Jensen Update -- October 2021

 

Busy month!! I did a lot of blog posts for this month, so for more details go to the blog! 

*Jenna's birthday -- turning 13! She had a party with friends at our house the Friday before. She put the whole thing together, from the invitations, to the cake, to the the activities and games. It was fun! Her actual birthday was on Sunday and so we had the whole family over for Conference Crepes that morning.

*Josh United 06 Soccer Team was undefeated this season!! 

*I keep forgetting to talk about the kids' AP tests. In the summer Janelle, Jaiden, and Josh learned that they all passed their AP Tests from last Spring. The Chinese test was very difficult and only 8 kids out of 42 passed the AP Chinese test at Josh's school, and Josh was one of them. (Some of the other kids who passed had actually hired private tutors. I considered it, but it was way out of our budget!) Only 16 kids passed the AP Chinese Test in the whole district. But everyone who took the test were only in the 9th grade, so I am sure that a lot more will pass within the next couple of years. Josh's grade was the first group to start with the Dual Chinese Program and so they are the Guinea pigs. So now those 16 students from all over the district have their own Chinese class -- over zoom. The teacher rotates between the schools and so he is with each school in person every third time. 

*Jenna put together a restaurant experience for a group date for Jared and his friends. They tipped her very well! 

*Jaiden participated in All-State Choir in SLC and Ogden for three days. She has also been busy with Exec responsibilities. Click here to see their pictures: Exec Pictures 

*Rick, Janelle, Jared, and Jenna went to Chicago over Fall Break. It was nice for Janelle to have a final fling before leaving on her mission and fun for them to meet lots of people that Jared baptized on his mission!  Janelle celebrated her 19th birthday there!! 

*Jaiden, Josh, and I stayed home from the Chicago trip. Jaiden and Josh worked a lot. Jaiden also squeezed in a pumpkin carving date with Lane and I attended our friend, Georgia Slobe's funeral. 

*Jaiden did awesome in the Distinguished Young Women of Utah competition, placing 1st Runner Up Overall! (She was also in the top five in Self-Expression, Interview, and Talent!) You can read that post HERE!  It was a lot of work, but between the local and state competition she earned $6400.00 in scholarship money!! 

*Janelle received her endowment in the Cedar City Temple!! You can read about that HERE. While we were at the temple Jaiden went to go see Thriller at Tuacahn with friends and Jenna went to a Halloween party. Jase & Ellen and Janika & Brandon went to Thriller the next night. 

*Halloween was pretty chill for me and Rick with all of the kids going different directions! 

*I wanted family pictures taken before Janelle leaves and Janika and Brandon were in town this weekend and so we grabbed the opportunity. Sunday morning was the only time we could get everyone together.  Baby Evan wasn't very cooperative, but we did get a few cute ones of him afterwards. Hopefully the family ones turn out okay!  

Halloween

Halloween was really different this year! The only one who went trick-or-treating was Jenna and she just went with friends. Jase and Ellen went with Janika and Brandon to Thriller at Tuacahn and Rick and I babysat Evan. I had arranged for our family to get family pictures taken the next morning and so I was busy trying to put together outfits to prepare for that. Jaiden and her friends went to Thriller on Friday night and then Saturday night she was working at Tuacahn. Janelle was also working at Papa Murphy's Pizza in her Emo get up. Josh went to a Halloween party at Lilly's house. It was different not to be out and about trick or treating and we only had about five people come to our house (as usual) for candy. Rick wasn't going to get any pumpkins to carve, saying that they were too expensive. But then he ended up getting a few, which the kids carved on Sunday night. 

Anna Ence, Clarissa Williams, Julie Freeman, Jenna Jensen

Temple: Janelle Endowment

Tonight we had the opportunity to bring Janelle to the Cedar City temple to receive her endowment!

Rick and I left early with her and brought her out to dinner in Cedar City before we went to the temple. The St. George Temple is still under construction, which is why we went to Cedar City. Because of the ongoing effects of Covid, masks are now required in the temple. 

The rest of our adult kids were planning to meet us at the temple before the session. Janika texted and asked us to pray for them that they would make it in time. They got stuck in really bad traffic in Spanish Fork due to an accident which put them behind schedule and she was worried that they might not make it. I checked the GPS and it showed that they would arrive thirty minutes after our 8:00 session was to begin. Nonetheless we prayed for a miracle -- and our prayers were answered! They were able to arrive twenty minutes before the session started.

While I was with Janelle as her escort, Rick managed to lock his keys in his car! He talked to the temple presidency who gave him a phone number to call and then joined us in the session. His keys were waiting for him at the front desk when we finished the session. The locksmith had offered his services for free, but Rick called him back and insisted on paying him. 

Other than those two things everything went smoothly and we were able to enjoy a beautiful, sacred experience with Janelle and our other endowed children. Afterwards we took pictures with our family and with Janelle's friends, Brea Bulkley and Clay McFadden, who had also come to support her. We had a funny moment when we went to leave and saw that Clay was still inside the gates, which were now locked. He was locked inside the temple grounds! After a few moments of wondering what to do we realized that the gate was still open on the other side of the temple! 

Just a little bit about the temple endowment from ChurchofJesusChrist.org: 

The word endowment means “a gift.” In this context, the temple endowment is literally a gift from God whereby He bestows sacred blessings upon you. The endowment can only be received in His way and in His holy temple. Some of the gifts you receive through the temple endowment include:

1. Greater knowledge of the Lord’s purposes and teachings.
2. Power to do all that God wants us to do.
3. Divine direction and protection as we serve the Lord, our families, and others.
4. Increased hope, comfort, and peace.
5. Promised blessings now and forever.

Neighborhood Halloween Party

Tonight me, Jenna, and Janelle went to the neighborhood (Ward) Halloween Party! Rick was in a meeting, Josh was at his soccer game, and Jaiden had dance and a Madrigal Party. They had the traditional Chili cook-off, dunk tank, decorating pumpkins, and so forth!

  (Pictured: Grace Freeman, Clarissa Williams, Jenna Jensen)

Josh Soccer 05

 Jase, Ellen, and Evan came to watch Josh's last 05 Soccer game!! 

Jaiden: Distinguished Young Women, Utah Showcase

This weekend was the Distinguished Young Women of Utah Showcase for Jaiden! She had been working towards this for the past six months, and so we were really looking forward to the showcase (and getting it all over with, ha ha!) Jaiden had DYW events and rehearsals scheduled all day Friday and Saturday and so I needed to bring her up Thursday night right after her SpongeBob the Musical rehearsal. She has been SO busy and was really stressing out about everything and so I asked her if she wanted her dad to give her a blessing before we left. I am so grateful that my husband has the Priesthood of God to bless our family! The blessing helped so much!! Jaiden and I picked up Ellen and baby Evan and headed up north. Evan slept the entire drive. I dropped Ellen and Evan off in South Jordan and then Jaiden and I headed to my mom's house. 

Friday morning I dropped Jaiden off at the Loveland Aquarium where she met all of the other girls who were participating in the State competition. All of the other girls were either winners in their local competitions (like Jaiden), or had qualified in another way to come to State. The girls had a full day! They had a private tour of the aquarium, took a tour of Sierra Jewelry (both were sponsors for the Distinguished Young Women of Utah program). They fed them lunch and dinner and then had rehearsals the rest of the time. 

Meanwhile I spent the day with my mom. We did our exercise swim that morning and Mom and Dad took me out to dinner at the Asian Star that evening with Shane and Rella and Calder. It tasted so delicious to me! After dinner I went and picked up Jaiden from the Loveland Aquarium. She told me about her day and said that she and a couple of the other girls hit it off and became fast friends. She said that they decided to give the girls their Self-Expression question tonight, instead of tomorrow. That way the girls could have time to think about their question, which was a huge relief! We headed back to my mom's house and Jaiden headed to bed!  

I dropped Jaiden off (and all of her dresses and supplies) at the the Summit Academy Charter School before 8:00 a.m. This is where they were having their showcase later that afternoon. Their agenda for the day included a Make-A-Wish princess party with Evelyn and also rehearsals and a full run through of the show. 

Rick and the rest of the kids headed up north this morning and stopped at Janika's for lunch on the way. Mom and Dad and I met them all at the Showcase at 3:45. Jaiden had lots of support! We had Rick, me, Janelle, Josh, Jenna, Janika, Brandon, Ellen, Grandma and Grandpa Westra, Grandma Jensen, and Gerilyn! 

The show was very well done. The girls came out and did an opening number (which was pretty much put together yesterday and today). They had been sent a video link to it last week and so they were already familiar with it, they just needed to put it all together with the girls. 

They had the girls divided up into three groups and had one group compete in each category at a time. Jaiden's group did Self Expression first (where they answer a question on stage). She had been nervous when she saw that she was doing Self-Expression first, because she felt like it might be her weakest area, but she totally nailed it!! As soon as she finished her question Rick and I looked at each other, smiled, and did a thumbs up!! We were so proud of her!! Here is the video clip of her answering her group's question:  https://youtu.be/TIOxGofK4qY

Jaiden's group performed their talents next. Jaiden did AWESOME!!! There was one little hiccup near the end of her song where she breathed in and her throat caught, which caused her to skip two words, but she handled it really well and just kept right on going without letting it phase her. Here is her talent!! (Sorry for the poor video quality -- there were people's heads in the way in the seats in front of me, which made the video go in and out of focus. But you get the idea!) 

Jaiden's Talent: https://youtu.be/8EJebQtt2wg 

Jaiden's group did the fitness routine last and she did great with that too!! 

The program was really good and quite entertaining. It was about 3 1/2 hours long and so I worried that we might get bored, but it held my attention well. They had parts throughout where they showed slideshows of the girls with pictures taken the past couple of days as well as pictures of them that they had sent in earlier. They also had a slideshow explaining Distinguished Young Women and how this year is the 60th anniversary, with pictures throughout the years. The was interesting too, but a little long. They played all of that while the judges deliberated. Then they finally came back and announced the winners. The breakdown is as follows: 25% Interview, 25% Scholastic, 20% Talent, 15% fitness, and 15% Self-Expression.

Jaiden was one of the top five in Self-Expression, Interview, and Talent!! After hearing her Self-Expression answer we thought that she might be one of the top five. The Interviews had been done last Tuesday and Wednesday over zoom and Jaiden felt like she could have done better. So that one was a pleasant surprise!! And we were thrilled when she was announced as one of the top five winners for talent also! All of the talents were quite good, so it must have been difficult to choose between them. They then announced the final winners. By this time we figured that Jaiden would be in the top five, and were thrilled when they announced that she had won 1st Runner Up!!   

After watching all of the participants, Rick and I thought that Isabel Hallows would most likely be the winner. She really stood out and did well in all of the areas. Rick has actually judged pageants before and was taking notes in the program booklet, ha ha! Before the winners were announced he had leaned over to me saying that he felt that Jaiden had a really good chance of being one of the top five overall. Jaiden performed really well in fitness also, even though she wasn't one of the top five. She probably wasn't far behind! She also has a solid 4.0 and high ACT score, and lots of honors classes, so I am sure she was high up there in Scholastics also, even though she wasn't in the top five.  

Anyway, we were all pretty excited! Going into State I really had no idea of what to expect. We were absolutely thrilled that she did so well! As 1st Runner-Up she received a $2,500 Cash Scholarship to the college of her choice and a jewelry gift. She received $750 for being in the top five for Self-Expression, $1000 for being in the top five in Talent, and $1000 for being in the top five for Interview. So she earned $5250.00 from state and $1,150 from the local program, earning a total of $6400.00 overall in Scholarship money. Not too shabby!!

We felt really good about the results -- and we are perfectly fine that she didn't win the title of  Distinguished Young Women of Utah. The winner goes on to compete at the National competition in Mobile, Alabama this summer, which would have been a great experience, but also a lot of time and stress. The winner, Isabel, is darling and will represents our state well in nationals. I am sure Jaiden will have other responsibilities that she needs to handle as part of the top five, but for now, I am sure she is more than ready to focus on something else! 

We took some pictures and said goodbye to Grandma and Gerilyn and then the rest of us went out for ice-cream to celebrate!! Then Jaiden and Jenna went with Janika and Brandon to be dropped off to their cousins for the night and then rest of us headed back to my mom's to spend the night. The next day we headed to Janika and Brandon's for a nice lunch before heading back to St. George! 

And some backstage "just for fun" pictures! 

These "snapshot" collages were decorating the tables out in the lobby! 

And the certificates...

Congratulations, Jaiden!!!! 

Chicago Trip (By Janelle)

Visiting Chicago was seriously so fun and such an awesome experience! Me (Janelle), Jared, Jenna, and Dad all went. We started out by heading to the Vegas airport bright and early at 3:00 am on Thursday, October 14th. That was also my birthday, and if waking up at three isn’t the best present ever, I don’t know what is! We flew to Chicago and got there around noon, and then took a train called the Blue Line to downtown Chicago. There was quite the scenery and the buildings were all HUGE! There were so many buildings and the architecture was super well done. We walked down to the hotel and dropped some stuff off and then walked to a restaurant called Portillos. It was really good, we had Italian beef sandwiches that you dip in gravy, and they have cake blended into a shake! It was bomb.

After that we walked to lots of different places like the church they have there, the bean (which was super cool but my dad announced that it was my birthday and at least 100 people started singing to me), and a bunch of other parks. It was super cool. We also walked down by Navy Pier and the view of Lake Michigan was gorgeous. Chicago honestly did a really good job of being a big city but still having clean parks and involving nature. Then we went to Chinatown which was fun! We didn’t stay for very long but bought some souvenirs there which was cool. Then we took the red line back and crashed at the hotel! It was a great day! We did lots of walking (about 9 miles and poor Jenna was complaining for at least 8 of them) and got some super pretty views. 

The next day (Friday, October 15) we got up and ran to the store to get breakfast, and then we were able to go to the Chicago temple! It was really pretty and really good to be there, and this was Jenna’s first time which was exciting. After we went to the temple we went to a restaurant called Giordano's to get some of Chicago’s famous deep dish pizza. It was really good. We had originally been planning to visit six flags on Saturday but decided that we would end up going on Friday night instead. So we chilled at the hotel for a bit and then went to six flags! It was fright fest and super crowded so we didn’t get to ride very many rides, but it was still fun! My favorite that we went on was called Goliath. There weren’t too many scary people around so it wasn’t really a big deal. I don’t like scary people so this was definitely preferable :). Then we went back to the hotel! It was a way fun day!

On Saturday (October 16) Dad had decided he wanted to go to a deaf convention while we were here, so we dropped him off and parked at the church and then walked to the Chicago zoo. We didn’t get to stay super long but it was cool and free which makes it way more cool! We saw zebras, flamingos, monkeys, even snow leopards! And a red panda that was really cute :). When Dad called us saying he was done we headed back to the car to pick him up (Which was quite a ways away so poor dad had to wait for like an hour). Anyway, we picked him up and then we were able to go to the North Side of Chicago and the very edge of the city. It was really cool! It was super diverse and there were so many different languages that were being spoken. Then we went to the Cub Stadium and then we went and got ice cream at a place called Oberweis that was really good and then we got to see Jared’s mission president, President and Sister Shumway. They were really cool people and their goodness just radiated from them. It was super cool to meet them! After that we went back to the hotel! It was a fun day!

On Sunday we spent the day in the south side of Chicago and started out by going to Febbie Shola’s house, who is an awesome Nigerian lady. We couldn’t stay for long because she had to work but she gave us TONS of Nigerian food and a gross soda called Malta. We took it back to the church to eat, it was baked chicken with jollof rice and plantains. It was pretty good! We got to meet Darlene and go to church (and in our free time we went to Obama’s house) and it was really cool! Jared and Darlene were able to share their testimonies in church to fill up time and they were both so powerful. Everyone applauded after Darlene which in itself shows some differences between church here and in St. George haha.

 After church we went to Darlene’s house in the Lowe building and were able to talk to her and hear her conversion story. It was really special, she’s super sweet. She has five children: Sharon, Michael, Goodluck, Goodness, and Goodnews. Gotta love those names! All of the kids were super cute! They also gave us a bunch of Nigerian meat pies, which were actually really good! It was fun to meet with them. Last we visited Abiola and his family, and they were super awesome too! We told them we didn’t need more food, but alas, they still came out with a huge tray of food that we had to eat. They were awesome though and gave dad some traditional Nigerian clothes! It was really cool to meet these people and get a feel for their culture. It was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Darlene Gaston (one of our favorite people!)

Janika and Brandon

 Janika and Brandon looking cute at a party for Brandon's work! 

Georgia Slobe Funeral

 A good friend of ours passed away last week. Rick and I had both visited her shortly before she passed away. I had seen her a couple of weeks before, and Rick visited with her on the actual day that she passed away. Georgia and her husband, Ron, are both Deaf and we have known them for many years. Ron had wanted Rick to speak at Georgia's Funeral, but it was the same weekend that he was in Chicago. Rick was so sad to miss it! I went to both the viewing and the funeral and helped bring food for the family luncheon. Rick was able to watch part of the funeral on zoom. Georgia will especially be remembered for her dedication to family history. She was a wonderful lady and will be missed! 

Pumpkin Carving

While half of the family was partying in Chicago on Janelle's birthday, Jaiden was partying at home. She and Lane carved pumpkins tonight (Jaiden attempted to carve a pumpkin that looked like Lane and Lane attempted to carve a pumpkin that looked like Jaiden, ha ha!) They also watched a horror movie called "Lights Out." Fun times! 

A few days later she and her friends celebrated at the Rinq for Keirra Campbell's birthday party!