Yeah for Team Jolene!

I had the great pleasure to raise money again this year with some others for Team Jolene, in memory of our good friend Jolene Armstrong who passed away in 2006 from complications from Cystic Fibrosis. All money we raised goes directly to the CF Foundation, who I have been thankful to work closely with the past three years. They are a fabulous foundation, run by terrific people of integrity, and I really enjoy raising money for Jolene with these amazing people.

This year specifically, Erin Jones and I put together a Clothing Exchange Fundraiser for our team. We had friends and family bring over gently used clothing, as well as a donation to the CF Foundation, and we all had a great night of eating, chatting, exchanging clothing, and talking about Jolene and her beautiful example to all of us. What a great night!

Erin, Kim, and myself buried in clothes!

Then last weekend my whole family had the opportunity to walk in the Great Strides Walk for CF that we have every year. This is more of a celebration walk, to commemorate the fund-raising year and recognize those who have helped to contribute to the cause. We had so much fun walking for Jolene, chatting with all of the other wonderful people there who support CF, and helping out with the event. I only wish that I could have done more this year!! We had so much fun with everyone though, cheering those on who were walking and the children with CF who were present, playing with all of the children there, eating a great lunch provided by Sherms BBQ. And we were even more energized for the next year! We love you Jolene and promise to keep your spirit and example alive!
Dylan eating a donut getting ready to walk. :) Doesn't he look cute in his new CF shirt?
Lucas helping me at the registration table. Though I feel like I didn't do much to help!
Team Jolene!

Me and beautiful Kaitie. Her mom and dad are the ones who run the Great Strides Walk in our area. They are a beautiful family and I am thankful to work with them!

The boys and I ready to walk!

Teage and the boys walking along the route!

Our Team Jolene flava.....

As summer nears an end...

So much has happened in the last few weeks, and I have been way to busy to keep up with the blog! We have been having so much fun as a family lately though, it really has been a wonderful end of summer. Here are some highlights:
Right before we left for Italy, Teage's family came for a visit from Utah. We took the opportunity to have a Christensen family picture taken by one of my friends who also happens to be a fantastic photographer....if you would like to see her website go to http://www.ravissantphotography.com/.

A few weeks after Itlay we were able to go camping with some great friends of ours, the Waggoners. The boys had never been camping before, and I was deathly afriad to sleep in a tent with two 2-year old boys, so we went to Camp Zarahemla where they have rustic cabins to rent instead. :) What a perfect camping experience for me! We still cooked all meals outside, played and had fun at the lake, and had all other fun "real" camping experiences, but had a nice roof over our head when we slept. :) Perfect! We had so much fun with our friends, probably a little too much actually. We had a hard time leaving so Teage could get back to work. We went canoeing everyday, ate way too many smores, played soccer with all of the boys and Maddie, etc etc. What a blast!The boys' first smores experience! It was so funny to watch them try to eat all the chocolate they could without getting marshmellow all over themselves.

Mr. Teage and Mr. Corey being masters of the canoes.

The boys having a little pow-wow...

The boys are also completely obsessed with baseball right now. Every time they see any game on TV, any picture in the newspaper, they start yelling about "hitting far" and "Ichiro!!". They really get excited about it. So, we decided to go to one last game before the end of the season, and end of summer. We were worried about the boys being up too late, the games don't start until 7pm, but they did amazing! Dylan didn't even want to leave at 9:30 at night, they were having too much fun! They were high-fiving, singing, dancing, cheering for the "Mariners!!!!!". They were even dancing so hard that they ended up on the jumbo-tron in the stadium! It was so much fun! Both boys were standing on our laps dancing during the middle of an inning and all of a sudden I look up at the screen, and there we are!

Bye bye summer....we will miss you! :)

The Christensens invade Ocean Shores

A few weeks ago we went to Ocean Shores with my step-dad's family for a family reunion. Teage and I were extremely excited about this because the boys had never seen the ocean before, or even been on sand, so it was going to be a fun first for us! :) We were a little worried about cramming into one hotel room with my mom and step-dad (worried for them more then us!), but we ended up having such a fantastic time! The first day we arrived we went straight to the beach for the boys. And boy did they have fun. Normally my little men are pretty timid in new situations, but they just went for it! They were playing in the water, running away from waves, trying to skip rocks like Poppi, and just having a blast! I was so thankful that they had such a great time, because for us, it was priceless!

The next day we were able to get together with the whole family for a lunch on the beach, and catch up with everyone. It was so fun to see them all again, as many we had not seen since our wedding over 5 years ago. My aunt and uncle live in Ocean Shores, so they hosted our big family dinner that night as well. We ate our hearts out, took some family reunion pictures, had fun watching the boys chase the dogs (at my horror....thinking they were going to knock down all of the beautiful decor in the house!), and laughed for hours. The boys were the only grand kids in the family so far, so it was wonderful to see everyone else interacting with them and having a lot of silly fun.

The weekend was a short, but great one overall. We are so excited to see the Engbretson family more often, and definitely have more priceless memories at the beach with the boys!

Walking up to the beach with Poppi

Tutu showing Lucas his first shell

Standing by their names in the sand....they didn't quite get why Daddy was doing this. :)

Dylan and Poppi running from the waves!

And Lucas and Daddy running from the waves.

Our first family beach picture! You will probably see this one on the Christmas card this year. :)

The whole Engbretson family at the reunion

Me and my brother, Christopher. We always call him "Toph" so the boys have taken to calling him "Uncle Toph"....it is pretty darn cute actually.

Team Jolene Cont...

I just wanted to remind anyone who would like to walk with us on September 26th at 11am, that you can sign up at the website for Team Jolene, www.cff.org/great_strides/Erinchristensen

Please sign up if you would like to walk with us, because then they can keep track of the number of walkers, and you get a t-shirt! :)

Also, if you would like to donate, please make sure you check with your employer, for MANY companies match non-profit contributions!

And please remember that even a donation as small as $5.00 helps tremendously!

Thank you everyone! We love Jolene and want to keep her memory alive, as well as help all those other children in the US with Cystic Fibrosis. The Foundation is making wonderufl strides but need our help to find a cure!

We love you!

Go Team Jolene!!!

Hi everyone! As many of you know, our dear friend Jolene passed away in 2006 from complications of Cystic Fibrosis. She continues to be a shining example to me of strength, love, and integrity, and I am thankful to be able to contribute to this cause that she loves so much.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a devastating genetic disease that affects tens of thousands of children and young adults in the United States. Research and care supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is making a huge difference in extending the quality of life for those with CF. However, we continue to lose precious lives to CF every day. That's why your help is needed now more than ever to ensure that a cure is found sooner - rather than later.

GREAT STRIDES is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's largest and most successful national fund-raising event. This year, I'm walking in the GREAT STRIDES walk at the Snoqualmie location on September 26th 2009. Please help me meet my fund-raising goal of $1,500.00 by sponsoring me. Your generous gift will be used efficiently and effectively, as nearly 90 cents of every dollar of revenue raised is available for investment in vital CF programs to support research, care and education.

If you would like to join our team, or donate to this cause that we are so passionate about, please visit our Team Jolene page at www.cff.org/great_strides/ErinChristensen

Thanks everyone! We love you all!!!

Love, Erin and Teage

I am feeling loved :)

I had a long (but good) day yesterday..... But after I got home from my photography appointment, this is what I found as a surprise!

What a great end to the day! I am so thankful for all three of my adorable boys! Thank you my loves! What a lucky girl I am!

Italy, The Final Installment

And the forth and final chapter of our Italian get-a-way. :)

The last day at the villa we relaxed, swam in the pool, and hung out enjoying our scenery. We tried our hardest to really soak in where we were and who we were with. This is Betu, the groundskeeper at the villa who we just adored. He tried really hard to make sure that we were comfortable the whole week and was just a really sweet person, we took to him instantly.

On our last night in Tuscany, we went out to dinner at a local restaurant in Sinalunga and ate up a storm. :) The portions in Italy are usually smaller then we are used to in the US, so we all ended up ordering more then we should have. Also in Italy, it isn't polite to leave any food on your plate, so we all ended up stuffing ourselves in order to not offend our nice waitress. :) The food was extremely good though!

Our last full day in Italy, we were back in Rome and were able to tour Vatican City. What an amazing experience that was! Sean, Teage, and I had tickets to the tour at the Vatican Museum, so we took a very overpriced taxi to the city. The tour was amazing! We saw so many gorgeous historical pieces of art history, including the Rafael room, the "map" room, and a whole room full of tapestries. I was so thankful for our tour guide, as she explained all of the significance of each piece, how it was done, and why it is so important for us to study. This was our tour guide at the beginning of the tour. She was explaining the Sistine Chapel to all of us because we are not allowed to talk while we were in the actual chapel. At the end of the tour we just stood in the Sistine Chapel for about 20 minutes, admiring Michelangelo's amazing piece of art. It is hard to describe the feelings as you stand under one of the most famous works of art in the world, we just loved the whole experience.

That last night in Rome we celebrated David's 16th birthday. What a better place to celebrate a birthday then in Rome Italy!! He was surprised with a yummy berry cake and a roaring Happy Birthday song so that he was sufficiently embarrassed. It was a lot of fun!

And of course we had to top the night off with our last family game of Knock. We had played Knock every single night while we were in Italy, a family tradition just about every time we are all together. So, we all gathered around a tiny little hotel table and played our last few games of Knock before we all had to endure our long plane trip home.

Teage and I had such a fantastic time on our trip to Italy. We are so thankful for this opportunity we had to travel to such an amazing part of the world with wonderful family. We are so appreciative of Dad and Lisa for all they did for us on this trip, and for my Mom and Dan for watching the boys the whole week. We will always remember this amazing experience!

Italy, Part 3

Wow, this is getting long. :) I just can't decide what to share, and what not to!

After visiting the Civita di Bagnoregio, we decided to venture up to another hilltop town in Tuscany, this one the beautiful town of Orvieto which is known for it's amazing ceramics. Orvieto is another gorgeous little town on top of a hill, with tiny cobblestone streets that are all one way, and we did end up getting terribly lost before we found a parking lot. :) Orvieto also has an amazing cathedral in the center of town, so big in fact that it looks like it doesn't fit into the town at all. It had amazing architecture and a beautiful story surrounding it.

Then on Tuesday, we decided to visit the local street market, which was a lot of fun. It was very interesting to listen to us try to barter with people in a mix of English and Spanish, knowing no Italian what-so-ever. :) Then later that day we did another hilltop town visit, this time to a little town named Trequanda, just a little away from where we were staying. This town was pretty tiny, and had absolutely NO tourists, so it was great to walk around all by ourselves and take in the beautiful scenery and architecture. We also found a great overlook where we took some fun pictures of the family.

That night we took some family pictures outside of our villa, that turned into a really fun photo shoot. :) Here is the whole family in my favorite shot....doesn't my Dad look just perfect with his little smirk on his face and all of us around him? :)

The next day was a long (and wonderful!) one! My amazing grandparents hired a tour guide for us in Florence, so we drove up there for the day. Our guide was simply fantastic, I am so thankful that she was there with us, as I do not know much about art history and would not have gotten nearly as much out of the trip if she had not been there to hold our hands! :) We saw the statue of The David, went to the Uffizi Museum and saw many Rafael paintings, Michelangelo's only painting on wood, etc etc. She explained so much about the Renaissance era and how certain styles of painting came about, etc. It was just amazing. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures from Florence, as you are not allowed to photograph any of these paintings or sculptures.

The cathedral and baptistery in Florence.

One of the things that my Dad wanted to do most of all was to see the Mediterranean Sea. So, we drove from Florence over to the coast and all put our feet into the Mediterranean! We didn't stay long, and it was quite a trip to get over there and back, but we were very thankful that we did it, it was very worth it!

We missed Dylan and Lucas just a little bit...can you tell?? :)