with 37 people staying in one house but it was all very fun!!
Just the Christensen siblings went to St. George with mom and dad to go to tianna's wedding. This is a blurry picture but i had to include it because it was such a fun day!! It was just like old times only this time liz wasn't stuffing her diapers with skittles (Liz - you know I had to throw that in!!!)

We had fun at the pioneer day parade and then went to Ensign Peek where the kids had fun doing who knows what!!! (that is where I opted out and went home to put Lucas to bed)

Here are Cameron and Clayton. If you couldn't find Ethan he was on the trampoline. He loved that thing!!!
We also had fun roasting marshmallows in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard.
We took a trip to the Kendacott (sp?) mine. It was pretty neat and some of the trucks there were GIANT. Check out this tire!!

What cute little boys. Here are Lucas, Zachary, and Calvin. They are all less than 3 months apart.

We did have a little down time and had fun swimming. That is Andy under the waterfall with Lucy, Ethan, and Spencer.

We enjoyed going to the Rodeo - Yee Haw!!!

Goodbye Brazil

I have not been blogging for quite some time now!!! We left Brazil over a month ago and life has been a little crazy ever since!!! But I am now back into blogging!!!

Our movers came 3 days before we actually left Brazil. We were suddenly without toys or anything to do for 3 days!!

We spent a lot of our time saying goodbye to friends and visiting certain places for the last time. Here are the kids with Steffen. He is a German boy who lived in our neighborhood. They LOVED playing with him just about every day.

The women at church SURPRISED me with a going away party. It was soooo nice of them. They are all such wonderful women and were so kind to me. There were a lot of tears this night as I told them all goodbye.

We went to the Bishop's house for a going away Churrasco. It was so fun and very kind of Dianna and Elanie to plan!


The day before we left I made one last visit to Elanie. She gave me a manicure. She was finishing Dianna's pedicure when I arrived. I LOVE these girls!!! Elanie even gave Lucy a pedicure. Lucy felt so special!


It was also sad to say goodbye to Isabel and her family. They were such kind neighbors. After Lucas was born she came to my house every week to teach me portuguese. It was very kind of her.

We also said goodbye to Camilla and Fernanda. We wouldn't have survived Brazil without them. Fernanda was so good to me and always willing to help. We will miss them so much!

After all the sad goodbyes it was off to the airport. Here is a shot of one of the luggage carts. We had a TON of luggage. This is not even all of it - not to mention we also had 3 kids to take care of. We were very strategic in getting into the airport and it was a great relief to get our luggage checked in.
And now the story begins.....
Here are Lucy and Ethan waiting in the airport - which we ended up doing a lot of!!! I'm not sure how to make this short but I will try. About 4 hours into our 10 or 11 hour flight (with 3 kids!!!) to Dallas the airplane had to make an emergency landing. We landed in Manaus (sp?) and sat on the runway for 5 HOURS!!!! So about the time we should have been landing in Dallas we were just taking off. We were glad to finally take off again only to find out we were being sent to Miami instead. So, we arrive in Miami - which felt like a foreign country - where we had to find a flight that would eventually get us to Utah which was our final destination. So after standing in line for 2 hours we had tickets to fly to New Orleans where we would have 45 min. to make the connecting flight to Dallas. By the time we got there we would have to spend the night and wait for a flight out to utah the next day!!! We were lucky to make our connection in New Orleans due to weather and were soooooo o happy to find a hotel and sleep for a bit before leaving the next morning. We did finally arrive in Utah - 24 hours late but we did arrive and miracle of miracles all our luggage caught up to us by the time we got there!! It was a long exhausting trip but thank goodness our kids were ANGELS!!!! They were so good. It could have been much worse if they had been crying and well you know!!!!

Although I am very happy to be back in the United States it was really hard to leave Brazil. It was hard to say goodbye knowing that more than likely we will not be back and won't see these people. We love Brazilians. They are ALL so nice. I don't think you can find a kinder people. We learned a LOT in the year we were gone and had some wonderful experiences. We will always be grateful for the wonderful friends who made life in Brazil much easier.