I'm an Uncle! For the 8th time!

Yay! Lucas Christensen was born tonight at around 7:30pm. I'm super stoked for my brother Cole and his wife Jessica. Congrats guys! Jessica is a champ, she delivered the peep all natural. That was my good news for the day/week/month. You would think that after 4 nieces and 3 nephews, the 4th nephew wouldn't be as exciting...well, i think its even more exciting. Its about time we evened out the boy/girl ratio. At least now we can sort of get a pickup football game going with all the boys in a few years. Word.
This past Monday, Joanie had to work. I headed up and did the same hike that she did on Saturday when i was at work. It was awesome. Getting to the pipeline itself was super sketchy. Apparently the pipeline hike is technically trespassing, but we are thinking they just post those signs because they don't want to be liable for anyone dying...right? Right. Anyway, we ended up getting chased down the driveway to the turbine at the bottom. We barely made it across the pipeline over the river by the time the pipeline workers got to the turbine. By that point, they had no chance of getting us to not do the hike...hehe. Anyway, we hiked up the STEEP pipeline.

A good portion of the hike is bushwacking, so it was almost easier to just hike on the pipe itself. Luckily the pipe had good grip on it. ;)


On the hike up, we found a hidden cave in the ground. Upon going in the cave (with no regard of bears...i'm an idiot) we found a mini glacier that was just chilling in there keeping the cave cool. I decided to lick it.


I wrastled the pipeline. You can guess who won....


The road that you see here, is the road up the White Pass that i take a full bus of passengers every day. You can see about 6 or 7 miles of it here in this picture. Its SO steep!


Halfway up the hike the train tracks crossed our path. I found it an opportune place to take a nap. ;) These tracks are a narrow gauge railroad track which means that they are 3 feet apart as opposed to the normal 4ft. 8 1/2 inches.


Once we got up to the top we found the lake and then up further are all of these snowy slopes are WICKED steep. Like, we're talking steeper than any double black diamond i have ever been on! Anyway, we had hiked up some trash bags
(we, being me and my roommate Andrew) and hopped into the trash bags and sledded down! Yeah, it was pretty much amazing. This is me right next to the slope that we were going to sled down, down below you can see Andrew working his way up to me.


No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. That is me, Adam, pitching for the Holland America/Princess of Alaska/Yukon team in Skagway, AK. We just barely lost to the opposing bus company in this game. But i think i pitched an alright game. I was excited. Joanie is my biggest fan. :)


As you can see, Joanie and me are just happy as clams to be here together up in Alaska. We are super excited to come back and be apart of the real world again, but we are definitely cherishing every moment up here. Miss you all!

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills...

Alright!!! I'm officially out of quarantine, and feeling a lot better. I most likely had the Norwalk virus, which is a NASTY flu virus that gives you the symptoms of "explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting". Yeah, needless to say, i lost some weight. Actually i lost 10 lbs. Which is kinda a big deal for me. Anyway, i spent my five days of lockdown reading the fourth and fifth books of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Yeah, i am kind of a nerd like that. It surprised some people, like when Dallin (one of the fellow drivers that lives in our dorm) caught me staying up late reading my book on top of the dryer in the laundry room. He didn't see that one coming. I told him not to judge me for reading Fantasy books. He proceeded to tell me that it was all good because i "have a hot fiance". I couldn't stop laughing for a while after that. Thanks Dallin, i appreciate it buddy.

Besides me being sick, i have been working like mad to catch up on lost hours. I worked a whopping 54 hours in 4 days. Yeah, it was sick. But, we're up here to work and have fun, so its all good.

While i was working, Joanie went off and had a blast hiking with some of the other kids in town. was trashed after the 6 hour hike. I was proud of her though. Its a cool hike. I guess technically its trespassing, but its Alaska....so no one really cares.

Here's the deal with this pipeline. No, its not the Alaska oil pipeline. Its the hydroelectric pipeline for Skagway, AK. There is a lake up top called Goat Lake. They funnel the water from goat lake down through that 4-foot wide pipe and there is a turbine down at the bottom. That is how we power Skagway, AK. Its actually not even enough power to keep the cruise ships running when they come into town, so a lot of the ships will leave their engines/generators running. Crazy.

Joanie got home that night and slept from 6-10pm and then went home and slept the rest of the night. She was pooped. Today she is SUPER sore from the endeavor. Tomorrow, i am venturing up with a bunch of the guys to do the same hike, but we are going to try and climb to the peak of the mountain. Wish me luck! Joanie has work at the Bank...

Tomorrow we also have the Holland America/Princess company softball game tomorrow (that i'm pitching for), so i'll need some extra luck for that...hehe.

The next series of pictures are some new and old pictures of me and Joanie goofing around. We like to joke around and dance and flip each other around, etc. So here are some pictures of that.

This one was way cool!We had just learned a new move in country dancing and this was one of our favorites.


More goofing off...


This past ski season we got season passes to the Canyons Resort up in Park City (which is also up where my brother Cole works at a hotel). We had a blast going up to the mountain just about every other weekend to enjoy the slopes. Joanie and i have this minor debate as to which is better. She snowboards, i ski. We both grew up doing what we do. But, we have agreed to try the other (even if it is inferior) sport with each other. I took a day or two to go snowboarding with Joanie and ate some snow more than i wanted to, which was quite humbling. Maybe this next season i'll get Joanie on some skiis. ;)


CHEESE!!!! (Taken off of the reflection in the window of my 4runner)

Adam was Sick.. sooo... I wrote A LOT!

Adam is a very sick boy! He has been quarantined and has been in his room for 4 days so far and for at least 1 more day. Supposedly everyone is saying that he has the Norwalk virus… a lot of people on cruise ships get it. (If you are interested please look it up.) Anyways, I think he just has a stomach virus. To say the least, I am VERY bored and sad that I don’t get to hang out with Adam until maybe Monday afternoon. I woke up around noon, did some laundry, went to the library to use the internet for a little while until it decided to stop working, then went to Radio Shack to try to change my prepay phone over to an unlimited talk phone so that I can actually talk to people but what do you know, the network was down, then I went to the grocery store to get Adam some "food that isnt snack food but isnt real food," I ended up getting him pretzel sticks, bugles, bananas, Gatorade, and club soda, and instant oatmeal. I think I did pretty well finding something in between real food and snack food, if I do say so myself.

I took him the food and then talked to him through his window from downstairs. I was pretty grumpy cause I havent been able to be with him or touch him for the past 4 days. I turn around and one of the other drivers is crouched behind a bus taking pictures of us… haha I turned around and said what are you doing you creeper?! Haha he was a paparazzi I guess. Anyways, if we get the pictures Ill share them with you. We talked for a bit and then I rode home on my bike back to my trailer and ate left over frozen pizza and watched the movie A lot like Love. Well half of it, almost all of the movies here at my place are scratched and only work for half of the movie. And on top of that, we don’t have real TV sooo I get to watch movie previews and halves of movies.

Here are a few random thoughts…

If you are trying to make a salad, it is never a good idea to try to make it and stir it in a small bowl. You will only make a mess.

I think bikinis are a great idea. Here are a few reasons why I think this… Upon the thought of wearing one someone will be more apt to eat right and work out. Bikinis also spare the wearer the awkward pull over or partial undress when needing to go to the bathroom. Bikinis also limit the amount of area that has tan lines. They are also able to give your boobs a slight amount of lift as compared to the smoosh that is created by the one piece swim suit. Bikinis also come in many great patterns and designs.

I love watching movie previews. I like being able to watch only the good parts of the movies and get a general idea of what the movie will be about and then if I really want to I can watch the whole thing. Movie previews are like getting a tray of samplers or hors d'oeuvres .. You get to have a little bit of everything all at the same time.

I hate it when girls chew gum and leave their mouth open and make the loud smacking noise. It is SO annoying, just close your mouth and chew your gum just like normal people.

I like being here in Skagway when I can hang out with Adam. And when I cant, I get really bored. Im enjoying myself but I am getting very excited to get back to having a car! I like riding around on our bikes places but I am tired of going to the store and only being able to get what I can fit in my back pack.

Im working on finishing planning the little things for the wedding but it is getting to be pretty difficult. Adam and I have tried to finish doing our announcements and get them uploaded and then sent to the printer but we have run into a few difficulties. We worked on the announcements for a long time before we left to come up to Alaska for the summer and we thought they were done but then it turns out the our pictures that we had uploaded were low quality resolution… SO after we got up to Alaska we finished putting them together and then tried to upload them.. But at the library the bandwidth is too slow so we couldn’t upload them. So I was about to mail my flash drive to my sister Bec but then one of my coworkers was able to help me get our announcement uploaded to the website. After we uploaded it, we werent able to preview it so Im having my sister preview it and then send it to the printer. Hopefully this will get sent off quickly and then we can get them mailed out to everyone of yall. My sister Bec is going to put the announcements together and mail them out. She is helping me SO much with everything. She is the best older sister ever. And Kat is the best younger sister ever. :) I think we are going to get internet at my place here in the next week or so! Im so happy. This way I will be able to finish looking at things online for the wedding and getting everything in line for the big event only 69 days from now! Crazy crazy, its coming up so fast!

It turns out that my little sister Kat is going to come up to BYU for school here in the fall so that she can hang out with Adam and I. Yippie! And we will be able to go to concerts and sporting events and everything else together... Also my twin brother John is going to be going back to school in the Fall too. He has been graduated from college for a little over 3 years. He first went to LSU and got an accounting degree. It turns out that he didn’t get enough school and is going to be going back to school for an engineering degree. Good Job Johnny. I tried to convince him to come up to BYU so that he could come hang out with Kat and I and Adam and play in the snow.

I need to get a new camera. I have had my camera since I was a freshman in high school. I have loved my camera since I have had it but it is being funny now. My camera has decided to act like an old timey camera. Even though it is a normal digital camera, the flash has decided to start smoking when it goes off, it is pretty funny to watch. I think in a few days im going to go look at the Radio Shack in town for a nice camera. Im excited to get one so that we can both have a camera to take amazing pictures of our Alaskan adventure.

Adam and I decided that we are going to spend our fist holidays alone, only us! Im excited for this, it should be really fun. These are our tentative plans so far. We are talking about going to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving for a few days. Then for Christmas was are talking about taking a cruise somewhere. Adam gets discount cruises from his company that he works for up here in Alaska. We are trying to decide on a place that we would like to go. Any suggestions? We want somewhere that is warm and sunny for the Christmas holidays.

The other day we found some really cool dice at a store called Corrington Ivory. They are stone dice that are many different colors that are swirled together. We bought them so that we can play the game Farkle! We played this game a few times on our way back from our trip to Canada for Memorial Day weekend.

Last night I was thinking about how great of a Christmas present Adam got me this past Christmas! He got me two Eli Young Band tickets for their new years eve show that was in Houston. I ended up taking my little sister to the concert. This was the coolest present for Adam to get me for a Christmas/ New Years Eve present because they are my favorite country band! This concert was amazing! I had so much fun there with Katherine. The only thing that could have been better was if Adam would have come down to Texas for a quick visit and for the concert. Maybe next time huh?!! :)

I want to go see them again really soon!!

You want to know something crazy? So it turns out that my other best friend, Tamanna, is getting married one day before Adam and I are. So I am going to be one of Tamannas bridesmaids and she will be one of mine on the day after her wedding. That week will be so crazy. Adam and I are both going to be coming home from Alaska on the same day. We are leaving early on Friday morning , one week and one day before we get married, and will be getting into Salt Lake City late that night. Then we will have a few days to get the rest of the small things in order for our wedding . Then my family will be getting into town for the wedding on Wednesday. And then on Thursday and Friday Shelly and Michelle and my Aunts will be getting in to town. Tamanna will be getting married in the afternoon. Adam and I will be going to Carter and Tamannas wedding and then will get our faces photographed and then we will be off to our rehearsal dinner. Adams parents have booked one of the rooms in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for the rehearsal dinner. After the rehearsal dinner we will be going out for the night with our friends that are in town. Adam is going to go out for the night with a few friends and his brothers for a nice dinner and a quiet evening. While I will be out on the town for a crazy evening with my friends and sisters for my last night of freedom. ;) And then we will be waking up early in the morning to get ready for our big day. Adam and I are getting married in the Salt Lake Temple in the afternoon. After we get married we are having a reception at the Sky Room Restaurant.

Sorry this post was very random and hopping around from topic to topic… BUT I wrote about most everything that was on my mind.

Lastly, here are a few things that I want to do before I leave Alaska:

Go fishing

Kayaking

Hike the Chilkoot Trail

Go to Juneau

Go camping again

See whales

Bike down the pass

Ride horses