The boys all went up to the cabin for another boys cabin trip! They canoed, played hours of basketball, watched movies, played outside, rode razors - all the fun boys things they do every trip!
While they were away, Emma and I went out to eat, went to the movies, went shopping, relaxed, did face masks, just enjoyed ourselves quite nicely!
Eli went away for the first time to a sports camp without us (BYU Soccer camp doesn't count cause we picked him up every night) and he wanted to have a last meal, a celebration of him leaving and kept asking who was going to miss him more. Ha Ha. The night before camp Jared gave him a blessing that he would physically be able to do it all, his happiness would be contagious and he would be a friend to all. We prepped him about not letting the boys talking him into putting icy hot on his balls, or any kind of hazing, Sally and Kati gave us some good football pointers and we sent him with some snacks and a personal battery operated fan to keep him cool at night because the school gym where they would be sleeping in Showlow would be hot. ALA won't let the boys take their phones and their hair had to be short. Good rules. He had to be at the school at 5:45am on Monday morning and we dropped him off. I frequently checked instagram, facebook and twitter looking for football camp updates and hoping to catch a glimpse of Eli. Heavenly Father must have known how much I needed it because literally every day I found a picture of Eli posted, a video of him smiling, a video of him getting yelled at for going the wrong way, a video of him doing some chat, several pics, etc. It was just what I needed. He had the best time, came home so tan and exhausted. He said there was no hazing, some kid tried to buy his fan off of him for 10 bucks, all the other kids thought he was so genius for bringing it and they were jealous, they got fed 3 meals and then the Gridiron club brought in extra meals like pizza, firehouse subs, bbq dinner, etc - so he ate a solid 4 meals a day. They got up at 5:40 every morning and worked on defense, ate breakfast, did offense, ate lunch, did special teams, ate dinner and then had classes and learned plays, etc. They even got to watch the Suns game 6 together as a team. He seems really happy with his decision to play football and so far we are loving ALA even though we haven't even stepped foot in a classroom - ha ha. Go Eli! Can't wait to watch you play in your games!
I love throwing little Olympic Opening Ceremony parties - something about the olympics and bringing the whole world together to celebrate and cheer on their country just warms my heart! This year I thought it would be fun instead of celebrating with Emma and her friends or just our family as we have done in years past to do something with all the Jensens. So we did! It was super rainy that night so at the last minute and had to quickly move everything to Nate's church - it worked out even better there. Emma gave us the opening prayer and she was so sweet and thanked me for all me efforts, etc - it meant a lot to me that she recognized it. Then we ate food that everyone brought to represent different countries - the Jensens really stepped up their food game - they went above and beyond and we all wanted to keep eating and take some home! After that we did the running of the Olympic torch while playing the Olympic theme song. Then we announced the teams - each family was a team and they were the country where they served their missions. Then we played several games; partner beach ball relays, balancing a frisbee on a pool noodle, passing the hula hoop around while everyone holds hands, human ring toss, head-knees-feet-shoe, eating a bagel tied to a string using your big toe and then Jared wore a shirt with candy taped all over it and was a human pinata for all the 9 and younger kids to chase him around. Even Papa played some of the games! Grandma Jensen kept score. Then we announced the winners and they went to the podium and got their medals that Kara had made for everyone. We announced third place first, the second place second and then first place and everyone knew it was Brazil (us), but I kept my fingers crossed that my boys wouldn't freak out and I announced that Uruguay was the winner - Noelle and Owen were so surprised and happy and my kids didn't even throw a fit! Then we had mexico take a walk past the stage and then I announced the losing team as the clean up crew - they were all such good sports. Afterwards we headed to Nate and Jenn's house for swimming and Olympic cupcakes that grandma had made. Everyone had the best time and it was so fun spending time together with all our families and playing games!
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After I posted this on social media then my ward asked me to come in and do this for Young womens. So I did. But I did it even better - poor Jared gets roped into all my crazy ideas...Thanks babe for risking your life on the ladder to hang my flags across the gym!
