Glenn's {first} 3rd Birthday Party

We took advantage of our being in Utah around Glenn's birthday to have a party for him.  We knew we would do a birthday party with family, but we didn't want it to get too big by having our friends come as well.  So we split it up and had two parties!
The first one was at the Splash Pad again.

The Wedding Festivities [Part2]

A Combined Family BBQ

After the girls got their nails done, we headed over to the McCoy's house.  They invited Sirie's family over with their family for a BBQ.  This was the first time most of us were meeting each other.  We had a lot of fun, getting to know them, mingling with each other, and watching the kids play.  

(I apologize now for the weird black spot in all the pictures.  I don't know how it came to be there, but it was there.  I was hoping it wouldn't show up on the pictures--that it was just something internal--but it wasn't.  So excuse the black spot on our faces at times...)

The Wedding Festivities [Part 1]

The Bridal Shower

We had a bridal shower for Sirie on July 31.  We did an ice cream sundae buffet.  We held it at the church building near Kirsta's house in the evening.  We had most of the family come to it and it was good to see everyone again.

 

Our Flying Adventure

The day after we said good-bye to Maren, Glenn and I flew out to Utah (July 24th).  Sirie was getting married, and we wanted to be there for all the festivities.  We were able to be there longer than Paul because he couldn't take that many days off work.  Paul joined us after a week or so.  Glenn was excited to travel on airplanes again.  We had Sirie's father-in-law, who works for an airline, get us buddy passes...which meant that we were on standby for the flights.  We made the mistake of not booking a direct flight.  I thought I would save us some money and I knew Glenn would have more fun riding more than one airplane.  

Well...I just didn't think very well.  : D  

We took the convenient flight out of Dulles at 6am.  When Paul dropped us off, I forgot to grab the car seat for Glenn.  I checked in the other bags and was about to go to security when I remembered.  I called Paul and made him come back to give me the car seat.  I didn't have time to check it, so I had to just drag it along with me.  When I finally got through security, we had to rush towards our gate.  One thing I've never really understood is why airports don't have more clocks!  I didn't know what time it was--so I thought I had plenty of time.  But then over the speakers I heard, "Final call for passengers Kayley and Glenn Jensen for flight...."  What?!  Thankfully the gate wasn't too far from where I was, but we still had to run to get there.  I dragged the car seat, and held Glenn's hand while we ran.  Poor Glenn-he was tired.  It was pretty early still and I was trying to go fast.  At one point I dropped one of our tickets, but someone was nice enough to get it to me.  We finally made it to the gate and boarded the plane.  

And it wasn't long after that that we were in the air.  

Phew!  

I took only one picture of Glenn in the airplane...but he had a lot of fun sitting by the window and looking out, pointing to all the buttons, and seeing what everything around him did.  He liked getting apple juice and pretzels and cookies.  (After that first flight, he couldn't wait for them to come around on all the other flights.)

I was grateful that we were able to get on that flight and had a lot of hope for the next flight.  Little did I know that it would be a long time before I would finally get to Utah.

A Trip to Baltimore

At the end of July, we went on a little day trip up to Baltimore with Maren.  We went to the National Aquarium.  It was a lot of fun!  We all loved seeing all the different kinds of fish and aquamarine life.  The building was set up very interestingly.  You went from one exhibit to another and it just flowed to the next room.  The big windowed buildings and the walk way in between were all part of it.

Another Fun Week with Maren

We have really enjoyed having Maren visit with us.  Here are a few things we have done with Maren this past week.

Jean Quilt

When I was working on my jean quilt, I talked to Maren about her making one as well.  We didn't have the time when I still lived in Utah, so that got put on hold.  But this last week we did have time!  I got out my huge stack of already cut squares and Maren worked out a pattern that she liked:

A Visit from "Tall Ryan"

This weekend we had a short visit from our friend "Tall Ryan" as Glenn calls him.  Ryan is one of Maren's good friends from Utah, but who is in Connecticut for a couple months doing an internship.  He had a few other friends down this way and we were lucky enough to have him take time to hang out with us.

A [Short] Visit from Cheryl

Yesterday Paul picked up his sister Cheryl from the airport.  She is on her way to Russia today and we were lucky enough that she had a layover at Dulles!  So we got to visit with her for about a day.  

A Busy [Fun] Weekend

Last Friday--after the 4th--we had a pretty busy weekend.  Some friends of ours took a mini-vacation and we watched their two boys at their home.  Glenn really liked it because he is best buddies with Reagan-their older boy.  And he is getting used to another little person around with Samuel.  I'd like to think it is good practice for when a sibling for Glenn comes along.  : D

 

Happy Independence Day!

We hope everyone had a wonderful, safe and FUN 4th of July! We did!

It started out with a pancake breakfast at the Church.  It was at 7am!!  On a holiday?!  I'm not sure what they were thinking, but we didn't get there until almost 8am and there were still plenty of pancakes left.  : D

Superhero in Trainings!

Glenn has a favorite shirt--and I realize now that I am doing this post that I don't have a picture of it.

Anyway, the shirt has a cartoon little boy on it, with a cape flying over a city.  The top of it says,

"Superhero in Training".

Glenn likes to wear a little cape that we have (the rest of a cut-up shirt) and he runs around saying,

"Superhero in Trainings!"  

(Yes with the S on the end...and I think it is so cute!)

He makes this funny face and he does this ready pose before he takes off running.

A Visit and the Cemetery

I got a phone call from my Dad on Friday June 29th saying he would have a layover in DC on his way home from Boston.  He asked if we wanted to join him at the airport to say hi.  Of course!  So we got up early-ish on Saturday morning to meet my Dad at Reagan National Airport.  It wouldn't have been too bad of a drive, but we had had a bad storm the night before and over a million people were without power!!  Signal lights were out and so it was a bit crazy.  

But we were glad to see my Dad and spend some time with him, even if it was in an airport.  Glenn was excited and happy to see Grandpa Don.  He wanted to tell him so many things.  His new way of getting someone's attention is by clapping--and sometimes it's right in that person's face.  Dad laughed about that.  Dad treated us to a cinnamon roll and Glenn, instead of sharing with me or Paul, wanted to share with Grandpa Don.  Glenn loved talking about the airplanes with Grandpa and looking right out at them.  

The National Zoo

Paul had the day off on June 25th.  We took the opportunity to go to DC to see something.  This time we went to the National Zoo.  It was a really nice day for it--the weather wasn't as hot as the rest of the week was--and there was a nice breeze during the day.  We decided to join the Friends of the National Zoo-or FONZ-so we could get free parking every time we come back.  There were some other perks too and we figured that we'd come back a few more times with Glenn and with visitors.  We are definitely going to do that because we only saw a fraction of the zoo.  It's nice to be close and for it to be free so we don't have to rush through it and we can enjoy it more.

I didn't get a picture of the entrance...but we did get one of the map!

Random Bits

Sometimes it's a lot easier to do random posts because I don't have much of a story to tell with some of our pictures.  This first picture shows a gift that my sister Kirsta made for me.  It also shows a message that Paul had written to me several months ago.  We figured that it was finally time for it to go--so we could really use it again.  So we took a picture.

Glenn's Rash

So a couple weeks ago Glenn suddenly developed a rash.

We took some pictures so we could explain it to the doctor if we didn't go in, but we eventually did.  We just weren't sure what it was and we didn't want to be spreading anything to anyone else.

We found out it was a viral rash and so it wasn't contagious; and we had to just let it run it's course.  Glenn was pretty miserable with it at times.

The Bees

Glenn again found those bee dress-up things and convinced Paul to be a bee with him.

I had fun taking pictures of them!

Glenn's Talents

The other day Glenn looked at me and asked, "Mom, what are your talents?"

I was completely taken aback by the question.  I was wondering how he knew that word and the understanding that goes with it.  I can't remember now what I did say, but I wanted to share some of his talents.  (I guess one of my talents is appreciating others' talents!  Haha!)

Singing

One of Glenn's talents is his ability to remember words and tunes to songs.  I am constantly amazed at how well he can and does repeat a song back to us after only hearing it once or twice.  He has been singing songs for several months now, and lately it has been a lot during dinner time.  There's something about dinner that makes him want to sing, I guess. : D

(I tried to load more, but they won't.  Sorry.)

A Visit from Devin and Davis

At the beginning of June we were happy to have our first visitors!!  Uncle Devin bought a car in New York and also had some business meetings in several states here in the East.  We were lucky that he took a couple-hour detour to visit with us.  His son Davis came with him and we were happy to see him as well, Glenn especially.

They arrived late Tuesday night and the next morning Devin treated us to breakfast.  We chose IHOP.  

Glenn loved sitting next to Davis and playing with him.  When he looked at the menu, he saw a picture of a funny-faced pancake and he told the waiter that that was what he wanted.  I was amazed at how well he told him and how matter of fact it was.  It was sure cute.  He was really excited to get the pancake...he ate the eyes and mouth, I believe, and then wanted to eat my food.  I knew he would want some of mine because I got scrambled eggs.  Actually I ordered what I did because I thought he would want eggs.  But he just had been so confident in ordering what he thought he wanted!

We had a good breakfast--thank you Uncle Devin!!

Our New Home, er Apartment, I mean

May 10th our apartment was finally available for us to move into.  Yay!  We had been in the hotel for 5 weeks, and even though we had a good time there, we were ready to be in our own place again and to have all of our things again.  

When we got there the moving truck was just pulling up.  I had the fun job of checking off each box and item as they brought it in to make sure we had gotten everything that was ours.  They were quick and pretty good.  As they kept bringing box after box and asked me where to put them, I realized once again that we had downsized.  We had piles of boxes everywhere!  

My Birthday

My birthday was a good one.  It started out with a trip to the library for story time and a play date with our friends Jennifer and Greisen.  I had received an email the night before from someone in the ward telling me about a lunch date with some other girls.  I had to tell them 'thank-you, but no because I already had plans'.  When I got to the library I saw this girl and the other ones who had responded that they would be going out to lunch.  I was surprised to see them, so I asked them why they had changed their minds.  They just made some excuses that they decided not to go for this reason or that...but then one finally told me that they were going to go to celebrate my birthday!  Oh!  I didn't know that they knew it was my birthday.  I felt kind of bad, but we all laughed about it.  We all talked at the park outside the library while our kids played.  

Then my friend Jennifer took us out to get some ice cream at a restaurant called Friendly's.