4th of July

Once a year we go downtown to watch the fireworks... it seemed shorter this year, which was kind of a disappointment, but we had fun nonetheless. :) There was quite a wait for the fireworks, so there are a lot of pictures!! Kala had a blast with the glow sticks that Grampa brought and Jace had fun running around. Once the fireworks started, Jace stared in amazement and did so until they ended. Kala, like the previous 3 years, became bored and wanted to blow bubbles instead. But not surprisingly, they both crashed on the way home. :)

This picture is a bit funky...

Kala LOVED the glow sticks

Talking to Grama on the phone

Grampa decorated with glow sticks

Silly Faces

Jacer was hard to keep up with for the first half hour or so...
While he was running around like a maniac, one of the gentlemen we were sitting by said, "He's just celebrating his independence!" It was cheesy, but it certainly fitted my little wild child. :)

Hawaii

Grama Jensen was lucky enough to go to Hawaii this month and brought back a cute little hula skirt for Mykala!

Baby Videos

Lately my hobby has been playing with home videos. Blogger is really picky and slow when it comes to video files, so I had to chop them up quite a bit to be able to share them. There are hundreds of them that I wanted to put on here, but I thought I'd start with these. The first two are our gorgeous newborn babies and the last one is just one of my personal favorites... :)

(Again, don't forget to pause the music!)

Enjoy!!

November 2005 - Our baby girl was born. :)

February 2009 - our baby boy!!

Kala at the hospital when Jace was born.

It makes me laugh every time...

Even Jacer knows it's time for Bear to take a bath...

Cookin' in the Kitchen!

Other news includes Kala's dance recital this past Sunday night. All those Monday nights at dance "lessings" have led up to this. :) She had two dress rehearsals this week where the parents were able to take pictures and videos, and then the recital was Sunday night (Yes, Father's Day... and we're not sure why.)

But our little girl was so cute! She looked so beautiful in her costume and it didn't bother her one bit being on stage in front of hundreds of people! I was so very impressed! I believe she is one of the younger ones in the class, so I don't think she caught on to the dance as well as some of the others, but she was still fantastic! :) We are so proud of her!

The theme of the recital was "525,600 Minutes" (from Rent) and all the dances were different events of the year. Kala's dance, Cookin' in the Kitchen, represented Thanksgiving. :)

Many many thanks to Grampa and Grama for all those nights at dance lessings and everything else that went into getting ready for the recital - you guys did so much and we are so grateful. Because of you, she was able to do all of this - thank you, thank you!!

Kala's Dress Rehearsal

 A lot has happened and is happening, so there's a lot to tell. I will start here.

My dad's headstone is up. I don't remember whether or not I knew about it being up, but it seems to me that seeing it on my uncle's Facebook page was the first time (thanks, Neil). I'm glad to see that it is there, though.

Seeing that it was up brought up different emotions. First, I think my reaction was happiness. I was glad to see that people were visiting and bringing him flowers. Especially with how empty the cemetery is - he could use the company!
It was also good to see familiar faces. That made me happy.

Shortly afterwards, though, sadness took a hit to the chest... a very hard hit. The reality of my dad being gone hasn't quite fully come I don't think, but I am afraid it's getting close. It still feels like a dream or as if we are all pretending. Kind of like a play rehearsal.... and any time now, dad will pop out from behind the curtain and say "Alright! Great practice, everyone!" And we'll all be glad to see him again and life will go back to normal.

That's when the reality of it hits the hardest, I think... knowing that it's not pretend or a dream to wake up from. It's such a horrible feeling.

But the stone is beautiful and huge; I like that. I'm  glad it's so noticeable.

I do wish I was there to see it in person and visit him myself. Being there would be nice so I could also take my own pictures instead of stealing them (sorry, uncle Neil.)

I had to put the picture of Ryan and Natalia on here. There are a lot of instances where Ryan reminds me of my dad and this picture is an example. That makes me happy, too. :)

We all love and miss you, Dad.

Ah... my cute little couch potatoes!  :)

(I love this picture. They were so relaxed and content.) 

Lately I've been spending a lot of time looking through some old family videos. It's been a lot of fun - there are so many things that I had forgotten we recorded and was very excited to see. I am all ready excited to get it all on DVD! There are tapes with Kala as a baby and I can't believe how tiny she was - she's so big now! Time flies maybe too fast sometimes...

I also hadn't realized the similarities between them, either. Like having the same laugh and waddling when they run. It's adorable! They look more alike than I thought, too - you can definitely tell the two are related!! 

I'm hoping to post a few on here when I get a few put together. :)

Swimming!!

Mr J Race

Our little J Race has learned new "words".
As of this weekend, he can now say "uh oh," "ba ba," "uh uh," and "uh huh".... all the useful ones of course. :) And he's been saying, "what?" for awhile now.
There are times where I swear he says bigger things like "Book" and "no night night", but I'm not sure. He  won't repeat them. :)

Chad

Now that school is out, summer has started and it's yet another challenge. Chad has started/joined another research project at ASU and will be working there during the summer. Unfortunately, I can't tell you a whole lot about it because I don't know much about it myself. But he's really liking it so far and so I'm happy for him. :D Speaking of Chad, he has decided to drop the Astrophysics major and just do general physics. In doing that, he gets to graduate this fall. (Plus, he's kind of become disenchanted with the whole Astrophysics thing anyway.) We're both pretty excited about him being able to graduate though!
He was looking at the process (and prices) for him to take his GRE this morning and we realized why more people aren't going to school - $300 to take a test!! School is exhaustingly expensive (not to mention the price paid in stress!) But it'll be worth it. Eventually....Right??
This morning we were also looking at and thinking of schools for him to go for graduate school, and to my not-so-shocking surprise, our options are very limited (due to extreme pickiness) :) We don't want to go anywhere cold and all the warm options aren't exactly places we want to live.We would both really like to stay in Arizona and we'll do our best to stay here (we belong here), but we are considering other states. Yes, Utah is one of them... but only because I don't want to go to a NEW cold place!! :)
So we'll see. Chad will just have to pick a few, apply... and then hope for the best. Hopefully that's exactly what he gets!

Mykala

 I feel bad that I wrote an update on Jace and then took a break. I never got to write about Mykala!

So.. here she is. :)

Our sweet, beautiful, Miss Mykala 4 years old has been engrossed in Les Miserables the last few weeks (thanks to Grama and Grampa's roadshow) and because of it, we've been getting our daily dose of Jean Valjean. :) Kala knows most of the songs pretty well! We're quite proud of our little musical fanatic. :) She gets real into it - her expressions and tones change when she sings... she's so fun to watch. (Course, now that we've watched the DVD five times a day for the last 3 weeks, it's starting to lose the spark it once had. lol.) 

In other news, Kala can now write her first name all by herself! I'm actually really impressed... I don't know if that's normal for her age or not, but I sure am proud of her!!

Kala is still very much into Dora (yay for us) and is into her little brother... no one can make Jacer laugh like his big sister Mykala can! And every morning the first thing she asks is, "Can I go talk to my brother?"

Also, I thought I should mention how much she cares for her Grampa Jensen. Ever since we've gotten back from UT, she's been praying for him with Grama and Grampa Lunceford. She asks that Grampa Jensen will feel better... still. It's adorable how much she loves and cares about him. She really has one of the biggest hearts this world will ever know....

                           

May 14, 2010

Graduation!

I finally did it! All the hard work, stress, and time spent in the last 3 years is being officially recognized. This last Friday I graduated with my Associates... two, actually. I walked for my Associates in Arts and General Studies (with Distinction!). I'm well on my way! :) And it's about time!! :) This was a rough semester. I didn't think I'd be able to pull off an A this semester, let alone 3 of them, but I did it!!

At first I wasn't planning on walking... I didn't understand the point of standing for a long period of time then afterwards sitting through a whole two hour ceremony in the heat just to be handed a fake degree that would eventually be mailed to me anyway. BUT, I am very glad I walked. Even though I didn't like being squished in the heat next to random strangers, it was a very good feeling to walk across the stage. And it felt good to have closure!

I know normally one probably doesn't pay attention to the graduation speakers, and under other circumstances, maybe I'd be one of them. But as cheesy as this is going to sound, one of the talks stood out. One of the speakers struck me with the line "not just an Associates degree". I guess it struck me because that's how I felt. In fact, that's part of the reason I didn't want to walk... because it was "just" an Associates Degree. And the fact that it took me 3 years (compared to the normal 2) to get here made me feel a little embarrassed. But that little speech kind of made me think a minute and realize that I shouldn't be so negative - I should be proud of my "little" Associates Degree... after all, it's one step closer to greatness. :) Even if it isn't as big as a PhD, it's still an accomplishment that a lot of people haven't achieved. I deserve that little piece of paper that acknowledges all the time and hard work spent - heaven knows it wasn't exactly easy for me to make it here!

I am glad I walked... and that my babies were there to see me! Kala was adorable and told me how great I did...  and she and Chad bought me roses :)  (which, as you can tell from the picture, had a rough night.) I did miss my family at the graduation, though. It was completely understandable... I wasn't expecting them to make one heck of a trip for a 2 hour ceremony. But it would have been nice to see them! And I wish that my dad had been able to see it (or even know about it)... but life, as they say, goes on. Even though it feels like it shouldn't, it certainly does. 

Thanks to those who supported me (and continue to do so!) You're absolutely wonderful!!