Happy Halloween!!

Halloween (which fell on Tuesday this year) was uneventful. We got ZERO trick-or-treaters come, ha ha! We never get many, but at we usually at least get a few! I wasn't feeling very well and just worked on the computer. Jenna went with friends to Cynthia Lane. Josh went and watched a movie with friends. Jenna and her friends: Bria Thompson and Claire McCoy dressed as Kiss, Marry, Kill (which I had never heard of, but is some kind of party game or something)! 

Cute announcement from Janika and Brandon! (Due in April!)

Look how cute these turned out!! (Evan and Eli photos taken by Ellen's sister Lexie!)

Beware of water, snow, and wheelchairs: Jensen Weekly

Here are some of the happenings for this week in the Jensen household!! 

Ellen came down with her family for their Fall Break. They stayed at an Airbnb for the week. Jase came and joined them on Thursday night and we celebrated Eli's first birthday over the weekend with a barbeque and family and friends! Happy Birthday, Eli!!!

Jared had come down for his Fall Break last weekend, and is back to work and school this week. I didn't get any pictures from him this week, sorry! 

Janelle is loving teaching at the MTC and had her first district come and go! She came down with Logan for the weekend to attend her friend, Anika Boettcher's wedding. She and Logan went to the temple open house while they were here. 

Jaiden arrived in Mongolia!!! We are grateful that she and the other members of her district arrived safely!! We are excited for her P-Day so that she can catch us up on everything! The tidbit I did hear was that all of the missionaries had to go to the hospital to get x-rays and blood drawn to make sure they don't have TB or something!  

Josh is in the middle of Water Wars at the high school. Water Wars is not an official high school activity, but a student run event that lasts several weeks -- or until there is only one team left. The students choose others to be on their team and then they pay a combined amount of $20.00 for their team of around four people. It seems like practically the whole student body is involved. They all get wrist bands and have very specific rules to follow. They get members of opposing teams out by squirting them with a squirt bottle. 

Each team has to get someone from a different team "out" during the week or their whole team is out. Each person who gets another person out has to catch it on video so that they have proof. Inside the school or church is off limits, but inside someone's home is not. The winning team gets all of the money, and it is like $2000.00 or something! So it gets extremely competitive!! Josh carries around a squirt bottle wherever he goes and makes us lock the doors whenever he is home. I remember Jared being involved in this also, so apparently it has been going on for years! 

We are constantly getting emails saying that more volunteers are needed at the temple open house. It was Josh and Jenna's turn last Saturday.  The other available times for them were either during school or during evenings when Jenna had dance and Josh had work, and so we had grabbed the only Saturday shift for shoe-coverers that was assigned to our Stake. 

They had both signed up to be shoe-coverers, but then someone there assigned Josh to wipe down the wheels of visitors in wheelchairs, which apparently wasn't nearly as fun as putting shoe covers on people's feet. We were glad that they could serve, but sad that their service time ended up at the same time as Eli's birthday party. They would have loved to be there for the party, but they had signed up two months ago and we didn't feel right about backing out at the last minute. Jenna said it was fun and offered to come again. 

Josh came home completely grumpy and hangry. The shifts are almost four hours long and Josh was tired and starving. It was almost time for them to finish their shift and Josh was counting down the minutes when he was asked to push an older lady in a wheelchair through the entire tour -- tacking on an extra hour to his shift. He apparently accepted, but very begrudgingly! The others couldn't find him and had to wait the extra hour for him as well. Luckily we had extra hamburgers and hotdogs from the party waiting for the kids when they got home! 

Saturday night Josh went to his soccer Halloween party. He said it was fun but he was disappointed that he didn't win any big prizes. Josh got sick the next day -- he went to church, but soon after he was complaining of fever and chills, and was blowing his nose and sleeping all day. He said that it must have been from wiping down all those wheelchair wheels yesterday -- or the party outside in the freezing cold -- or a combination of both. Rick sang in church -- his arrangement of "Did You Think To Pray." It was so beautiful!!

Josh stayed home from school because of his illness. He also missed his last soccer game, which is okay with me because the weather suddenly turned cold tonight. We had our ward Halloween party and chili cook off. (Chili, dunk tank, cake walk, pumpkin painting...). Jenna dressed up as a devil for the party and her friend Clarissa dressed up as an angel. Josh managed to feel well enough by that time to at least go try a few bowls of chili. When I got home he and several of his friends were in the house saying that they couldn't leave or someone might "get them out" (water wars). They eventually left. 

I had tried a couple of bowls of chili at the Fall Carnival and then brought Jenna shopping for her Halloween party -- nothing like waiting until the last minute! We went to several stores looking for a red dress for her costume (Kiss, Marry, Kill) and having no luck I put a request out on our RS GroupMe chat asking if anyone had a dress she could borrow and soon had the perfect dress. 

I started to feel sick while we were shopping and realized that I was having an allergic reaction to something I ate at the party. My chest hurt and the skin around my eyes swelled up. This is the second time that has happened. It happened a couple of months ago the day before we left to bring Jaiden to the MTC after eating some soup at a work meeting and it took two full days for the swelling to completely go away. It has been the same this time. It is so frustrating -- and I don't even know what is causing it! (This one took three days for the swelling to completely subside!) I also feel like I am coming down with whatever Josh had and am praying that I don't get sick! Rick is going to Washington DC with Elder Peter Johnson this coming weekend for Seminary and Institute recruitment and so we are praying he stays healthy too. 

Happy Birthday, Eli!!

 Happy Birthday, Eli!!  Click here for Ellen's Facebook post of Eli's Birthday! 

Jase and Ellen had Eli's birthday party over at our house before her family headed back up north. Those who came were Ellen, Jase, Evan and Ellen's mom and dad, brothers, and sisters, Ky Phillips and Callista, Logan and Summer, and Lanae and Brecken, me and Rick. Josh and Jenna wanted to be there, but had already committed to serve at the temple open house two months ago and so I didn't feel right about having them back out at the last minute. Janelle and Logan were in town for her friend, Annika Boetcher's wedding in the Cedar City temple and already had lunch plans with one of Janelle's missionary companions afterwards. So they missed it too. 

Eli is such a happy baby and is almost constantly smiling his big mouthy grin. He is so fun to play with because he laughs so easily! He is such a cute, chubby baby. You would never know that he was a preemie! (Ellen's sister took a ton of pictures at his party and they turned out soooo cute!!) 

We love you, baby Eli! 

Patriarchal Blessing: Jenna

This morning Jenna received her patriarchal blessing! It was SO beautiful and amazing as we knew it would be! She is definitely a very special girl!! Josh hasn't gotten his yet, but we hope he does soon. We had to call the Patriarch to get permission for him to come to Jenna's blessing, since they generally only allow parents to come. 

Today was also our primary program, which is always fun. Jared and Hallie came to church with us and then headed back up north. Then Ellen came with Evan and Eli a few hours later. She is staying at an Airbnb with her family this week since it is their Fall Break. 

I am the music coordinator in our ward and therefore responsible for finding the musical numbers for sacrament meetings. So I asked Rick to sing next week. That request prompted him to spend some time in the studio reviewing his music and gave him the itch to write a new song (not for Sunday, just for the future). I requested that he write an arrangement of "Go Forth With Faith," since it was my mission song and I love the message. I have ever been able to find any good arrangements for it. So he did! It is beautiful! 

Faculty Retreat at Zions and ASL Temple Tours

Friday October 20: Rick and I had his Seminary and Institute Faculty retreat at Zions. We went to our hotel, and they had a little gift bag filled with snacks. Then we met at the church, and they had this spread of finger foods, but we were still full from lunch. They had a meeting where they honored the people who have worked 20 years, 30 years, and who are retiring. Then they had a table filled with snacks and gave everyone a big Ziploc bag to fill with treats of our choice! They also gave each person $30.00 to go out to eat and a list of nearby restaurants. So they really spoiled us! We met up with some seminary friends and walked around to different restaurants. They were all full and so we went back to the first one and had to wait like an hour to get in. We were okay with that though because we weren't very hungry anyway, and it was fun to just visit with friends who we don't get to visit with very often. We had a nice meal and talked and laughed.

Saturday October 21: We stayed overnight at the hotel. I would have loved to go to the retreat workshops in the morning -- they all looked really good. But it was also the ASL tours for the St. George Temple Open House and I was in charge of putting those together and needed to be there for them. We had set the dates up for the ASL tours long before we knew about the retreat. So, we left right after breakfast to go to the temple where Rick and I and six other interpreters brought deaf groups through the temple tour for four hours. The open house was SO busy today!! There were 21,000 who went through yesterday and probably the same today. We had around 85 deaf people signed up to go through the tours today! 

I went back to the open house tonight at 7:30 for another blind tour. So, it was six hours working at the open house today, plus an hour or so doing computer work for the open house this afternoon. We have another evening of ASL tours in November. This assignment would have been a little more do-able if I had just been over the ASL tours, but our little committee of three people are over all of the language tours for ALL languages! 

 

Tukupetsi Trail

Rick and I went on a hike with Jared and Hallie on the Tukupetsi trail. I love hiking and love that this trail is so close to our home! Then we went out to lunch afterwards at Don Pedros! 

Hunchback at Tuacahn

I had two tickets to go see The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Tuacahn and so I invited my friend Allison to come along. The weather was perfect and the talent was amazing! It definitely isn't one of my favorite shows (too depressing), but it was very well done and we enjoyed the night out! 

Owen's Loop Trail

Today was an active day for me! This morning I went on a 4 mile brisk walk with Allison Williams. It has been a while since we have gone walking together and so it was nice to catch up! The kids were still out of school for a teacher work day and so Jenna invited me to do Pilates with her. Then tonight I did another 3 mile hike with some friends! So I got LOTS of steps today! 

Tonight we met at the Brook's Nature Park to do the Owen's Loop Trail at 5:30 for our hike. (Note to self to google BROOK'S NATURE PARK, not Owen's Loop Trailhead when trying to find the trail!) I have done that hike before, but it has been a while. It is a pretty hike that overlooks the city. The temperature was perfect and it was fun to be active while visiting with friends! It was starting to get near the end of the hike, but we had come prepared with flashlights. It was fun! 

Janelle 21st Birthday and Solar Eclipse!!

The solar eclipse was pretty cool today! It was so weird having it get kind of overcast when there were no clouds in the sky! Janelle and a group of friends actually drove to Ephraim to watch it! And Jaiden got to see it too at the MTC. Here are a few pics! 

Sister Jaiden Jensen and Sister Udy in the MTC

Janelle and her friends went to Ephraim  They also got to see all of the sheep in the street while they were there, which brings me back to my Snow College days!! 

Jensen Update!!

Lots of exciting things going on with the Jensens! First off Janika and Brandon are expecting baby #2 in April!! She is about 12 weeks along. We don't know the gender yet, but will keep you posted! 

Secondly, Brandon got a new job. The company is called Flexible Financials and is based out of New York. He will be working remotely from home. He started last Monday and likes it so far! It has great benefits including three months of paternity leave for people who have worked at least six months. It will be just over six months when they have their baby and so the timing is perfect! 

Jase and Ellen are currently in Mexico on a trip paid for by Ellen's boss. The babies are being taken care of by Ellen's parents. They are having a great time! 

Jared is enjoying teaching seminary. He and his girlfriend, Hallie, are probably coming for a visit over his Fall Break in a couple of weeks. 

Janelle has a BOYFRIEND!!!! She met Logan over the summer at FSY and they kept in contact ever since. Now they are both at BYU and after just a few dates they are "official" because apparently that is how this generation does things! 

Jaiden is hoping to get a chance to sing a solo at the MTC, is struggling to learn Mongolian, and got to meet and take a picture with Sister Emily Belle Freeman! 

Josh went to ALL-State Choir this last weekend (Thursday through Sunday). He is the Bass section leader and went with a few others from his high school. They rode on a bus with kids from the other high schools. The choir included hundreds of other high school singers in the tabernacle at a concert last night. He got home this afternoon. He said that the concert itself was really neat -- but he didn't enjoy the all-day rehearsals leading up to it! He said that choir kids are "so weird" and told me some funny stories about the trip. He also googled all of the songs that they sang during the concert -- lots of classical stuff, but he liked it! He had a choir concert Monday night, but missed it for his soccer game! 

Jenna turned 15 this week and passed the test to receive her driving permit! Her phone also completely broke and so she is saving her money to buy Jared's iphone when he buys a new one. 

I continue to be extremely busy coordinating language tours for the St. George Temple Open House and also coordinating all of the interpreters at UT -- plus all of my own interpreting. Rick continues to be busy with his job as well as interpreting.

Rick surprised me with a romantic date last night. He had suspiciously gone to Vegas to "pick something up" on Saturday morning. Saturday night he fixed Chinese food  -- Chinese food cooked by him (we wore our Kimonos), and then I discovered that our master bathroom was transformed into a massage parlour with scented candles all over, soft music playing, and in the middle of the room -- a massage table! (That was the item he had picked up from Vegas after buying it through Nellis Auctions). So the night included a full cooked meal and full body massage. Very nice! 

This Thursday and Friday is our fall break, but we are sticking around here and taking on some extra interpreting jobs!

Jenna: Learner Permit!!

Jenna has been so anxious to start learning how to drive and wanted to take the test for her learner permit as soon as she could after her 15th birthday.  The after-school appointments were booked out the week of her birthday and so I set up an appointment for her for today. I really wasn't sure if she would pass it or not because I didn't know how much she had really studied. But she DID pass -- and on the first try!! Way to go, Jenna! She has been bugging us to take her driving, but I said that she had to get her permit first. Now, we better start scheduling some driving practice! I can't believe my baby is going to be driving soon!! 

General Conference!!

I love General Conference! We had conference crepes this morning! And Janika also made crepes and invited Jared and Janelle to come over to their place this morning. It was nice getting the temple tour over with so that I could actually focus on General Conference! Jase and Ellen and the boys left after the first session. I made a cake last night and we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jenna before they left. I couldn't find any candles, and so she blew out a random scented candle after we sang to her, ha ha! 

I especially loved the Sunday afternoon talks and was grateful that President Nelson still spoke! His talk was amazing! And then the very last temple announcement was Ulaanbaator, Mongolia! Dad and I just started cheering and I started crying! Immediately we got several texts from family members about it. I know that things take a while and so it probably won't happen during your mission, but it is still exciting! 

Some people moved in the house that is behind our back yard and so Jenna made some cookies and we went to meet them. It is the daughter of the builder and her husband and little 18 month old boy. They are renting it for a year while they build a house out near the Red Cliffs Temple.