Todd and Crystal's Baby was born!

This morning at 6 am, Steven Wyatt Christensen (I'll let you know later if that is incorrect) was born. He was 7 lbs. 2 oz. and 18 in tall. Mother and son are both doing fine. We'll post pictures tonight.

The Heinz 57 Entry

In my 8th grade metal shop and drafting class, Heinz 57 was the day that we didn't have new assignments and could work on projects that we were falling behind on. I've been told that I am falling behind on my blog. I thought that once every two months was fairly active. Guess I was wrong.

Most of the news I have now is anything but; however, I do have some pictures of the olds.

Jim and Jenni visit and we take the kids sledding:

Grandma Wheat and gingerbread houses

Grandma Wheat came down from Tacoma to visit us for Thanksgiving. It's always a treat for us when she can come down. The highlight for Judy is celebrating Black Friday with Sharon at all the big events. They've found some great deals over the years and bonded over snatching the last electronic gizmo from a slow mother-of-five shopper with sharp elbows (how's that for a tenderizing moment, Nick?) (Okay, I just made up that last part.) The highlight for the kids is decorating gingerbread houses.

This year, Judy decided that we'd save some money by making our own gingerbread instead of wimping out with those pre-made kits. This also let the kids let loose with their imagination. Taken as a whole, they turned out pretty good, if you don't try to psychoanalyze what it all might mean. And you need to realize that these were done mostly without input from Ethan.

This first house was designed by Grandma Wheat, Judy, and Kyle. It is your basic frame house with frosted-Sixlet tiles, gabled roof, Nerd-strewn path. In the front yard is a grill for barbecuing meat or smoking turkey. It all went fairly traditionally, until Kyle discovered the red frosting. Then a pine tree met an untimely death in the side yard. That is the traditional house.

Lia and Berrett's house was captured during a series of disturbing events. When they found that the Nicco Wafer didn't go as far as anticipated, they decided to simply burn the structure with cinnamon candies. Ethan decided that the roof was then a good place for the scorched gingerbread men.

Down below in the front yard, another mishap was occurring. The lumberjack didn't clear the area before chopping down the tree, and, oh, the horror!
And I think I'll leave it to Lia to explain what is happening behind the house during all this mayhem.

We may need to have a little talk.

Dad's been askin', so here are my calendar pictures:

Here's another picture from Brian. Shannon is the baby and the boy holding her is Lois' brother Kay. I assume this was taken somewhere in Menan. Maybe Mom can fill in some of the details.

Brian Berrett has been scanning his parents' slides lately and sent me a couple of pictures from way back. 1965.


I recognize the style of the chair and couch, but I remember them being a different color. Maybe I was color-blind as a kid. Or am I now? The lamp looks familiar, but what really got me is the end table. I have both of them in my house now and one of them is sitting right next to me. Sturdy things, aren't they?

So, which house from 1864 South is it taken in? I surely wouldn't know. Anything else you can tell from the pictures?

Halloween review

Yeah, it's been a long time. Halloween is over and Thanksgiving is imminent. I'll gladly take Thanksgiving over Halloween. Two days off beats dress-up and a bucket of candy any time. But it might be good to do a Halloween post-mortem to put it to rest and give Sherry something to look at next year.

This year we only had two kids dress up at any one time. We have a church party the Wednesday before Halloween that the kids go to. The young women/men direct different activities and games for the kids. That gave Lia an opportunity to dress up. She went goth/emo.


Kyle dressed up as a Jedi wolf with a clipboard so he could write out his Jedi plans.

Ethan went as a kid with a scooter (he decided he couldn't wait for us and left early on his scooter without dressing up). He got his come-uppance later when he was attacked by a rogue cup of raspberry slush and left the party as a victim of a random act of violence.