The Jensen's Garden - Week 1

For the first time, we are attempting to grow a vegetable garden at our house. Mike cut out the sod from this corner of our yard and we brought in some top soil and compost to get it started. This is the first picture taken after we planted. We have planted corn, carrots, onions, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, peas, beans, and zucchini.

An example of our tomaotes, we have surrounded them with water walls to insulate them from the crazy Idaho weather until it warms up and the plants become a little more sturdy. The tomato cages are just there for decoration at this point. Once the water walls come off, we will turn them over and use them correctly.

Kenneth Playing in the Water

Kenneth had a blast last week putting the sprinkler underneath the trampoline and cooling off for a little bit. We haven't had to many hot days - so this was a treat for him!

My Attempt at Planting Flowers and Shrubs

We have a white vinyl fence that extends from the side of our house to the edge of our property in the front. It is really stark white, and so I wanted some color in front of it. My neighbor, who knows a lot about plants and such, went with me to the store and helped me pick these out....hopefully they will grow and fill in the front of the fence. On each end I planted Spirea that have pink blossoms and in between I planted some annual yellow and purple flowers - I don't remember the names of them. If they survive - I will post more pictures as they grow.

A close up of the yellow flower - since I can't remember the right names, we just appropriately call it the yellow one.

The tulip bulbs I planted came up very beautifully this year!!!

The Importance of Rotating A 72-hour Kit

I made 72 hour kits back in 2002 for all three of us. I worked pretty hard to get them all put together and was pretty proud of my accomplishment. However, we have never looked in them since....which we found was a problem (DUH)!!! Kenneth brought his in to me the other day and wanted to see what was in his - this is what we found....

Size 6 pants - he now wears a size 14...

A really cool Scooby Doo T-shirt that is a size 3T (although it was more like a 5 or 6) and the black jacket that he managed to squeeze in to.

And the most interesting stuff - the food.....most of which expired in 2003. We opened up the Frosted Flakes - they were pretty stale, but I think if you were starving, they would get you buy. He tried a couple of things that I thought would probabaly not kill him, but he refused a second serving of anything he tried. From the assortment in the picture, I think that I will duplicate a lot of what I used last time. Mike and I both had more extensive food kits, which included a few canned soups and beans along with some peanut butter.

So, now I have my work cut out for me again, but this time I have a better plan that I heard a while ago. Every year during general conference, empty out your kits and have a picnic with the food you have.....this will help use the food before it goes bad and the kids will think it is a fun adventure! I still have all of the non-perishable items, we will just update the clothing and food and be ready to go.

May Hail Storm

We have had the craziest wheather this spring! It can be 80 degrees one day and the next it will snow! Well, the second week of May we had a massive hail storm - Kenneth is holding a piece of hail in his hand...

He thought it would be fun to attempt and catch a few of the hail stones in his mouth - I think he actually caught one in this picture....

However, he wasn't so lucky in this one - it got him right in the eye!

Mother's Day Cooking

Mike and Kenneth made crepes for mother's day breakfast. Here is a quick picture of them working away at the project. They had me get out of bed and I laid on the couch to help direct the preparation. They turned out great!

This is a picture of how the yummy crepes look - until they are devoured, 2 seconds later!

Football in the Front Yard

Kenneth and a bunch of his friends like to play football most days after school. Now it seems that half the kids in the neighborhood show up to play.

Are there even words?

I bought a baby watermelon at the store the other day and Mike wanted to know how I checked to see if it was ripe. Apparently this is his "method" of checking. Are there any questions as to why I love him so much????

Piano Festival

Kenneth participated in Festival at BYU-I a few weeks ago. He memorized 2 different piano pieces and played them for a judge. He wasn't excited about doing it, but he did very well. He ended up scoring a 97 for his performance. This was the highest score that any student got from his teacher's group. This picture is outside of the Snow building as we got ready to go inside.

We had to wait for about 5 minutes outside the room until it was his turn - just more time for the nerves to gather and the enthusiasm to fade even more. I love the fake smile!

Breaking into the Neighbor's House

Our neighbor, Becca, was locked out of her house a couple of weeks ago. She was gone and her husband left after her and locked the door. She asked Kenneth if he could come and climb the fence and help her get in. So here they are working out a plan.

Here is the initial boost.

They had a little problem with the coordination at this point and Kenneth started talking in a shrill, high pitched voice. He apparently landed rather abruptly on the fence in this position.

Luckily, he suffered no major injury - he recovered rather quickly and we were able to get her back into her house.

May Day!!!

My poor flowers have really taken a beating - or should I say a freezing? I hope they survive because they are sure pretty. I wish that Mother Nature would finally give in and decide that summer really is just around the corner. The day before we got all of this snow, it was over 70 degrees. It was snowing Wednesday night on my way home from class and it was still snowing when we got up Thursday morning.

When Kenneth headed off to school this morning - the first day of May - we had about 4 inches of snow in our yard!!! How crazy is that?