Family Reunion

I'm back from the great state of Colorado! My grandparents were celebrating their 50th anniversary and everyone but my cousin Justin was able to make it out. My grandparents looked great. I am still shocked that my grandparents have been married for 50 years. My folks didn't even make it to the ten-year mark before calling it quits. It's amazing how much American society has changed over the past few decades......I didn't get to talk as much about American polity as I would have liked, but overall it was a good feel. I'm glad we're all in the same camp about Senator McCain being a really awful choice, but the majority of 'em are just too scared of Senator Obama to vote for him. I can understand why (they're old and they live in the rural Mountain West), but John McCain is a very, very dangerous man; a man that could very well draft their sons and grandsons in an attempt to foster even more needless, ill-advised proxy wars in the Middle East and maybe even a full-fledged war on the Russian frontier. I was surprised at how polite I was, and I name-dropped Bob Barr as an alternative to Senator McCain, but then they all got distressed looks on their faces and inevitably started talking about how they voted for Ross Perot in 1992.........

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, but you can check out a couple of pictures from the reunion that I stole from my cousin's Facebook page.

These are the Christensen boys. Michael is nineteen and heading out to France for a couple of years to try and convert those heathen devils from Catholicism to an authentic American religion. Tommy is the little guy in the middle and my pops, the bald guy and creator of six children, can safely lay claim to being an evolutionary success (although I doubt he would accept such a dubious title).

This is my cousin Cheyne and I. He's going to school to become a sports journalist. He runs cross-country and will never, ever give up in a ball game. A few years back we had a big family volleyball tournament that Cheyne organized and we were on the same team. I believe we were heavy favorites to win the whole thing but we got upset in the semifinals.

Left to Right: Bryan, just graduated high school, you've met Cheyne, Corbin, he'll be a junior next year, myself and Jamen, by far the chillest member of the family.

There were a lot of questions about my little shindig to Africa as well as the "are you and Anna really married?" questions. Inside jokes are soooo fun!

Overall, I had a blast. I absolutely love it out in the Mountain West. The thunderstorms are, to me, a gentle reminder of where I came from; the smell of rain in the Rockies lets me know that I am truly in God's good company.

Oh, and on our way back Michael and I stopped by my Uncle James and Aunt Susan's house and he lent me Greenspan's new book. This means that I have to put 'Democracy in America' on hold, but I'm stoked to be reading Greenspan, even if he was a government bureaucrat......