Starburst Bracelets

They're official! Going on sale January 1st!!!

donations of wrappers are much appreciated

Starburst Bracelets

Karen's Halloween

Me and the girls... Sarah didn't much care for being in her costume.

Me and my friend Jennifer.

My pumpkin is the cat...

I had a fun Halloween hanging out with the girls. We carved pumpkins, went trick-or-treating together and to trunk-or-treat. I even dressed up.

Leanna's Halloween

Halloween was a long day for me.
The night before, I stayed up really late with my dad and Eric. We were making shirts for Lora's birthday, which is on Halloween. Eric was silk-screening stuff, and I had some iron on Twilight designs that I had made. I didn't go to bed until 2, but I figured it was good preparation for Halloween night.

In the morning, I got up and started work on Lora's cake. Eric had asked me to make a cake with the Incredibles symbol because of their costumes. (* Thank you, Karen, for letting me use your nice cake stuff- it helped a lot).

Mom and I cleaned the house to get it ready for people. I was so excited, the day seemed to go by too slow. I couldn't wait to start working on my hair, which would be the biggest part of my costume.

Finally, my friends arrived to get ready.
Eric, Lora, my friends Kristine, Brittany, Tim, Cynthia, and I went to the Halloween Boat Dance. It was put on by YSA wards from all over San Diego.
Eric and Lora went as Mr. and Mrs. Incredible.
My friends and I went as characters from the Wizard of Oz.
I was, of course, the Lion.
Tim was the Tin Man.
Kristine was Dorothy.
Cynthia was the Wicked Witch (or Elphaba- if you are a Wicked fan)
and Brittany was the Good Witch (of Glinda)

Our scarecrow didn't have money to buy a ticket, so he couldn't come.
And we were going to have the wizard, but he never showed up and wouldn't answer his phone.

It would have been awesome if we had had them with us.

It was an 'Incredibly Wicked' night.

It began with lots of work on my hair to make my mane. We watched Nightmare before Christmas while Kristine ratted and teased my hair and everyone else got makeup on.

Eric and Lora eventually appeared in costume(minus a few finishing touches, like face paint)

After lots of rushing and pictures, we were out the door by 10:20 and we piled into the suburban.
Lora opened my present, but she didn't know about the cake, it was still at home, waiting for her brother to get it and smuggle it on to the boat.

We finally parked at the docks and walked down to the boat, where there was a large crowd of Mormons all dressed up.

The first person that we saw, who we knew, was our cousin David Sensenbaugh. And to our great astonishment (our jaws literally dropped) David was also dressed as Mr. Incredible!!

I sought out my friends from Institute in the crowd and they all screamed and wondered over my hair (it really was incredible huge and poofy). I heard lots of 'wow's and 'awesome hair's as I walked through the crowd. Many people asked me if it was real.

Very shortly, we loaded onto the boat, which had three levels. The top and bottom both had dance floors, and the middle was quieter with food and kareoke. The top dance floor was always packed. Me and my friends rarely went up there simply because we couldn't. But we had a blast on the bottom floor and out on the front deck where the breeze was nice and cool, and we could talk.

We all stood out on the deck and cheered as we passed under the coronado bridge. It's not something you get to do very often, especially at 1 in the morning.

Lora and Eric would find us every once and a while, usually to take pictures.

After what seemed a very short time, the boat was pulling back into port. We were tired, yes, but we certainly were not done having fun.

On the walk back to the car, we took fun pictures with the sculptures that line the docks. We thought about going to Denny's but we weren't really hungry, so we didn't want to waste money.

At home, we watched the Incredibles and fell asleep to Hocus Pocus. Some time near the end of Hocus Pocus, (i think it was 4:30) Cynthia got a call that she had to go home, so we cleaned up and said our good byes.
After my friends left, I did a little more cleaning up just so my mom wouldn't freak out, but there was still plenty to do in the morning.

I woke up earlier than I thought I would and cleaned up more of the mess. Then I began the inevitable washing of my hair. Though I was looking forward to having my hair back to normal, I was not looking forward to the rigorous brushing that it would take to get out all the hairspray and knots that made it as tall as it was.

My shower was an hour long- 45 minutes of conditioning and brushing. My head hurt after that.
The whole day was really weird for me. In the morning, whenever someone talked to me, especially on the phone, I could feel my brain working too slowly. My body would not respond as quickly when I wanted to move or walk. After a while, I laid down in bed and fell asleep for a few hours. I woke up more refreshed, but the day was mostly gone. Dad was already asking me if I wanted to go out to dinner.

Apparently I partied harder than I thought if I needed that much recuperation.
But it was so worth it. It was one of the best nights I have had in a long time, and I can't wait till next year.

Here are some other pictures from the night.

Institute

Hi Everyone!

I thought everyone would like to know that I was made President over the Grossmont Institute and LDSSA. I am looking forward to it, but obviously, I am also very nervous- it is a big responsibility.

Utah Wedding

I published this on my own blog, and I hope my mom forwarded it to the Jensendants, but in case you didn't see it, here is my recount of our trip up to Utah for Dustin's wedding

August 20-24
Salt Lake City, Utah

We just got back from a fantastic trip to Utah for Dustin's wedding. Karen flew to Salt Lake, so we were really excited to see her again this summer. Lora, Eric's girlfriend came with us. We left home on Wednesday, leaving Maia with Steve and Christiane in San Diego.
Our trip started out rough. Just outside of Victorville, we hit terrible traffic. But TERRIBLE doesn't quite describe it. Traffic was completely stopped. No one was moving, and many people, starting with us, turned off our cars and got out to stretch. Eric led us out onto the freeway to play Perudo, the dice game. We can now all say that we have played games on the freeway. I even got out my pillow and blanket and laid out on the road for a picture. We were stopped for almost an hour. Eric and Lora went for a walk.
Finally, we got moving again, and almost lost a shoe as Lora tried to hurry back into the car.
We got into Las Vegas later than we hoped, and our wonderful host was still awake, waiting for us with lots of make-shift beds. It was more than we expected and we all plopped down and were asleep in minutes.
The rest of the trip up went much more smoothly. We stopped to get Dad his cheese curds and had lunch at Subway. We got to the Nicholes' in the afternoon and relaxed until we all went to the family picnic. We loved eating and chatting with all the extended family that we haven't seen for a while. The food was great, but there were a lot of bees- making me and many other girls very uncomfortable the whole evening.
After the picnic, some of the girls and guys left for bachelorette and bachelor parties, while my family went to Iceberg, one of our favorite Utah fast food restaurants. They have delicious, thick shakes that we buy every time we are in Utah. We were eventually joined(kind of) by the bachelor party.
Before going to bed, us kids enjoyed the wonderful Theater Room with a big screen and surround sound at the Nicholes to watch Olympics and the Phantom of the Opera before turning in.
On Friday morning, Karen, Kristen, Lora, and I went to get our nails done. Karen and Kristen had never gotten sets before. It was a lot of fun, and not too expensive. Our family met our cousin Jeannie for lunch at the Red Iguana before dropping my
parents off at the Salt Lake Temple for the wedding.
We went back home to finish getting ready; then we all went back down-town and waited for them to come out of the Temple. There were a lot of wedding parties waiting outside also- the temple was pretty busy. We took pictures on the steps before going BACK to the house to pick up Carl and wait for the reception at 7:00. Karen went early with Kathy to help with setting up and preparing the cake.

The reception was held at the top of the Wells Fargo building- on the 23rd floor. It was beautiful, with a big grand staircase, and tall windows, letting us see across the city and sunset as we ate and danced to a live band. Eventually, the beautiful sunlight was replaced by the beautiful city lights and blue dancing lights. The atmosphere was very fancy and exciting.

There was a lot of food- yummy sandwiches and salad- and lots of delicious deserts to try, like creme puffs and éclairs- not to mention the delicious cake made by Kathy with a different kind of cake in each layer.

All the traditional activities of receptions were taken care of. The bride and groom shoved cake in each others' mouths; they had their first dance as a couple; and the groom threw the garter and the bride threw the bouquet.
It was very funny and ironic that Eric caught the garter and Karen caught the bouquet. I guess I better get ready for some weddings in our family.
Elise came back with us to sleep at the Nicholes'. She and I watched a movie until we were too tired to keep our eyes open- I was exhausted.

On Saturday, we relaxed around the house during the morning, but not
wanting to be bums on our last day in Utah, we decided to go to SnowBird- the closest ski resort. Even when there is no snow, there are still things to do. They had a large zip-line, an Alpine slide, a tram to the top of the mountain, and other smaller rides like a mechanical bull and jumpy things.
Since the lines were so long, we spent the whole rest of the day there, but only went on the rides once. But they were all a lot of fun. We had a contest on the mechanical bull for who could stay on the longest with one hand in the air. I won on my second try with a solid 1 minute, 10 seconds. But I don't think the operator was trying very hard to throw me. Even two days later, I can still feel it in my thighs.

Dad, Eric, Lora, Nathan and I rode the tram up to the top of the mountain. It was a quick ride and the views from the top were amazing. There was actually a couple that got married while we were up there. They took cupcakes for the wedding cake. It was pretty funny.

When we all got back down the mountain around 8 o'clock, we all left and went to a fun restaurant called The Pie. It is a pizza place next to the University of Utah. It was a lot of fun, and full of people, mostly college students. The pizza was delicious! I could definitely go back there again and again.
We got home really late and went straight to bed because we had to get up early on Sunday to be ready to leave. In the morning, we packed up all our stuff, made waffles with delicious buttermilk syrup, and said our goodbyes before we loaded back into the suburban.

The ride back felt much longer than the ride up because we went straight home, not stopping in Las Vegas. Eric took over some of the driving so Dad could have a break. Dad took the opportunity to watch Back to the Future parts 2 and 3 (we had watched part 1 on the way up).
We stopped in St. George for lunch at the Iceberg. We had hoped to go to our favorite restaurant called Larsen's, but it was under new management and closed on Sundays. But we still all enjoyed good food and shakes at Iceberg.
Before going home, we picked up Maia from the Staningers. We got home and unloaded the car. I was very disappointed that my scheduled recording for the Olympic Closing Ceremony failed, so we only got to watch a bit of the end- but I was glad that we didn't miss the extinguishing of the torch.
After getting some stuff ready for school on Monday, I went to bed.

Hello

Hi! I am now a member of the blog!

I will be posting fun stuff in the future.

-Helen

Pictures of Jonathan

Grandma is learning to post pictures on the blog and here is her first attempt. She will soon be a member of the blog- Karen is currently adding her- but for now, we are using my account to post the pictures.

Here is Jonathan's first Birthday


Jonathan's 1st Birthday Cake


Jonathan and the Cat