The Non-Birthday Moments of July

We celebrated the 4th with a themed breakfast. The night before we went into town and watched the fireworks. The show lasted about 45 minutes, and I had to cover Brek's ears the entire time. 

Mid-July we had to go down to Denver for a few days and stayed with Joe's Aunt and Uncle. While Joe was resting, I took Brek to this Bouncy House place. It's fun to see him try new things and learn that he can do hard things, even if it is just climbing up for a slide.

At the end of the month Joe was asked to come play some music for a "Rock-n-Stroll" 5K race and concert that our town was putting on. Brek went along to help. They were at the finish line, and even made it into the paper, tho Joe says it was a "staged" photo-op. I came by to capture some pictures too.

That same evening we met up with our friends Hannah and Hunter and Kyler for the town rodeo. It wasn't anything like we had expected, but then again, we had never been to a rodeo before. Our friends said it was nothing like any rodeos they had ever been to in Texas, where they are from. Gotta love Nebraska. The kids had fun playing around, tho we were asked to calm them down once or twice because they were scaring the cattle

July Jensen Family Gatherings

We had lots of excuses to get together with Joe's family during the month of July. It started off with 4th of July festivities, which actually took place on the 3rd and 5th. We did hot dogs and fireworks on the 3rd, and then breakfast after some of the family ran in the races on the 5th. Lizzie, Kate, and Nora enjoying breakfast.

Janelle and me enjoying our muffins.

Sabrina on the tree swing.

The adults enjoying the shade: Suzette, Matt, Gma Jensen, Carol, and Marisa.

A few weeks ago we were able to get the entire Jensen family together. Joe's 2 sisters that live out of state were able to come with their families. What was supposed to be just one day together turned into 4 fun-filled & packed days of awesomeness. The first day started with a hike to Stewart Falls, followed by swimming.

Madison and her mom Michelle.

Dan found a snake. Here is Nick and Josh admiring mother nature. I quickly passed by instead.

Dave looking on

Here's most of the crew once we got to the falls. Yes, that is my sweet husband giving a kissy face for the picture. Sometimes I'm not sure what to do with him.

The falls.

Some of the kids (and dads) walked underneath and got all wet.

After an afternoon of swimming we had an amazing dinner, complete with fun conversation and a treasure hunt. I ate way too much, but I couldn't help myself. It was so good. I was still so full that night, that in my sleep I said, "No thank you, I'm pregnant."

Here is Kate, Nora, Rose, Lizzie, Jonathan, Sara, and Ryan getting their dinner.

Jo-Jo always has some good faces.

Here's a cute one of Lizzie.

Naomi showing off her bear Omri

One of the evenings all the women-folk got together to make our baby a blanket. I still need to get a picture of it in it's completed state to post here. But in the meantime, here are Suzette, Carol, Michelle, and Janelle hard at work.

Carol, Michelle, and Janelle from the other angle. Janelle made a mobile for our baby boy out of origami birds. She had foot surgery the day before (while we were all hiking) so we were so happy she got to participate in some of the family activities.

Here's me with Madison. I wanted a picture because she (and her parents of course) just moved acros the country for Dan to go to grad school. We already miss them!

Joe was sweet enough to watch the younger kids during the sewing party while the teenagers and dads had a party.

Here's Mara. She has gotten so social since I first joined the family.

Rose, Abigail, and Peter hoping for more brownies. Lorilee did a great job with the food.

The following day we had some family olympics organized by Janelle.

It started with a 3-legged race.

Here we've got Isaac and Spencer representing the Erdmans, Lizzie and Kate for the Southerns, Michelle and Eric for the Lamberts, Rose and Nora for the Asplunds, and Madison and Dan for the Jannas (I won't even try to explain that name here.)

Dan and Madison finishing up the race.

Rachel sporting her artistic skills and awesome tye-dye shirt.

Sabrina

One of the most fun games of the day was the oreo challenge. We don't have too many pictures from it tho because we were all trying to get the oreo from our foreheads to our mouths. Pete was one of the top contenders.

Jessica was pretty fun to watch too.

I thought this was sweet: James pushing Eliza on the swing. Gotta love cousins!

Pete brought sparklers for the evenings.

He's got little Peter, Mara, and Nora anxiously awaiting the fun.
The kids had a blast. Some of the parents were a little more anxious with kids running around with sparklers, but I sure enjoyed watching them have a good time.

This is a sweet photo of Eliza and her sparkler. She's so cute!

It was wonderful and awesome to have the family all together.

We were able to take another family picture this year. Last year we were missing Kimball and Sara. This year we were missing Janelle and Mike (because of Janelle's surgery). The sprinklers came on right as we were sitting down to take the picture, so we had to move up the hill. I gotta say we're a good looking bunch. This was a pretty important occasion because it was the last time the Jensen family would all be together. The oldest nephew Andrew left the following week to serve a mission in Thailand. He'll do great, and he'll be missed.
Jensen Family 2010