LIFE

I was taking some video off of the camera tonight, and found this video from July 10th. My kids were playing the board game "Life" and I was listening to them talk about the game. Isaiah (of course) said something really funny, so I got the video camera out and had them all tell me about their game.

Soccer and Cross Country

Brooklin and Caleb are both playing sports in middle school. Caleb choose to play soccer and Brooklin is running cross country. Since there are only two middle schools here, and playing any other teams involves expensive travel (ferry or airplane), their seasons are really short. They both started practices on the 2nd. Brooklin had a race last Thurs, one tomorrow, and one next week, and then her season is over. Caleb's has weekly games until the 7th of Oct. and then soccer is over too.

Trusting in the Lord

I personally have felt like I have been through a wringer recently with our hope to adopt. The up and down of it has had me in tears and doubting the feelings that one of our children isn't here with us. I know that this is the right thing for us to be doing, but my patience with the waiting is being tested right now. Anyway, I was messing around on facebook (instead of working on my math homework) and saw a link someone posted for a "Mormon Message" on YouTube. The church posts a new clip on YouTube each week with a message about various topics. The one from facebook was called "What Matters Most", and it was a great message. There is always a list of other videos off on the side, so I started watching some of them. I was getting hungry, and decided to watch one more before having lunch. It was called "Trusting in the Lord". I was not expecting a video about adoption, but it was really powerful to me. The way the woman worded how she felt and what she learned, spoke straight to my soul. I hadn't thought about adoption teaching me this particular lesson and I am grateful I can have a new view of what I might need to learn from all of this.

New Auke Lake Trail

For Family "Home" Evening this week, we decided to walk the new Auke Lake trail. It's a really nice trail. It took us about an hour to walk to the end of it...stopping every few feet to take pictures, and also finding a geocache...and it took us 30 minutes to walk back to the car. Once in the car, we realized we had 10 minutes before the missionaries would be at our door for dinner! We were able to make it back and throw some steak and halibut on the George Foreman Grill and have dinner all the way on the table by 6:25 pm!

A guy water skiing on Auke Lake.




This is a picture of my school! It is across the lake from the trail.



Hunting for a geocache



Isaiah was the winner.




London took this and the next picture.

A giant tree root knot.

The kids in the root knot.

This tree stump looked like a cartoon moose head to me...hehe

Lieutenant Commander Jensen!

It has been nearly a year since Darwin was selected for Lieutenant Commander. (hereafter referred to as LCDR). Basically what happens, is "they" come up with a list of Lt.'s that are qualified to be promoted to LCDR and put them in a certain order based on their graduation from officer candidate school date and some other things. (clear as mud so far?) Then they promote from the list, starting at the top, as higher ranking officers either retire or leave the Coast Guard. We (and I really mean "I" here) sort of anticipated that he would be promoted around April of this year, but because the economy has been in the pits recently, less people are retiring than normal. It took the entire year for this to happen...but we are so excited that it did!

Congratulations to you, Darwin, from your biggest fan club! We love you! Love, Melissa, Brooklin, Caleb, London, and Isaiah!!

Good bye silver Lieutenant bars!
You were good to us, and we loved you for 7 years...but we are excited to retire you now!

Hello pretty new gold Lieutenant Commander leaf!
We are so excited that you made it here!

Darwin with Captain Burt at his promotion ceremony

This is us laughing...the certificate says "this frist day of September"

Darwin's dad got to be here for the promotion ceremony.
(we are all listening as the certificate is being read.)

Darwin's dad and I got to put on his new rank boards for him.

LCDR & Mrs. Jensen

LCDR Jensen with his father