Conference and Christmas Light Season

In most households, October is exciting because Halloween is coming up and you get to find an awesome costume and start making things with pumpkin (cookies, cakes, milkshakes, etc) and carve pumpkins and the changing of seasons from summer to fall, the list is endless really. However in our house, October 1st indicates the beginning of Christmas Light Season. That's right folks, if you like Christmas lights that cover every square inch of the outside of your house, October 1st is the day to begin untangling lights, testing strands, buying replacements if necessary, and drawing out schematics for your light display (I wish I had a schematic to show you all but I guess you will just have to see the finished product). Basically staring October 1st I loose my husband to his other great love, Christmas Lights. I knew of this love prior to marriage so I guess I can't really complain that I rarely see my husband from October 1st to Thanksgiving day. There are worse things in the world. This year my husband and father-in-law have decided to make some grand additions to the display so there has been a lot of extra work done to put those ideas into action. I will admit, they are some pretty awesome additions. I look forward to seeing the finished project. I do wish that my husband didn't look like he was in a fight everyday from October to December. His tree really beats up on him. You'd think he was putting lights up in the whomping willow.

But enough with the Christmas lights. We still have a month and a half before it is Christmas time, truthfully it is even less than that almost (holy cow!!! Where has time gone?!?).

So two weekends ago was General Conference. That is truly one of my favorite weekends of the year. I love being able to listen a Prophet of God speak to us and give us those things we need to make it through this life and back to our Heavenly Father. There were way too many good talks to choose a favorite so I won't even get into that but I will just say that it was one of the most spiritually uplifting conference sessions I can remember. I still feel so positive and just comforted despite all the crazy scary stuff that's going on in the world. I am so grateful to be a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have definitely seen the blessings in my life and in our lives since we have been married because of the gospel. We have been blessed with financial stability, a place to live, jobs, and other  things that we maybe didn't need but  have been fortunate to have.

Life is good! We celebrated our 2nd anniversary in August [sheet fort, Texas Roadhouse, Coldstone and the Goonies. Perfection :)] and we couldn't be happier!  We look forward to the continuation of our journey together :)

So what a great nine month break it has been from the blog :) Yeah I am ashamed of my lack of dedication. Anyway, It has been a crazy 9 months and I will not be going into immense detail because that would just be boring. 

In November Me and the husband had the privilege of going to Disney World for 11 days with my husbands extended family. I was a little skeptical of going on a vacation with 30+ people but was pleasantly surprised at how amazingly wonderful that trip was. I already loved Disney but I believe I am now officially obsessed. Given the chance I would probably live there and never get sick of the cheesy magical world that is Disney :) I just love it! Anyway we were there over thanksgiving and got home at the first of december. We had to decorate for christmas before we left because the Husband was insistent that if we got home in December our house needed to be decorated. Hey, it saved the drama of trying to do it after we got home so its all good. Christmas was wonderful as always. I just love the holidays! And New Years was pretty great too. 

The beginning of the year was mostly uneventful. I started into more intense classes for the PTA program and Colton continued with classes for Electrical Engineering. We had a very nice Valentine's day in which Colton surprised me with several presents throughout the evening and we made dinner together and had some asphalt pie at wingers. 

April wasn't the happiest month we have had so far. Walker and Rachel's baby was stillborn. Such a hard thing but they have really been amazing and I look up to them and their strength at this difficult time. Manti was able to be buried right next to Dillon so that is a nice little set up. We can go see both our angel babies at the same time :) They are such sweet spirits and I feel blessed to have them as part of our family. 

In may I started my first clinical rotation for the PTA program. That started May 14th and ended July 3rd So I was back and forth between Pocatello and Logan for 8 weeks... not my favorite thing but you do what you gotta do. While I was a little nervous about this clinical rotation I am pleased to report that it was a WONDERFUL experience and I am looking forward to the next year of school and then being able to graduate and start working! It's crazy to look at life and realize that in a year from now I will be done with school... That used to seem like some far fetched intangible thing but it is starting to get real. I guess it's time to start being a grown-up. Scary. 

This past week and the week before we had family reunions for both of our families. As was started last year, my mom continued cousin camp which was, as we expected, a blast! We had a Cousin Carnival, went to Jensen's Grove, and did science experiments in the driveway. For the whole family reunion, we had our traditional camp out in Tonda and Clarence's backyard along with our movie which was Wreck it Ralph (such a cute movie! We love it at our house). On Saturday we had a photo shoot and took pictures for the family calendar. And then everyone went home on Sunday. 

This past weekend we went to Island Park with The Husbands family and stayed in a really nice cabin. We went to the Playmill three nights in a row so we didn't miss a single show they were putting on this season. The three shows were Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Fiddler On The Roof, and Beauty and the Beast. They were amazing of course and we loved seeing them. We also spent some time going through the park. We went to Mammoth hot springs, Old Faithful, and the Canyon. I love going through the park it is so beautiful and amazing to see all the things that our Heavenly Father has created for us to enjoy. I love it. We didn't see too much wild life, but we were able to see two bison that were "courting" when we were at Old Faithful. They were so close the park rangers had to clear a section of the walkway to keep people at a safe distance from them. 

All in all it was a good weekend and we have been having a good summer, especially now that I am staying in the same state and city as my husband. There are still quite a few exciting events left in our summer so hopefully (crosses fingers) I will be a little better about posting. But what is now documented will have to be good for the time being. Till we blog again :)

Early Morning Surprise :)

What?! It is October 23?? When did that happen?! Wasn't it just August and summer was ending and school was beginning and things were all chill and relaxed? Yeah that is how quickly life is going by here at the Jensen house :) School is CRAZY I tell you! So mini update. Me and Colton have this issue where in the fall our schedules somehow manage to be completely opposite of each other. It really only happens in the fall and I'm not really sure why. Here is an example of a typical week for us. 

Sunday: Church at 9am, I am in the nursery until sacrament meeting and then Colton plays the organ so I don't really see him much at church. We come home from church and then I work at 3 so I leave the house around 2:30 to be there on time. I work until 10 and then come home and we go to bed.

Monday: Colton goes to school at 9:30 and I sleep till 11 so that I am well rested for my noc shift that night. Colton comes home at 12:30 and I leave for school. Colton works at 2 and I get home from school at 2:30. Colton works until 11 and I go to work at 10 and get home at 6 the next morning.

Tuesday: I babysit our little cousin Liberty from 7am to 4pm. Colton goes to school at 8 and gets home around 11. Some days he doesn't work until a little later but usually he works from 2 to 11 and so I don't see much of him that day either...

Okay I'm not gonna bore the world with the rest of our schedule but you can kind of get the idea. We don't get a lot of quality time together these days which is hard but it is just a short phase of our lives and we will survive just fine. At least I get to see him every night and I don't have to go months or years without him around. More power to military wives. Mucho respecto. But anyway the point of this story. So I had to work last night from 10 until 6 this morning and when I got home there was this little package on the table :)

And inside of the box was this...

It seems silly that this was exciting to me because it is just a scrub top but I have been telling Colton I wanted a fall scrub top for weeks and he keeps saying "we will see" and I had just resolved that it wasn't going to happen and then he got it for me just because and it made my day :) And the flowers is kind of a big deal. Colton doesn't really do the flower thing. Sometimes for special occasions but not often so it was a nice change to get some flowers and a present just because!

Anyway that is pretty much all I really had to say. I just wanted to brag a little about my sweet husband :) I don't see him much but I'm glad that we can still find little ways to say I love you! 

End of Summer Fun!

Well much as I expected would happen, I have epically FAILED at blogging in the last month. I think part of it has been me thinking that if I didn't blog about it, then the summer wouldn't be over. In fact I'm pretty sure that I have been denying that summer was ending so well that I still don't feel like it is over and that school has started. Hmm... this could become problematic, but we can deal with that problem in a little bit ;) Right now I will do some end of summer updating!
For most of this summer we have done a lot of, well, nothing. We worked, watched tv, worked, and occasionally went outside and enjoyed this HOT weather. So the month of August kind of changed things up for us.
 Let's start from our last blog post.
Not much happened. We had Family pictures with Colton's family

 

We also had a fun day of cooking together :)

 The cool whip was still a little frozen

 Apparently just pouring the box of pasta in was too easy and boring

 Our salad bar :) cookie salad, broccoli salad, pasta salad and green salad

There would be more pictures of US cooking but Colton really did most of the cooking while I cut the watermelon so I had to give him the credit.

Colton also decided to inform me that he was a fairly decent pedicurist. 

He can paint the designs just not the base coat. That was a funny picture I really should have taken.

We also went to the hospital picnic with my family.

It was a fun couple of weeks we had :)

Now into August! We started the month with a trip to Utah.
First was Lagoon!

We don't force short people to use short water fountains.

Most people would have ride pictures too but pulling out a camera seemed too difficult all day long. But long story short, we got there at opening, rode rides till noon, ate lunch, rode more rides, re-rode rides and then at 6 we decided it was time to head out and have some dinner. We went back to the hotel and rested for a little bit and then went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. It was SOOO good! Then we went back to the hotel and chilled for the rest of the night. We watched some Olympics [which was another great part of the summer. I miss them :( ] and then went to bed.

The next day we went to Salt Lake and did some shopping. We also met up with Mark and Lauren Farmer for lunch. Colton and Mark were mission companions and Lauren is his new wife. We love seeing them :)

We also went to Park City for some outlet mall shopping. We had intentions of going to the Olympic park but it got a little too late so we just looked at it from the road.

After Park City we headed home. We decided to bypass Salt Lake and save a little time but TomTom was not informed about all the construction on the twisty back roads that went to Ogden. Needless to say it was a very stressful drive to Ogden. All in all though it was a good and fun little trip!

After our Lagoon/Utah trip we went to Chubbuck Days. I didn't take any pictures of that but there was also Scottish Days or something going on at Cotant that day and I did get pictures of that :)

How often do you get to watch a group of men pick up telephone poles and throw them. Answer: not often.

After that we really didn't do much with the rest of our summer. When I started writing this it felt like we did a lot more in the month of August.

Oh but of course! How could I forget that Heather had her adorable little baby on the 3rd. I don't have any pictures of little Liberty Marie Judy but that may change when I start watching her on Tuesdays and Thursdays :) She is so precious!

That pretty much sums up our summer! I will be posting again very soon to update about back to school and all the fun that surrounds that adventure.

Batman!

This past week we went to the premier of The Dark Knight Rises. Can I just say that it was epically amazing! Our family REALLY likes batman. Colton's favorite thing to do is walk around the house saying "I'm Batman" in his batman voice. He is pretty good at the voice, I definitely am not good at the voice. Anyway, I will not bore others with our liking for batman, it is probably a little unhealthy for two grown people but sometimes you have to embrace your inner child :) However before I leave the topic of our Batman obsession I would like to share a link to one of our favorite things to look up on youtube. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seBpXt8_6xs

We thoroughly enjoy the how it should have ended videos. It is our favorite thing about new movies with the exception of the midnight premier of the actual movie. If you get nothing else from this post hopefully it causes you to go to hishe.com and watch all the how it should have ended videos. Well at least the ones you have seen the real version of. They aren't funny if you haven't seen what they are making fun of.

Anyway back to the premier. I'm not gonna spoil the movie by any means because that is just plain rude. I would hate to take the first time experience away from anyone but I will say that it was bat-tastic ;)

 We went with Colton's cousins (Shaun, Jeremiah, Kirsten) and Jill and then Kirsten had a few friends that met up with us and Shaun brought his girlfriend Ashley. We got there at like 9:30 and almost made it on tv because channel 3 news was doing their report in front of where we were standing, but then the line moved and we made it inside away from the camera. We played a few games of UNO while we waited in line and found that it is a much more fun game when it is played with more than 2 people which is how Colton and I are used to playing UNO. All in all it was a fun night and we got to watch Batman for almost 3 hours so you can't really go wrong there!

 I will admit that there were some tears shed at the end of the movie and I felt like a fool because you are NOT supposed to cry when you go to super hero movies. However I think Batman holds a deep enough place in my heart that I am allowed to cry during the final installment of the Batman trilogy.

Other than Batman our weekend wasn't too exciting. I worked and then Colton worked and we were on our opposite schedules as usual, just living the life of working married people :) Oh I am forgetting that we did get to see some of my family's friends from Texas this weekend! The Smith's have been our friends for like forever. I was 5 when we moved to Texas and it was close to that time that we met the Smith family. We usually get to see them once a year when they go Utah for family reunions and stuff. It was nice to see them. Little side note... they have a son who is 17 named Aaron. He is one of my favorite members of that family. He is just a goof and he always kept us laughing when we were younger. Anyway, he kind of resembles Justin Bieber. I guess he has been stopped several times by hormonal teenage girls that want a picture with him because of this resemblance. It is a hard life to be the Biebs look-a-like so he told these girls once that they could get a picture with him for a dollar. They gladly paid up ;) 

Before the Smith's left my grandma (aka G or G-dawg) asked Aaron if she could have a picture with him for a dollar. She got her picture and then had to scout for loose change in her car to pay up.

 My grandma is funny.

That sums up life in the Jensen home as of late. This next month will have a little more excitement to share! 

It will be nice to have more to report on around here.

Lemonjello, Orangejello, La-A

Most people would see Lemonjello and Oragejello and just think someone forgot the spaces between the words, however in this case they would be wrong. Those are in fact names. 

Lemonjello pronounced lem-onj-ello

Oragejello pronounced Or-onj-ello

La-A I guess is pronounced la-dash-a

I haven't yet decided which is my favorite name but I think they are all creative to the point of funny.

Anywho now that it is July 16th and we are almost two weeks past the 

4th of July

I should probably blog about all the holiday/general fun we've been having :)

First we must highlight my Auntie Tonda's 3rd of July party which is my family's 4th of July prequel.

Unfortunately this year we had that terrible fire right before the 4th of July that was no bueno. All of the damage that happened and all that those families lost is just terrible and our thoughts are definitely with those people. I can't even imagine going through that experience.

 Anyway, because it was so dry and activities involving fire weren't the safest, the 3rd of July party had to be altered a little. Typically we would have some huge firework show with a program listing all of the fireworks that were let off and a good mix of songs celebrating America. This year though my Aunt had to get SUPER creative to keep the tradition alive. 

We began as usual with our recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Following the Pledge, my Uncle set up his projector and we watched legit firework displays from youtube.

 Enjoying the show!

The cool spinning glow sticks that we called 

"ground blooms" 

since we couldn't use the real ones.

Since we couldn't play with sparklers, my aunt bought everyone a glow stick and we twirled those around instead! It was so creative and still tons of fun, though next year I would much prefer the real stuff

For the 4th, me and the husband had to work :( but I shouldn't complain because we both had that night off and we got to watch the fireworks still. 

We worked like completely opposite of each other, so I have basically no pictures from the 4th of July except this one...

 We were happy to see a flag in this year's 4th of July parade

And this one... 

 

Our ward entered a float in the parade... It was cute and it won an award!

And this one... 

We watched the fireworks at Colton's parent's house. Their backyard is the fairgrounds which makes it a  prime firework watching spot. 

And there was free food. 

We like free food...

 A LOT

After Theeeee Biggest Show in Idaho! we went in the front yard and lit some of our own fireworks and the kids played with sparklers. We only burned one of them. I call that a success with sparklers and children. 

That night we stayed at Colton's parents because the next morning we were leaving at 7:30 to go to Bountiful for his cousin Brant's sealing. It was such a tender moment being there for their sealing.

They have a little girl and being able to see their little family sealed together for eternity was pretty amazing. It was so awesome to be able to share that experience with them and to share in the happiness. Unfortunately I was not on top of things so I don't have a picture with them but here are some from after the sealing as we were waiting to go to lunch at Chuck-A-Rama.

 This is Colton's cousin-in-law Scott. 

We asked him to take a picture and this is what we got.

 It was too good not to post.

 Once we got Scott to take a picture of us, 

Colton's other cousin Armando decided to pop into the photo. 

It was also too good not to post.

It was a good day in Bountiful :) We are so happy for Brant and Mercedez.

Nothing super exciting happened between July 5th and July 15th,

Well aside from the day of a million birthdays 

Colton has an uncle and cousin with July 12th birthdays and I have a brother and cousin with that birthday. 

It's a busy day for us

 On the 15th, which was yesterday, we headed to Sandy, Utah for Colton's Mission President's homecoming. Colton has been looking forward to this for like a year and a half, needless to say he was pretty excited. 

The meeting started at 9 so in order to get there early enough to get a seat and talk to some of his mission friends, we had to leave here at 5:30 in the morning. We are NOT morning people and I had been getting up at 5:30 every other day of the week so it was difficult but we made it out of Pocatello on time and had plenty of time to talk to people and get really good seats :) Because things were a little crazy, this is the only picture I have of the day but it is a pretty cool picture.

There was fog for most of the trip there but at this point it just looked cool because you could see the top and bottom of the fog line. Crazy clouds... if it were dark it would have just been eerie. 

Anyway, before the meeting started, we were able to say hi to President Sorensen and his wife which I think made Colton pretty happy. He really loves the Sorensens. They both gave great talks and between them all of the missionaries from the Ohio Cleveland Mission got up and sang their mission song. It was a tender moment with a lot of crying missionaries. 

After the meeting, we met up with a bunch of Colton's companions and other friends from his mission. I wish I could say that I remember all of them but there were a lot of people crammed into a short period of time. They were all so nice though and it was great to get to meet the people my husband used to write me about while he was on his mission and put faces to the names. We went to President Sorensen's house and had some food and then decided we should head home. All in all it was a great day and it was fun to meet everyone and for Colton to see all of his friends. 

Now we are back to normal life where we have to work and do not as fun stuff. But we both have Friday off so we will be having a date night... as soon as I figure out what we will be doing ;) 

It will be great I'm sure

 

Family Reunion and Cousin Camp :)

So these last few weeks have been CRAZY for us. On the 22nd of June my Rasmussen family had our family reunion. It was SO fun to see all of my cousins and aunties and uncles. It seems like it has been forever since we have all been together. Anyway, we had a camp out in my Aunt Tonda's backyard Friday night and then on Saturday we all got up, ate an amazing breakfast of strawberry covered waffles and sausage and eggs and then we went to Cherry Springs for a couple of hours. It was fun to just hang out and laugh and be crazy with the people that I love :)

Family pictures :) We are a little crazy!

So a few months ago my mom decided that she wanted to have all of my younger cousins stay for a week after the family reunion for what she called Cousin Camp. 

 

I am not going to lie, I thought she was crazy to want to have 13 to 14 kids at her house for a week but she solicited my help and I felt I should comply with her request. We started the week with a trip to the zoo!

 Trying to be like Bears... some of us were better at it than others

Me and little buddy Fred (or Hayden depending on who you talk to)

This was the first time I have been to the Pocatello Zoo that I can consciously remember. My mom says she took me as a child but I have no recollection of ever going so I felt very accomplished after this trip. After the zoo everyone went swimming but I had to go to work :( I hear swimming was fun though!

The next day was by far the most creative, exciting, and fun day I have had in a while. 

My lovely Auntie Dawna is probably one of the most creative people I know and she always has the coolest ideas for fun activities. So when my mom suggested having Cousin Camp my auntie Dawna suggested we celebrate a YEAR in a DAY we don't get to celebrate all holidays together.

We started the year with New Years by waking the teenagers up banging on pots and pans and screaming happy new year at the top of our lungs. Oh man did they love that ;) 

We then gathered in the kitchen and had confetti pancakes for breakfast

 

 yummy confetti pancakes!

After New Years comes valentine's day :) We all sat down and decorated sugar cookies. They turned out way cute and some a little funny.

 

 Colton ate his before I could get a picture so these are really mine 

But his looked a lot like this

 My cousin Harland told Tonda,

 "Look I decorated my cookies with pancakes." 

Somewhere in that pile are his cookies

 

We then celebrated St. Patrick's day. Anyone who wasn't wearing green got a pinch. 

Unfortunately for us most of the kids were actually wearing green and those of us that knew we were supposed to wear green didn't have any on. 

 

After our pinching war we had all of the kids prank each other for April Fools day while the adults cleaned up the valentine's day mess and got ready for Easter. We dyed eggs and then had an Easter egg hunt. We also  had some Cascarones which are hollowed out eggs filled with confetti that you crack on people's heads. So as the kids found eggs they would crack the Cascarones on each others heads.

 

 The cute Easter baskets Danielle made for the kids

 

After Easter we celebrated Memorial Day. We went out to the cemetery and decorated Baby Dillon's grave. I would post that picture because it was cute but my camera battery died and I had to use Colton's camera and I don't know where the cable to connect it to the computer is so maybe later I can add those pictures.

On that camera is also pictures of our left over sugar cookies that we decorated with Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and confetti sprinkles to cover all the holidays. We also had a pinata for our everyone birthday party. 

After the Birthday party we went to Hannah's softball game for the "summer" portion of the year. 

 

Following the summer come some of the most fun holidays of the year. First up... Halloween! We got everyone in costumes and went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood to some friends houses. Some of the people even played along and dressed up and decorated their house with some Halloween decor.

 

Getting ready to Trick-or-Treat

 

After Halloween we celebrated Thanksgiving with Thanksgiving in a pan. Basically it is a casserole idea for real Thanksgiving leftovers. You put mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, and corn or green beans in a pan, cover it with gravy and top with cheese and there you have the essentials of Thanksgiving all in one pan.

Thanksgiving dinner!

 

Next up is everyone's favorite holiday... CHRISTMAS!! Well at least that is me and Colton's favorite. Unfortunately Colton had to work after Easter so he missed our favorite holiday :(

Before we started, we ate our birthday cake from earlier in the day. Then we opened our gift exchange presents from each other. Everyone loved their presents and was happy to have some new toys to play with. 

 

After the gifts were opened, my mom told everyone to get on their gloves, scarfs, and hats because we were going caroling! They all thought she was kidding but she was very serious.

 

 Our group of Carolers :)

 

We caroled to the same people we trick-or-treated too however this time we didn't tell them we were coming so they got a nice little surprise at the end of their day.

 

Once Christmas comes to an end, the year is also close to an end. 

At that point in the day it was pretty dark so it seemed like an appropriate time to let off some New Year's fireworks. We all sat outside my parent's house and counted down from 10 to 1 and yelled happy new year and watched a couple of fountain fireworks. The kids then played with sparklers and we all sat down and enjoyed the end of a very good year.  

 

The rest of the week was fun. We had a water day on Wednesday including a mud hole my dad made in his backyard. I missed that so I am gonna have to have a mud day in the near future! 

 

On Thursday we had a sidewalk chalk art competition. 

 

 Me and Colton's entry in the sidewalk chalk competition

Following the competition we went to the stake center and played in the gym for a couple hours. 

At 4:30 we went and saw Brave. It was a cute movie and surprisingly most of the kids sat still and didn't disrupt the whole theater. 

 

Most of the kids went home on Thursday night so there weren't many of us that went and enjoyed the 

slip n' slide we set up at Bart's field. It was a blast though! After slip n' sliding we went bowling and I almost lost to a 5 year old. That shows how awesome my bowling skills are, even with bumpers.

 

That pretty much wraps up the last two weeks of our lives. We had SO much fun spending time with my cousins and the rest of my family :) Now this week we have the 4th of July and Colton's cousin's sealing to attend. We are so excited for them and to be a part of their day! But that has yet to happen so I will catch up on that when it happens!  Now I am off to my Auntie Tonda's 3rd of July party! No fireworks this year but it will still be fun to hang out with more family!