Relieve

I have been on call for Federal jury duty for the past 2 months. This was my last week to call in. My number was called! I showed up with 45 other potential jurors for a Federal criminal case. The accused allegedly robbed a bank with an illegal shotgun and took the cops on a high speed chase through 3 counties. I stayed at the court house most of the day being quizzed by the lawyers, but I was not chosen!

I am elated that I did not have to serve at this time, although it would have been intriguing! I would have needed to change my whole week. I am leaving in the morning to a conference where I am presenting 2 sessions. If I had been chosen I would have needed to impose on others to wing it in the presentations themselves. Speaking of the presentations, I finished them (finally).

I a family note...Paisley placed 4th again in her cross country meet last weekend. She is far exceeding our, hers, and the coaches expectations. I am happy that she is successful. Her and Margo (her best friend) are the only Freshman on the High School team. They are gaining great credibility with the coaches for future years.

Rachel is working her fingers to the bones. I wish I could releive her of some of her worry and responsibility. I just need to continue helping around the house as much as possible to assist.

Zach's leg is still broken. Homecoming is rapidly approaching, I don't know if he will go, I kind of hope he does. There are some good young women in our Stake and he is a reasonable young man! :)

Ayden insists on playing his baritone A LOT! I think he is excited, and it is good to see him focus.

The other three boys are just rough and tumble boys, with PLAY in their minds. That is it for this week.

Hectic day

We are working through many changes in our family this new school year. Rachel started driving school bus at the first of the school year. This really rocked our little world (in a positive way, Rachel do not take offense to this statement and add worry to your life)! Zachary and Paisley are in earlier morning seminary, they leave the house at 530am. Rachel is up at 5am doing yoga and leaves at 6am to get her bus. I wake up sometime between 5-6am depending on the breakfast schedule or if Isaac is awake.

I get Ayden, Kaleb, Isaac, and Connor moving in that hour. Rachel gets back at 630am to pick up Isaac and Connor for their daily bus ride. There is either excitement about the bus ride or grumbling, "I want to stay with Dad"...not an option. Rachel leaves with those two boys...Ayden and Kaleb are left. I get them breakfast.

Zachary and Paisley come back just before 7am. Paisley catches her bus at 730am. Ayden and Kaleb catch there bus (or ride their bikes) at 745am. I have to leave the house by 725am to get to work on time. Zachary usually rides with me to High School, because you cannot ride the bus in high school, or maybe it has something to do with his broken leg currently. Whatever the reason he leaves with me.

That leaves our dog Nic at home until Rachel returns by 9am or after depending on her commitments on other fronts.

You know this would be a great MATH problem:

There are 8 people, 3 leave, 1 come back, 3 leave, 2 come back, 5 leave, how many are left?

THE DOG :)

Then our day continues once school is out and is just as chaotic! I do not feel we are over-committed with too many activities, but I am BEAT after the day. Zachary and I were have a somewhat civil conversation last night (well maybe not)...after about 1030pm I shut down and the teenagers of the house wonder "what is wrong with our parents"? I told him (frankly) that after 1030pm this is MY time to accomplish what I need to and not what others need. Selfish I know, but Rachel and I need time to compose ourselves after a day like this otherwise we will not be who we need to be.

I have rambled on enough today.

Journal Entry 1

I will start by introducing the family. I will start from youngest to oldest (Rachel is last :).

Connor is 2 and a great kid. He has a great smile and wonderful eyes! We are glad he came at the tail end. We ended on a good note. He loves to be involved with his brothers, and has to be everywhere MOM is.

Isaac is 4 and he keeps our lives hoppppping! From the moment he wakes up to when he closes his eyes at night, there is a certain amount of energy that he creates (he could battery power a small city). He is so thoughtful and helpful around the house.

Kaleb is 8. He is a good learner. He loves movies and playing games. Kaleb could play outside all day and not miss anything inside the house. He goes to Meadowlane Elementary. I think his favorite subject is PE or Computers.

Ayden is 10 and our sportsman. If there is a physical game to be played, he will do it and excel. He loves to run long distances. He loves friends, he always wants to be around them. Ayden helps out around the house amazingly well.

Paisley is 14 and our only daughter. Everyone's always expresses sympathy for her growing up in a house full of boys. Don't feel too sorry, she gets along just fine. She has her own bedroom and bathroom, that is more than any other person in the family (in other words, she is spoiled and her parents know that).

Zachary is 16 and recently broke his leg. Yes we have an invalid in our home and now he gets away without doing chores. I think he likes that part of the broken leg thing, but he would like to be without crutches. He has fallen a few times on his crutches but that is because he is attempting to do things people were not meant to do with those two sticks under his arms.

Chris is older than last year. He works at Johnson County Community College and a wonderful job with wonderful people. I really hit a gold-mine when I started working her. I help students finance their educations.

Rachel is older than Chris. She keeps this family together, yes she is the glue. Chris would be far too spontaneous to hold this family together. Rachel loves the natural side of life and readily imposes her naturalistic views on her willing subjects at home. We love her we know!

We have lived in Olathe KS for over 4 years and LOVE this community! We have found the perfect place to live. Great school, great work, great church community and everything is so accessible. We live among great people.

I think that is the Christensen8. I will see if I can get the family involved in posting messages every so often.

First Attempt

This is my first attempt at blogging. I saw a friends and thought it a good idea. I will keep adding to this so family can see what all the children are doing since we live away from family.