Happy Holidays

I love this time of year. Besides the fact that we didn't get school off until after Christmas, it has been the perfect break from everything so far. For the last two years my Dad has been unemployed, which has been hard for us in varying ways throughout, but it has only served to strengthen our love for each other and our savior as he has blessed us with every challenge that came our way, not only with miracles but with the help from countless friends and family members. This Christmas probably wouldn't have happened without Him, but with him it was literally the biggest and greatest Christmas we've had to date. My Dad was able to get employed about a month ago, which helped enormously, and the community we have has shown us so much love that its still sitting on our counters as we eat it slowly throughout the days. We were able to receive and give so many amazing and fun gifts that we've been often brought to tears. I will remember Christmas 2011 for the rest of my life.
In closing, this video is what we gave my Grandparents on my moms side for Christmas.

My Recent Life (last few weeks) in a few carefully chosen pictures and sentences.

Hey everybody! So much has happened so recently that I could do 3-4 separate posts, but I unwittingly decided to jam it all together! While reading this, stop the playlist music above and have the following link playing in another window/tab!You Won't Regret it!

1. My Birthday: Last Nov. 2nd marks my 17th year being alive on this earth. My presents included a new Kindle (my old one was stolen), the Son of Neptune book, and a Fluttershy model. Here's a picture of my cake.

Yes, that be Doctor Who in the background. JUST REMEMBER I DIDN'T MAKE THIS!

2. Two Debate Tournaments: Being L.D. captain is fun yet hard, and these tournaments were pretty average except for this sign.

3. I joined an Acapella Group: I saw a sign on the whiteboard in the Choir room at school advertising an acapella group for the battle of the bands in two weeks. Were practicing now and we'll probably get an official recording I'll show you later.

4. Book club: Yay! They chose the book I suggested! Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Dealing with Dragons! IT"S AMAZING!

5. I did a recent presentation in my Language Arts class on this article that appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

6. Just watch this for like three minutes!
7. And Read This!

You can stop the music now. I should do these to music more often. I was listening to what you were while writing this, so you can tell me how it turned out!

I look out the window, and what do I see?

Chocolate Carmel Popcorn? That's unexpected. Anyways, whether you're here of your own free will or not, here's how its gonna go down.
We're going to Seattle Washington for Choir Tour in January and we're doing a fundraiser to help pay for it. If you would be willing, we have some holiday treats (in the form of Carmel corn) that will greatly help us on our way.
If you are interested, we'll be delivering in about 2 1/2 weeks. The Carmel corn comes in 10'' by 3'' circular tubs that are filled to the brim. The objects in question are listed below.
 Everything below is 14$.
Chicago Style
Chocolately Delight
Buttery Carmel
Cherry Delight
Mint Delight
Peanut Butter

Another delicious option is that of Cookie Dough Bites, chocolate covered balls of cookie dough, in 21oz buckets for 15$ if you so choose.
 For orders or questions, you can reach me at coy@jrchristensen.com.
Thanks!

First Date: Check. Now Mom might get off my back about it for a while!

No seriously, it was way fun and I'm glad I did it (finally). It only took me more than nine months after turning 16 to think about it, then another month to do it! Drew Hunt called me on Wednesday and asked if I wanted to bring a date to Space Camp. Of course I said yes, but by Saturday it fell through. He asked if I still wanted to do the double date and I agreed. My Mom caught wind through her motherly instincts and took it upon herself to plan the entire activity and worked on a list I wasn't allowed to look at until the date started. It was a picture scavenger hunt where we drove allover Bluffdale and Riverton doing crazy random things my mom thought up. It was me with my date, Jacqueline Webb, Drew Hunt with his date Whitney Saunders, and another couple Drew invited whose names escapes me at the moment. It was way awesome. The paper we went off of and some pictures follow this paragraph. The evening ended with delicious brownies, ice cream, and a game of Curses.

Picture Scavenger Hunt…race against the clock…..

You have a 90 minute time limit, or you will be punished in 10 minute increments by being forced to play Fear Factor with activities of the parents choosing.  Avoid this at all costs. Think cayenne pepper whipping cream and gummy worms……..

The following pictures are required, and all but one of you must be in every single picture or it doesn’t count. Take turns taking pics.

• Playing Ninja on a walking overpass (put the hazard lights on the van J)
• Singing “Happy Birthday” to a  McDonald’s employee
• All of you on one slide at the park..
• In a car wash (it doesn’t have to be on J)
• Pretending to propose with string cheese in hand.
• In a meditative pose in front of an Arby's billboard. 
• Everyone on a merry go round-must be moving (Bluffdale park type)
• Swing dancing in a parking lot
• In Walmart with something that represents each of the four seasons in the picture
• Walking through a drive through and asking for a straw with moustaches (provided..save the moustaches)
• All of you in one bathroom stall..anywhere
• Upside down
• All on one couch in the Riverton Hospital foyer acting like you’re choking
• In one tree
• By a fire hydrant..boys flexing, girls pretending to be amazed
• All the girls on a swing going super high, parallel with each other
• Writing “No new Taxes!” all over the windows of the van (marker provided)
• Running around a track in slow mo with lots of feeling
• In a cemetery acting like zombies wearing the black cloaks provided, a headstone pictured must include the letter “J”, “Z” or “Q”
• In a pyramid with something yellow in the background

Here's Drew when he almost died! He choked on his mustache!

Here's the creepy part. ALL THOSE ROBES WERE BLACK.

We took turns proposing with String Cheese

Swing Dancing in the parking lot.

It still says that.

Ninja on the overpass

 

Would you have some Cookie Dough, sir?

Hey everybody! As you may or may not know I'm am in A capella Choir this year and as you may or may not know Choir Tour comes with it. We are going to Seattle Washington and that costs a lot of money for the trip and Hotel. Fortunatly we are taking orders for buckets of Cookie Dough and other delectable treats for 14 or 15 dollars. All profits will help us on our way.
The choices are:
Chocolate Chunck
Peanut Butter
Oatmeal Rasin
Snickerdoodle
White Chocolate Macadamia
Triple Chocolate
Reese's Peanut Butter Cup
White Chocolate Oatmeal Rasberry
Lemon Drop
Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Bits (yum!)
Churros
and Pumpkin Roll
If you can help us out, then please e-mail me at coy@jrchristensen.com. If you're worried about quality, don't be. I've tasted this stuff and it is very good (especially the Oatmeal Rasberry, that stuff is like Heaven on Earth!).

1 week completed, a crapload more to go.

I thought it would be good to do this now. I just finished my first week of High School, junior year, and I've got to say that it was pretty satisfying. I have eight classes that stay the same all year round, and I can't say that I resent that (mostly). I'm really looking forward to it and I think that it'll be a lot of fun.

1st period: College Prep Math: Might transfer out of this if the need arises, the teacher isn't necessarily bad, but she's not fantastic either. Also the material is so ridiculously easy that my brain is numb trying to listen to it and I just want to get the assignment over with.

2nd: A Capella: Very fun. I found it a bit difficult to read the parts at first but It became easier and I like the people in the class and the teacher. She does what she does well and you can tell she enjoys it.

3rd: Chemistry AP: I probably wouldn't be taking this class except that I took Chemistry last year and loved the teacher. He's Mr.Melville and is fantastic. Luckily he's teaching this class also and I still have all my notes so I think I'll be able to do well.

4th: Debate: I'M CAPTAIN AND TEACHING THE CLASS with the other captain Melissa. I'm so excited for this year, we have about 30 novices we get to teach and I think we'll do well.

5th: Seminary: I have a good teacher and we're studying the Old Testament. No other comments.

6th: Mandarin Chinese: The teacher is great so far and I think the class will be fun. Woohoo.

7th: U.S. History: I have Mr. Briggs and I've heard legends of his amazingness. He is awesome so far so I think that class will turn out well.

8th: Language Arts Honors: This was the only Honors class I got for some reason. The teacher seems more focused on 'current event' assignments and other trivial matters instead of teaching Language Arts, so if needed I'll transfer out of there also probably.

(P.S: The timer at the top of my blog is counting down to the start of the My Little Pony Season 2 Opening!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!)

Rassmussen Lakes 2011

This has been my most favorite scout camp so far. Lots of Hiking and Lots of Fun.
It started with a 4 hour drive filled with talking and tunes with one of the funniest experiences I've ever had. We were going through this constructrion site and had to stop for a while. While we were stalling, Joey Summers decided to try to hit on this girl. It was hilarious. Here's a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXy5FNO0Wqg

After we arrived, there was a 3 mile hike that wasn't pleasant but was made worse by the rain. After we arrived at our camp almost a half-hour later, we basically sat around the campfire, eating dinner and talking. That was one of the best parts. The next day started with the same campfire with breakfast, fishing, hiking up the 'The Saddle', fishing, and eating dinner around the campfire. The next day we hiked out and drove home.

This was a view I had while driving in. That road was the one we followed.

That's the short version.

These sneaky little clouds are what rained on us while hiking in.

Here's some Pictures to show you more.

 

 

Here's the lake we fished at.

Here's the view from the top of the Saddle looking down at the valley we camped in. It goes down for like 200 feet or more.

This is the view of when I turned around from the picture above (looking down the other side of the saddle).

Jared Morse (our Venture leader) has more pictures here.

This is what I did with my summer...

My Final Speech in COMM 1010. I hope you enjoy it.
For a better view, click here!

Lake Powell 2011

        Our friends, the Hunts, gave us the greatest opportunity a few weeks ago to accompany them to Lake Powell. That was a fun week. Every single day on the lake. 

So first of all was us driving up there. We had a lot of fun listening to 20th century old time radio tapes such as Who's on First and Orson Welles, "The War of the Worlds". We stopped at a diner to eat and while there we found some of the funniest books we've ever read. They had titles such as "How to cheer up the Crabby People in your life","The Outhouse Book", "How to Stay Humble when you're Smarter than everybody else", "Some things are worse than being older than Dirt", and "How to make people think you're Normal". Here's a picture of the Author's name.

After that we drove some more before I fell asleep. We got there early the next morning and got into bed. I would have slept til noon except for some reason me and the bed didn't get along to well. That was the only downside of the trip was a lack of really refreshing sleep. After that the days were almost exactly the same, which was wonderful. Boating, Tubing, Wakeboarding, Cliff Diving (only about 10 feet), and a trip to Rainbow Bridge. Here's some pictures.

Yay Sethie!

John Wakeboarding

These Fish were swimming next to the dock near Rainbow Bridge waiting to be fed.

Rainbow Bridge. Probably the largest single natural bridge in the world.

On our last day there a very special occurance happened. We had stopped at a hidden beach for lunch when a freak storm came out of nowhere. We were pretty sheltered in this cove thing but we were stuck there for a few hours because the waves were too big to leave as soon as we got into open water. Another family was near us also on the beach but more open to the wind. Their boat started to drift away and their dad jumped in the water to get it. He had no life jacket because it was in the boat. Darrel drove out there to get the boat but was inspired to go to the man first. It didn't look like it, but the man was drowning. He had cramped up and the waves weren't letting him go anywhere. We saved his life that day. It still amazes me that we saved a human life. We went home that night in much the same fashion that we left, but with thankful hearts to our God and Father.

Youth Conference 2011

I know this is a few weeks late but I just realized I hadn't done this yet.

        This Youth Conference (the second one I've attended) was a very enjoyable experience. The first was a Stake one we got rained out on so this was far better with just our ward. I would say more in detail but this is just an overview of the entire thing until I get the pictures.
AAAAAGH! Nevermind. I'll wait til the pictures arrive. They will show you instead of just telling you. Keep Posted!
-Coy