Painted Hills

We took a little trip to the Painted Hills of Central Oregon with our fellow Bend-ites "the Parla's" & "the Fitch's". It was a rainy day but the hills still looked unreal. Up close the hills look like kitty litter...weird clay type soil...beautiful, but weird.

The Parla's and Fitch's are our close friends that we've connected with here in Bend. We currently meet together as a small group, and we also share a lot of life's joys together. We're meeting together and praying for direction right now. We all share a heavy burden of wanting do something HUGE with our lives...something bigger than us, and out of the norm. We feel honored to share life with such extraordinary friends.

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"The Valley" Trip

We took a four day trip over to western Oregon to visit a bunch of our Maui-an friends. Our days were filled with killer art shows, skate parks, nose piercing, bottomless coffee, soccer, interstate driving, kickin' it downtown Portland, visiting George Fox University and Oregon's annual Tulip Festival.


This is Courtney getting her nose pierced in Portland. Notice the amazingly sympathetic husband standing by her side. (FYI, I think the nose ring is SUPER HOT)

Matthew Solomon Strubhar killing it at Aumsville Skatepark.

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6 Months of Marital Bliss

Well folks, it's been six months of marriage and we're still stoked! It totally seems like yesterday when we were on Maui playing in the ocean, and it seems like 30 minutes ago when we were kickin' it in SoCal prepping for the wedding. Looking back, it's crazy to see the adventure we have been on! And it's not letting up anytime soon. The next 6 months are packed full of adventurous plans. Stay tuned for some summer fun in the Cascade Mountains, Kansas, Missouri, SoCal, NorCal, Washington, the Oregon coast, and Canada! To see some wedding photos, go ahead and CLICK HERE

Smith Rock, Oregon

As we've been exploring the outskirts of Bend, we are finding out how crazy diverse this area really is. You go 20 minutes West and you're high in the mountains with green meadows, snow capped mountains, and endless lakes. If you go South you're deep into miles and miles of endless pine trees seated on rolling hills and buttes. If you go 20 minutes East, you run into high desert and crazy rock formations such as Smith Rock. What a place! There are more than a thousand bolted routes for climbers. It's a rock climbers paradise and one of the best in the nation. We spent the afternoon hiking through the canyon and watching climbers do their thing...crazy climbers...at least they were winning.

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Birthday Bike Ride

Courtney's birthDAY was far from the perfect day. She had to work while I got five cavities filled (leaving the WHOLE left side of my face numb for 10 straight hours! ...yah... stupid) and then I had to lead worship practice that night while Court attended a marketing meeting. So with the 29th pretty much shot, we celebrated the following day when far less was going on.
I took Court down to Sunriver, a resort TOWN - picture a big resort and make that into a whole city centered around vacation homes and shooting the breeze. I don't even think ANYONE actually LIVES in the town! It follows the Deshutes River and is nestled next to the mountains, it was beautiful! It has endless golf courses, condos, hot tubs, big wood lodges, private lear jet runways, large homes, and endless intertwining bike baths. So we snagged some cruisers, packed a picnic and rode down to the river for lunch. It was a great little get-a-way. Court only crashed twice and got her pants caught in the bike chain once :)...funny story!

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Spring has Sprung

Spring is in the air here in Bend! Long gone are the days of fresh powder on the mountain and clean crisp-y days. So with the change in season comes a new desire to begin exploring the land we live in. After obtaining a map, gather supplies and putting our hiking nickers on, we are ready to hit the gravel. We found waterfalls, trees, large mountains, endless roads, campsites galor, lakes, trees, wildlife, and MORE trees. This land is HUGE and extremely beautiful. We're ganna have a fun Spring and Summer exploring the ENDLESS possibilities that are in our backyard for outdoor fun!!!

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Crater Lake in the Winter

While Courtney's folks were in town, we did everything one might expect to do in 7 days in beautiful Bend. We played in the snow, ate some great local food, went to the best local brew pubs Bend can offer, and even made a little trip to Crater Lake. The drive was long and there was incredible amounts of snow still at the park. I guess it takes something like 4 months to clear the roads for the summer tourist season. They got over 300" of snow this year! It was drop dead beautiful and such a great time with the family!

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This is Better

This is what I'd rather be doing: snowboarding the summit of Mt Bachelor on a clear and wind free afternoon. CHEERS!

X-C Skiing is for the Birds

Cross Country Skiing is actually hard and honestly not that much fun! I'd rather sit on a chair lift for a few minutes and climb 3,000 vertical feet only to then bomb down the mountain shredding every piece of powder off of the face of Mt. Bachelor! But to each his own. It was a great experience none the less. Lots-o-falling down and laughing with great company (Mr & Mrs Keating - all the way from SoCal for a visit).

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Winter Fest '07

Here's a few photos of 2007 WinterFest in Bend, Oregon. It was sweet! Beer gardens, wine tasting, good food, snowboard rail jam, and fire dancing - all in downtown! ...nothin' like a night out on the town of Bend!

DOG SLEDDING!

The story potential of today was at an all time high. My creative (and not to mention beautiful) wife took me Dog Sledding for my 24th Birthday today! WE LOVED IT! The dogs were so eager to pull the sled and barked uncontrollably every time we took a break. They live to run together and are unsatisfied doing anything else. It was an amazing day and the story potential was rising with every turn! We first went dog sledding and then headed up to Mt. Bachelor to snowboard. We had a little fender bender in the parking lot (story potential rising) and then Court had a huge wipe out (destroying her hip) on our first run, so we called it a day :) We went out with some friends for steaks and a movie, and then had them over for coffee. At that moment Courtney's Barista espresso machine went crazy and we think it fried itself! Smoke was everywhere! So in all, today ended up being a great story and a lot of things ended up BUSTED!!! What a crazy birthday...chalk full of memories :) SEE MORE PICTURES (click here)

Taking on the Arts

Below you'll find examples of my new focus on becoming a career freelance graphic designer and photographer.

Upon moving to Bend, I (gary) went out on a limb to see if I could survive as a freelance artist. And surprisingly, so far the plan is half way working! I've allowed myself 20 hours a week of freelance design and photography time, and the rest of my week is taken up by the evil empire of Star$'s :)

My dream is to become a mobile (traveling) freelance designer and photographer. I'd need some pretty killer gear, but the goal is to work from anywhere in the world, and I believe that technology these days would allow for such flexibility. Since the Fall, I have been working for six different companies almost entirely through the web! So who says Courtney and I can't live the dream of traveling while "working" in the states :) Plus it really frees up our time to do the things we'd love to do in life! Like serving in ministry and having crazy adventures!

As a photographer, I now represent Obsidian Photography and iStock Photos (I'm tyring to get into the photography world as well) Wish me luck everybody!!! These are exciting times.

Please visit my Design Portfolio for any further information.

Blowing up our Neighborhood!

Snow Shoeing

After a crazy downpoor of snow over the past couple days, we made it a point to get up in the mountains and play in the snow. So we decided to try our luck at snowshoeing...and it was super fun! We didn't have the clear blue skies we had yesterday (so the photo op wasn't the greatest), but we had a great time stomping around the dry powder of the Cascades.

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Uncles and Aunteees...again!

Our little niece was born at a young age of zero yesterday morning!!! Her name is Lindey Noelle Stewart (my oldest sisters daughter). She is totally healthy and drop dead beautiful :) Angela is completely fine and recovering well. NO COMPLICATIONS. Thanks for all your prayers, it really made a huge difference. We're so stoked!!!

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Our Wedding in a Magazine!!!

Pacific Rim Wedding Magazine just hit the stands and we just so happen to be in it! Crazy! We have a few pages of pictures and stories highlighting our SoCal wedding back in October. David Hessemer (Gary's mentor and dear friend) flew in from Maui and shot our wedding. Pacific Rim got ahold of his slideshow and the next thing we know we are in a wedding magazine! Pretty exciting! David is launching his new site "Hawaiian Images Online" and we are featured in his site as well...probably because we're so gosh darn cuddly...so check out his site (I also did some designing on this site with David) and if you're ever in need a photographer, he's your man! And if you ever need some designing, I'm your man :) Much love & be blessed friends!

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Holiday Traveling

We spent Christmas down south in crazy HOT SoCal...so much for a white Christmas :) But we had a great time kickin' it with the Keating family, seeing our long lost Maui friends Dan and Cloe, and catching some much needed surf. It had almost been 2 months of no surfing action...that's crazy-ness! So we got a few barrels, had some laughs, and enjoyed the holidays as only sunny California could bring it. As soon as we returned to the fridged Northwest, we headed straight up to the mountain to make sure we hadn't lost our snowboarding skills...we won by the way.

UP NEXT: snowshoeing! SWEET!

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Visit us online! *NEW SITE*

Okay folks, we are officially up and running! What once was our wedding website has transformed into a site dedicated to our new life together. So if you'd like to keep tabs on "The Christenson's" (since we are apparently hard to keep track of :) you can now visit our new site often! We've also arrange a huge online photo album for your viewing convenience that we will keep updated. ENJOY!

"Let It Snow" & "TIMBER"

"LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW"

It hasn't stopped snowing in Central Oregon for almost a week now! Yesterday we finally got some substantial snow here in town, but up onto Mt. Bachelor ...it's ridiculous! Courtney and I have season passes and so far we've been snowboarding at least three times a week! It took about two solid days to get the hang of snowboarding, and I think we've got it. We did a black diamond yesterday and didn't die...so there you have it.

"TIMBER!"

After snowboarding yesterday, we went and chopped down our Christmas Tree (click here for pictures). It was so much fun! We got a tree permit, 4x4ed through the National Forest, hiked through 2 feet of fresh snow and finally found our perfect little tree! I took to it for several minutes with my new hatchet, and it came "TIMBERING" down! It was hard work but we're proud of our tree and our adventure to get it. Sure, buying a tree from a lot in town is probably cheaper, easier, and a better use of your time...but this way we have a great story and an awesome memory together with our first Christmas tree!

We're Officially Oregonians!

Well...the wedding is done, the honeymoon was amazing, and the move was a success! After sweating bullets at the DMV (stupid test - I BARELY passed - they had a question about horses...crazy Oregon folk :) we have officially become Oregonians! We have a Drivers License, sweet pad, killer ride, jobs, and eachother...what else could you need in life? Courtney is officially and legally a "CHRISTENSON" and I couldn't be happier! Tomorrow marks the opening of Mt Bachelor! Mt B. sits just outside Bend and is one of the Northwest premiere ski resorts. We have season passes and can't wait to snowboard like crazy for the next 5 months. That's pretty much our life. We've revolved our work schedules around having fun together in central Oregon during the day light hours. We've made money almost our least priority (enough to make life exist and happen) and made our marriage our top priority! We want to just have fun together this next year and have crazy adventures every day of the week...why settle for anything else but daily crazy adventures...life's too short!

Upon leaving Maui, we traveled to so many places and serioulsy lived out of suitcases for almost 3 months! And now it feels so good to be in our own place and start our life together. We don't know a single soul here and that's very appealing right now. This is the first time that Court and I have been able to simply be us...and it's so refreshing!

It's chilly outside, there's snow on the mountians, and we're ganna go play in it! Until next time...