Sunday, June 24, 2012

Utah Arts Festival

Saturday night, we made a stop over at...

source

...with some friends of ours.

Porter, Tommy, & Ella got a chance to create, while we adults enjoyed helping and watching.

This was called a windmill (??) Yeah, don't really get it.
In the process

Starting to write his name

Gluing the circle on.

What the circles were glued on

Kinda creepy.


Tommy enjoying his wand.
We didn't stay long.

I enjoyed the artwork and the jewlry!

Seth and I enjoyed the live big band that was playing!

And, we especially enjoyed our company!

We spotted this piano on our way to another location, and Laura hopped on for a quick rendition of Maple Leaf Rag...
Very impressive, Laura!
Apparently, these pianos are all over downtown!

They sound a bit like old recordings of pianos, as they're not in very great shape, but how fun is that!?

Laura's song choice was perfect for the piano sound, in my opinion.

Our Trax ride home was...interesting.

The trains were delayed because of a wreak.

The train we caught only had one car.

It was crowded, and the crowd didn't even thin out as the train kept stopping.

We don't live all that near the downtown area, so we were surprised when the biggest crowd that left was at our stop.

And, it was us.

As far as our latest Trax experiences have gone, I don't think our family is meant to ride the train.

It was a fun night, though!

Thanks, Penroses!

The Toe

If you don't like feet, you may not want to see this post as my feet are definitely not pretty and are in need of a pedicure.

That pedicure needs to be from someone other than myself...as bending over is getting difficult.

You've been warned...

The toe that felt like it ripped off at Seven Peaks:


This is the day after.



Pretty, huh.

And, today?


The bruise is spreading.

Thank you, blood-thinner.

One Year Later

June 22nd

The beginning of the day didn't surprise me.

I cried.

Realizing while doing so that I've probably cried more this year than I have ever cried any year before in my lifetime.

Also figuring that if I got the cry "out" in the morning, maybe I wouldn't break down again as the day progressed.

We had planned a day with Wendy and the kids at Seven Peaks, and I didn't want to cry publicly.

I know Jilinda and Alayna wouldn't want us to keep ourselves from having fun on their Angel Day, and I felt it would be a good thing for us.

The park started off as expected--Porter was too timid to get in the water right away, and Seth ran off to attack the slides.

I got Porter to swim around without freaking out about the time Seth came back from his fun so I could go on some slides myself.

I went on one.

One, because my pinky toe got caught on the ripples at the end of the slide and felt like it almost ripped off.

One, because both of the hinges of my brand new sunglasses that were in my hand as I went down snapped.

One, because the combination of those two circumstances made me realize coming to such a public place on the girls' first Angel Day may not have been the best idea as I simply couldn't keep the tears from falling.

A hug from Wendy and a few games of Angry Birds on her Ipad for distraction weren't able to stop the waterworks.

I didn't want to be in public anymore.

My sunglasses would have worked as a sort of security from public, but they were broken.

This didn't help my continuous tear-flow.

I did not have the emotional control I thought I would have.

Seth took notice of this, and decided with me that we should leave.

After apologizing to Wendy, I limped my way to the car.

It was a good thing we left when we did, because I was running late to my appointment to drop off the blankets.

As soon as we were put together again at home, we left for St. Mark's.

Thankfully, it wasn't a problem that we were a half hour late.

The chairman of the Labor and Delivery was happy to see us.

She asked about the twins.

It was nice to be able to talk about them to someone who sees situations like mine on a regular basis.

After our reminiscing, she gave us a tour in hopes to get us to transfer to the doctors there.

Which, we might.

When we went into the birthing room for the tour, I spotted the small bed where babies are placed after birth.

It was empty, of course.

But, that bothered me.

It was empty a year ago, too.

Porter also noticed the bed.

"That's where Jilinda and Alayna were when they died."

He's right--it looks the same.

I avoided continuously looking at it, but it was always in my peripheral.

Luckily, we weren't in the room long as we were here for a reason--the blankets.

The chairman opened our bag to take a look at the blankets to make sure they would work, gave us the exclamation of, "These are perfect!" and we were satisfied.

It felt good to be able to give back a little bit.

Really good.

This was for you, girls.


One year later...

Not gonna lie, it's still hard.

Nowhere near as hard as it was, of course, but hard in different ways.

Being pregnant right now doesn't change the fact that my twins are gone, and I miss my twins.

It's hard to think about my children not growing up at the same time as two of their siblings.

What gets me through?

I have faith we will all be together again.

Someday.


To our angels:

We are so very excited for the day we will be able to embrace again.

We love you, our beautiful identical sweethearts, and we miss you.

Happy first Angel Day.

Getting His Back Rub


The boys love the shirt!

26

I had a great birthday.

I have to admit, I was dreading it a bit.

Mostly because of what happened my last birthday.

But, I actually didn't give my last birthday a whole lot of thought.

On purpose.

This birthday, I got to sleep in until 11 (!!!), take my sweet time doing whatever I wanted (which was to relax), and got surprised with this:


Seth brought home a Coldstone ice cream cake!!

Way better than my usual.

Not the only thing we did different.

We went here for dinner:

source

Instead of my usual Olive Garden.

(I wonder if the changes are why it was so great, actually)

My brother and his sweet wife and family came with us to celebrate!

And, my awesome hubby took the...uh...not-so-awesomely-angled pictures :)



Thanks, Seamans, for coming!

Thanks, Seth, for making my day great!

Monday, June 18, 2012

For Daddy

Our gift to Seth this year...


...since Porter loves driving cars along his back, anyway...


...a back rub shirt!

I'm also cooking his favorite meal tonight since we celebrated the Father's Day dinner with the Reese family yesterday!

(Again, totally loving all this family around!)

Thanks for being such a great dad!!!


Happy Father's Day!!

Jensen Family Reunion 2012

We were able to make the Jensen family reunion this year!

Mostly because it was in Utah, but still.

Helps that we live close and that we're not in school anymore!!

We got to spend three great days full of fun and family!

Day one and two, I have no pictures.

Not because I didn't want to remember those days, but because I was enjoying myself too much.

Day one was a great dinner at Kurt & Heidi's where we all got to catch up!

Some played volleyball while others jumped on the tramp.

Day two was spent at the Payson Pool




...where we had too much fun swimming to deal with the camera.

Day three, I finally took it out.


We visited Bridal Veil Falls

Where some of us climbed...


...and other got to dip their toes in the ice-cold water for a moment.



Clara's dog, Mickey, got a bit too excited about swimming around, and had to be rescued before he swam into the Provo River.
Julia holding up a very wet and tiny Mickey

After the falls, we went to a pretty secluded park for dinner and games!


Like no idea how to spell this Bocce (baw-chee) Ball,
Porter joining and hiding his loot
Frisbee,

Ladder Ball,

and Bug the Dog.


Most of us girls hung out like this...


That is, until we ate.

And, boy, did we eat.

Every day we had great food, and glorious goodies!



Micheal enjoyed his roasted marshmallow!

Some of us preferred playing in water...


...and others enjoyed burning off those calories in races...




We loved seeing all the family and getting to play and hang out!

It was a great three days.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Weekend at the Cabin

Porter and I spent the weekend at my Uncle David and Aunt Connie's cabin here...


...in gorgeous Heber over the weekend!

That was the view from their back porch!

We had a TON of fun hanging out with family!

The weekend started with a clean up and set up of the tramp...


The boys cleaned it so well!


I think they even enjoyed the work.




 After that, the kids spent lots of time playing...




...putting on puppet shows...


...jumping on the tramp, and going on four-wheeler rides!

Mason & Kaysha fell asleep!
 We had such a great time, and hope we can go back sometime soon with Seth!

PS: I'm a total Mountain West girl because these pictures make me so happy!



Thanks David & Connie for the great weekend!!