Sweet Katherine

One of my dear friends lost her 5 month old baby last week. She passed away peacefully in her sleep on Thursday 6/18 just over a week ago. I am so sad for her and her family. There are no words to even describe all they are going through. Since I found out last week I have had such a heavy heart.

It has been a week of sadness and tears. Paula and I have known each other for years. About 6 years ago we joined a book club and have been reading together since. There are 4 of us still in the book club. We have all been through so much together. Paula invited us, the book club, to come to all the family times. It was so touching to be invited to Katherine's visitation on the evening before the funeral. I just could not stop crying. Then the next day was her funeral.

Wednesday the day of the funeral was suppose to be a much different day. We, the book club, had planned to spend the evening in Boulder. We planned for an early dinner, then some shopping and finally dessert while we discussed the book. Instead we spent the day burying Paula's sweet Katherine.

Katherine will be missed.
Memorial Obituaries Nelson, Katherine

A View...

This was the view from my porch on Sunday afternoon. Yep, that is right it is a tornado. Yes, it was just over a mile from my house, yikes! I thought once I moved away from Texas I would be done with them! I guess not.

We were just spending a relaxing Sunday afternoon at home. Church was over. Leah was napping. Grant was planning DS. Kevin was reading the paper. I was watching TV. Then it happened....the tornado warning....but it was for up north miles and miles away from us. Then about 10 minutes later another warning...this time it was for our area. Kevin called for me to come look and this is what I saw.....

1:58 pm

2:00 pm

2:02 pm

Of course as a photographer I could not pass up taking some pictures. We woke up Leah and headed down to the basement. After cleaning out the closet under the stairs we all climbed in and had a fun 30 minutes. Kevin was watching out the window while I had the fun task of keeping the kids happy....did I mention we had to wake Leah up....yeah she was not happy.

I missed most of the storm, due to entertaining children....but it seems there was quite a bit of debris and very large hail (golf ball size) all around our house. Luckily the tornado did not pass over us...but it was too close for comfort.

The mall by my house was hit as well as a neighborhood in my ward. One of my friends was working at the mall during the tornado, talk about scary. Plus several of my neighbors were shopping during the storm. I am so glad we were safe at home. Here are some pictures (not mine) of that area.

Grant turns 6

Grant turned 6...yeah yeah I know almost a month ago. His birthday is May 6, 2003. This year he had his first friend party! In years past we have mostly just had family and family friends. He was more than excited to be able to invite his friends.

First we had to pick a theme...his first choice was Star Wars...however one of his friends just had a Star Wars party and did so many fun things, so I told him he had to pick something else. Second he wanted Pokemon...I don't even know what that is! Kevin and I were pushing for a Pirate party....he wanted nothing to do with a pirate party. Finally he decided on a Super Mario party....I guess we can do that. Unfortunately you can't get Super Mario stuff at any of the stores in town. I was able to order some stuff on-line, thank goodness.

Now we had to decide who to invite....he had a list a mile long. I said we should just invite boys to trim the list some...he was not about to cut the girls from his list! So I told him we could invite 12...that somehow turned into 16! 12 came, 8 boys (including Grant) and 5 girls.

As they were arriving we had the kids color a picture. Then we served lunch, Pizza. Then cake....they were all sitting down so I figured it was easiest to just be done with eating. Then on to the games. Since I have never had a kid party before games were a new concept for me. I search on-line and found several ideas. We gave half the boys red "Mario" hats and the other half green "Luigi" hats and the girls of course had "Princess Peachy" crowns.

Stick the mustache on Mario....I got stick on mustaches and the kids had fun.

Pop the balloons and collect the coins.....Kevin and I stuck a bunch of coins in balloons and blew them up. I dropped all the balloons over the rail from the loft. It was fun but it was harder than expected for the kids to pop the balloons.

Musical chairs...ok but I don't think I will do this game again. It was too hard to tell what kid got to the chair first and no one wanted to admit they were out.

Princess Peachy rescue....we had clue that the kids had to follow, like go to the dungeon (basement) and stand on colored squares. The last clue took them to Leah's (Princess Peachy) room where she was trapped in her crib. Bowser (Kevin) was guarding her. The kids had to spin him around to release Peachy. Then chocolate coins fell from the sky.

Yoshi egg hunt....We hit gun coins in Easter eggs and hid them around the house.

Last we opened presents.

Finally we sent them outside to run around for 10-15 minutes until the parents arrived. It was cool outside so we could not spend too much time out there, plus it looked like it was going to rain at any minute.

Grant had a great day. He said it was "the best day ever". I think we are only going to do big parties every other year!! They are too much work for the parents!

After the party was trying to get some funny pictures, but Grant was TOO busy playing his new DS game to even look at me.

Leah at least looked at me!

I like Kevin actually liked his mustache :)

Stories from days gone by...The Jensen log..."The Sock Basket"

This fun story from the past was posted by my sister Heather I thought it would be fun to post on my blog and add to it. Heather's words are in italics and mine are red.

Funny story just came to my mind today as I am folding clothes. I remember in Texas mounds and mounds of laundry in the laundry room outside mine and Fawn's room. I remember mostly the infamous sock basket. I know with five kids the laundry was a task like no other. I remember in our family we had was was known as the sock basket. I remember it was much larger than a basket in fact I think it was a sock TRUNK! And I can understand why. With only four in my family it is impossible to figure out whose socks are whose. Jared likes the one with the blue nike symbol on the back, Jon's are gray and he likes the ones that say Hane's in red on the back. Melissa will wear anybody's and they don't even have to match. I honestly avoid wearing socks at all cost and especially PANTYHOSE LOL which is why I wear my pants to work not. But anyways, I remember growing up all 7 people's socks went into the sock basket! Well let me tell you finding socks in the morning when you are running late to seminary is a daunting task!! HEHE practically impossible. As for me unmatching socks would destroy my day I would be worried all day someone would notice. But anyways that was our methodology for several years...all socks stemmed from the sock basket! Every once in a while when the sock basket got overflowous mom would have a sock matching party. And she would pay us a nickle for every match we made!! LOL good thinking mom! I remember it actually worked tho..those sock matching parties!! HEHE funny memories!..And no I don't have a sock basket now, although I did for a short time while the kids were little, habits run deep. But I had to say goodbye to sock basket tradition!! The sock truck made it all the way to Wyoming as well. The sock matching parties continued as well. No sock basket at my house....yet :)

Books, Books and more Books

So far this year I have read several books (that is what happens when you are in 2 books clubs).

Good Harbor by Anita Diamant

Set in the seaside town of Gloucester, on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, fifty-nine-year-old Kathleen Levine, a longtime resident, is graceful, maternal, and steady, a devoted children's librarian, a convert to Judaism, the mother of two grown sons. But when she is diagnosed with breast cancer -- which killed her sister fifteen years earlier -- her life is thrown into turmoil. Frightened, lonesome for a woman to talk to, burdened by secrets, she meets Joyce Tabachnik and a friendship is born. Forty-two-year-old Joyce, restless and funny, a freelance writer with literary aspirations, has just bought a small house in Gloucester, where she hopes to write as well as vacation with her family. Like Kathleen, Joyce is at a fragile juncture in her life. With her twelve-year-old daughter becoming increasingly testy and distant, she's also feeling a distinct lack of connection to her husband.

I liked it OK. It just nothing special.

Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas

During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes (and suspicions) turn to the newcomers, the interlopers, the strangers.

This is Tallgrass as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things.

Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass is a riveting exploration of the darkest--and best—parts of the human heart.

Another good read from Sandra Dallas. It was not my favorite from her but good none-the-less.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.

The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?

Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

On of my all time favorite books. Very interesting ending. It really makes you think.

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian

When Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont’s back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography, spending all her free time at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won’t let anyone see. When Bobbie dies, Laurel discovers a deeply hidden secret–a story that leads her far from her old life, and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her.

In a tale that travels between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century, between Jay Gatsby’s Long Island and rural New England, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian has written his most extraordinary novel yet.

I just finished this one. I quite enjoyed it. I did not see the ending coming. Very interesting read.

These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner

This novel in diary format parallels the early history of the Arizona Territories as Sarah and her family travel from the New Mexico Territory and settle down to carve out a new life on a ranch near Tucson in the 1880s. Sarah's diary, based on the author's family memoirs, is a heartwarming and heartbreaking fictional account of a vibrant and gifted young woman. Sarah starts out as an illiterate, fiery 17 year old. Eventually, her writing becomes as smooth and polished as Sarah herself as she becomes a tenacious, literate, and loving wife and mother. A treasure trove of discovered books becomes the source of her self-education. Turner describes the trip in such detail that one has a sense of having traveled with Sarah, experiencing all of its heartache and sadness, its backbreaking exertion and struggles, its danger and adventure, its gentle and lighter moments. Life in the new country brings the constant fear of Indian raids and the threat and reality of floods, fire, and rattlesnakes; bandits; rough men, and pretentious women all have an effect on the protagonist but her strong marriage makes the effort worthwhile. Sarah centers her world around her home and family but maintains an independent spirit that keeps her whole and alive throughout her many trials and heartaches. This is a beautifully written book that quickly captures readers' attention and holds it tightly and emotionally until the end.

I liked this one but it is very sad...especially the beginning. I always like to read diary style books.

The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison

When duty steers Prince George into betrothal to an enemy king's daughter, he is surprised to find he admires the prickly, forthright princess, despite her apparent indifference to any but her beloved pet hound. As George attempts to win Beatrice's heart along with her hand, evidence of treachery back home leads him to startling truths about animal magic—the stigmatized gift of animal speech, which he secretly possesses—as well as information about his betrothed. The logic of Harrison's complicated plot isn't always clear, especially not the connections between an ancient legend and the characters' current dilemmas. Some readers may also question George's continuing devotion to Beatrice, given her frequent, chilly rebuffs. More compelling is George's poignant emotional growth, as his heart, once set afire, helps him to reconnect with his own true self and to embrace his ascent to the throne. The tale's perspective from that of a marriageable prince, not the more usual damsel's view, makes this stand out from other novels set in a folklore-influenced framework

OK, easy read. Not really my style but I didn't hate it.

Plainsong by Kent Haruf

In the small town of Holt, Tom Guthrie, a high school teacher, fights to keep his life together and to raise his two boys after their depressed mother first retreats into her bedroom, and then moves away to her sister's house. The boys, not yet adolescents, struggle to make sense of adult behavior and their mother's apparent abandonment. A pregnant teenage girl, kicked out by her mother and rejected by the father of her child, searches for a secure place in the world. And far out in the country, two elderly bachelor brothers work the family farm as they have their entire lives, all but isolated from life beyond their own community.

From these separate strands emerges a vision of life--and of the community and landscape that bind them together--that is both luminous and enduring. Plainsong is a story of the abandonment, grief, and stoicism that bring these people together, and it is a story of the kindness, hope, and dignity that redeem their lives. Utterly true to the rhythms and patterns of life, Plainsong is an American classic: a novel to care about, believe in, and learn from.

I liked it, didn't love it. It was easy to read and kept my interest.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Wayward daughters. Missing Husbands. Philandering partners. Curious conmen. If you've got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female private detective.

Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she's got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. And Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the trail of a missing child, a case that tumbles our heroine into a hotbed of strange situations and more than a little danger . . .

I liked it. It was a nice easy read. I enjoyed the humor in the book more that I thought I would.

Ok I think that is it? I have started keeping track of my books on goodread.com it is a fun way to share the books you have read with others....plus it helps me to remember what i have read!

Happy Easter!

This year we decided to just have one Birthday/Easter Party for both the kids. It was great to have most of Kevin's family over for the party. We had lunch. Fruit and sandwiches. Leah was in love with all the fruit.

Then outside for a chilly Easter Egg Hunt.

Then cake (Leah had a much better experience this time).

Finally time for presents, it was great that they were both getting presents so neither one was sad! Grant is having his first official "friend" party this year...in May.


After the party the kids had fun playing with the balloons...who needs presents when you have balloons!! They were so cute running up and down the hall.

Memories...Jensen Family Log

My mom asked us all to try to remember stories from our childhood. My sister Heather decided to add them to her blog so I will to (click on Heather's blog to read some fun stories).

I will start with a few Idaho memories. We moved away when I was in 1st grade so my memories are sketchy....

Pet: Big Red, our family dog. She was a big Irish Setter. We all loved her. We also had a little fluffy dog Pepper. Not to mentions a millions cats (really!). Big red use to take the baby kittens are pretend they were hers. I also remember riding her like a pony. Pepper, I only have one sad memory of Pepper, she/he (I am not sure?) was hit by a car. Most of us kids watched :( It was a white car. So sad. Fleas, that was one of my cats. I have seen more cats born in my life than I think it possible. I remember one day we were all out picking beans in the field (we lived on a farm) and I took off...not sure why? Anyhow i found a cat and some kittens.

For most of my life I shared a room with Cassie, my little sister, and Heather and Fawn, the 2 oldest, shared a room. I remember one day Heather was sick of sharing a room with Fawn so she gathered up all my stuff and through it down the basement stairs. I was now to share a room with Fawn and she would share with Cassie. I doubt it lasted long...

Little House on the Prairie. Oh how we loved that show. We all wanted to be part of the show. I can remember watching the shows over and over in the basement.

Blanket. I loved my blanket. I mean I LOVED my blanket. It was green. I was 4 or 5 and still loved my blanket. My mom and grandma convinced me to send my beloved blanket to my grandpa who was in the hospital (because he needed it more that I did). I sent it, sad day. Come to find out my mom just hid it in a closet! She kept it for me and I still have it.