Idaho Family Reunion

Caution: This post is long due to all the pictures! Sorry! ;) 

 Hello again!

So our summer adventures just keep coming! I know last time I mentioned that we were in Idaho and I posted all of the fun pictures of our pre-reunion. Well the reunion is sadly over but it was amazing! I just want to write a big official thank-you to my big brother, Nick, and his wife, Megan. They were the party planners for this years reunion and they did amazing.

So this reunion was in Sun Valley, Idaho. We went mountain biking, river rafting, boating at red-fish lake (a cold, but GORGEOUS place by the way!) and Tyler got to go fishing everyday, multiple times a day - he was in heaven. It was a fabulous time! Not to mention, the cabin that we were staying at was incredible, so that made it fun for hide-and-go seek games with the kids.

So I have about a billion pictures from the reunion, so I'll let the pictures do most of the story telling here. Below are the pictures from when we rode the gondola to the top of the mountain before mountain biking down it (seems like the best kind of mountain biking if you ask me...). It was his second time to do this trail but it was my first time to go mountain biking ever. We loved it! We want to get more into it, so if you happen to know of good places to go around Arkansas, please share!

Pit stop for lunch/photo-shoot of Tyler.

The photos below are from when we went up the gondola again later with my parents and my brother. He was about to go do the trail as well. 

These are my parents. Aren't they adorable? :) 

So each night at the cabin a different couple would be in charge of dinner for the whole group, but usually we would all pitch in to help, hence the photos you're about to see:

 

We chose to make lasagna for our night. Yummm.

Family reunions = family photo shoots. Enjoy! 

Tyler, Nick, Dad, Jared, Caleb, Spencer

We've got a photobombing Auntie in our midst. 

Grandma and the granddaughters

Cousins! 

Siblings

 So below are the pictures from our day at Redfish Lake. It is by far the prettiest lake I have ever been to with the best beach area. We went out on my brothers boat and got some knee boarding and wake boarding time in. Pictures below!

The scenery, as you can tell, was something out of a movie. 

Freezing cold water!  

 Below are some pictures from our day on the river:

Again, a huge thank you to Nick and Megan! The reunion was so much fun, all thanks to their planning. 

After we left Idaho, we headed over to Oregon to visit Tyler's brother, Travis, and his wife, Cami. We weren't able to stay for very long unfortunately, but we had a blast for the couple of days that we were there. It's always fun to be able to hang out with them. We were able to see their new house and see around their town. Thank you, Travis and Cami, for having us. We loved being able to visit! Somehow we didn't manage to get any pictures together. I guess we were just too busy having fun. ;) 

Below are the pictures from the road trip out of Oregon. 

After leaving Oregon, we headed to Boise for a night, then we spent the next day in Salt Lake City, Utah. We had a great day together. It was a nice date-day. We walked around Temple Square as well as in the visitors centers. We later walked around the mall and enjoyed sushi (for the second time this trip - I have a sushi fetish..) and then enjoyed gelato. It was our first time to try it, and for the record, it's ah-mazing. 

Salt Lake City, Temple

After our night in Salt Lake City, we headed over to Colorado the next day and stayed the night with my old roommate, Alison, and her husband, Matt. We were able to double date with them that night and we had a lot of fun catching up with them! Again, we somehow didn't manage to take a photo. But a big shout out to Matt and Alison for letting us take over their home for a night. We had a great time with you both!

So, after a long drive all across the west side of the country, we are finally home! It's nice to be back with our pup and to have clean laundry again. We had a great trip and loved being able to visit some friends and family. We wish we could have stayed longer and visited more! We're grateful for all of the warm hospitality that we received. Thank you for reading our post if you made it all the way to the end! I know it was a little lengthier that normal. Until next time!

With Love, 

Idaho Family Reunion - Warm Up

Hey Friends and Family!

So I'm back in my old turf: Boise, ID! I lived here a few years ago with my brother, Nick, and it's awesome to be back. Also, the lack of humidity and him having a pool in his backyard now are some big bonuses.  So we drove, caravan style, all the way here with my brother, Caleb, and his family as well as with my sister, Kelly, and her family. We had a stop in Denver (love that place!) and then second day we made it here to Idaho. We've been staying with my big brother, Nick, and his wife, Megan, and their kids. It's been a great family reunion warm up thus far! We will actually head to the cabin in Sun Valley later this week, but all of this pre-time has been great fun. With that said, lets post some pictures of all of fun and family!

Sibling picture. Sorry you're missing, Jared!

This is my big brother, Nick. Did I mention that he's awesome yet, because he is. 

 Above and below are two of my nieces: Lucy and Adelaide. They are little fish. :)

So the boys started this new activity of trying to shoot a goal from the diving board, while trying to dodge being pelted by one another. It was actually really entertaining, oh and we got photo evidence. You're welcome. :) 

This is my big brother, Nick, doomed to be pelted. 

We started to get a little fancy with the tubes and started stacking all 4 of them up for a diving contest. Sounds corny but we had fun. :) 

Uncle Tyler is the best! 

So, Greg had this great idea to have all of the uncle's and his Dad to jump in the pool doing a can opener while he would sit in the middle to catch the wave. Luckily, Kelly was standing ready with her camera for the moment. See below: 

 So as you can tell, we LOVE Nick and Megan's pool. It's amazing. And, since we can't get enough water time, Nick and Megan took us out on their boat on Monday. It was fabulous. I've decided that Tyler and I need to be boat people. We knee boarded (way fun - I even got some air!), tubed and we wake-boarded. Believe it or not, I actually got up! It took a couple of tries but it was amazing once I got the hang of it. Thanks Nick and Megan for the amazing day! 

Now we are currently in Sun Valley, ID for the family reunion. We are staying in this lavish 8 million dollar cabin and there are 30 of us sprinting around at all times through all of the different corridors of this place. Oh, and not to mention, there is an amazing view of the mountain right out the back half of the cabin. Its wonderful. So we're busy mountain biking, water rafting, hiking and doing all of those other outdoorsy things. I love it. The mountain is actually summoning me right now, but I'll post some more pictures next time. Thanks for reading! Again, we love you all!

With Love,

Summer Update

Hey Friends & Family,

So life in the Jensen family is good. It's SO good, to be honest. My only complaint currently is the amount of flies that keep piling in through my doors. (Speaking of which, does anyone happen to have a solution for warding away those nasty little pests?)

So, what's going on in our lives you may ask? Or maybe you aren't asking.. but I'm going to answer that question anyway. :)  Tyler is still working for Bear River International (Best. Job. Ever.) and he will be starting his Executive MBA Program this August at University of Arkansas while still working. We're pretty excited about him continuing on to that next step. I just finished working at Gibby Law Firm as a legal assistant. They are going through some exciting changes there and the timing worked out well as far as vacations and school coming up again for me to bow out. It was a great experience and I definitely have gained some life knowledge from it.

Tyler's brother, Travis, came into town last week and was able to spend about a week and a half with us. We had a lot of fun with him. We took him to Silver Dollar City, Lambert's Cafe, the LPGA tour that was in town, the amazing sushi place (i'm addicted.. seriously), the Rogers Aquatic Center, and then tons of the other stuff that we have in this lovely place. We were going to attend the Dierks Bentley concert but we didn't have enough tickets .. and we were exhausted. Tyler and Travis' mom, Susan, came into town for the weekend to visit too. We had a lot of fun with her here too. She bought us some fun board games and yummy steaks as well and I think it's pretty self explanatory how amazing that was. We had a lot of fun with Susan while she was here and with Travis for that week and a half. It's always a bit of a downer how quiet your house is after everyone leaves. We love having our house full. A full house = full hearts! (Okay, okay. Corny I know!)

From Left to Right: Travis, Jack, Camilla, Adelaide, Spencer, Tyler, Gorden, Audrey, Jared, Mom, Suzy, Me, Noah, Courtney, Caleb, Becca, Charlie. The floating kid is a photobomber. Props to you kid. Props to you. 

Can I just say that I love this picture. Like, I obsessively ADORE it. 

Next week we have our third family reunion of the summer. This one is with my immediate family and we're staying in a fabulous cabin in Sun Valley, Idaho (YAY!) Can I just formally announce how excited I am? Because I'm pretty dang excited. The other two reunions were in Memphis and in Houston, TX. One was with my extended family and the other was with Tyler's mom's side. Both were a good time. It was nice to see all of our family again, and it was nice to get to know his family better. Good people all around!

  

Let me just mention how much I love Cami's face in the left picture. 

Look for the two waving girls. That would be Cami & I. 

Max was wasted after spending time at the
reunion. He pretty much was in doggy heaven
running around with all of the big dogs at the cabin.
Sorry we aren't as exciting at home, Max.

Family Reunion Games - Tallest tower out of
 Peanut Butter and Bread: Win.  

As far as future summer plans we are trying to plan at least one beach trip this summer before we both start school. You know me, I need my beach fix. I could spend my whole year there, but I guess 1 week in the summer will have to do. :)

So I'm not sure if I already told you this but Tyler and I are both no longer in Primary (bittersweet news).  Tyler is the cub scout leader in the Ward (over the 8 year old boys). He has a lot of fun with that calling. I just got called to be the Beehive Advisor (12-13 year old girls) in the Young Women's Program. I LOVE IT. I was able to attend girls camp with them and get to really meet and know the girls. I am beyond impressed with all of them. They are all such great girls and it's meeting youth like that where I have an increase in my faith in humanity.

So with my new calling, can I just say that my testimony in my church and in Heavenly Father in increasing. It's such a blessing. Something about being in a role where you are answering the questions that these intelligent girls have and being their teacher definitely makes me feel like this calling is helping me more than them. It's pretty amazing how that always seems to be the case.

Okay so those were pretty much all of the big updates. The only other thing is that we have a garden... or should I say forest? This has been our first year to plant a garden and we planted way too many of everything.. except watermelon. You can never have too much watermelon. So with that said, does anyone need any squash? We have about... hmm... let me guesstimate here... I'd say roughly a BILLION squash vegetables coming out of our garden. Please. Save me. Come take squash from my garden. But, the good news about the garden is that Max LOVES when we water it. Mainly because he loves to chase the water from the water hose. He starts to bark at me if I don't let him chase it. He's my crazy, adorable, soaked pup.

For the Fourth of July we swam in my parents neighborhood pool with my brother and sister and their families and my parents. We lucked out at being able to watch the $5,000.00 firework show that the neighborhood families did. It ended up being a lot of fun. Also, since I'm talking about the fourth of July, I should probably mention how much I love this country. It's a blessing to be able to live here and have the freedoms that I have. Even with all of the political craziness, I love you, 'Merica. :)

This is a somewhat scary picture of Max, but we love him even when he's scary.
This is from the city firework show on  the third of July. (Who watches fireworks only on the fourth anyways?) 

I think that's about it for updates today. I finally hung up some pictures in my house, which I probably should post pictures of... but nahh, I won't worry about it today. Sorry!

Thanks so much for reading my post. We love you guys! Seriously. Thanks so much for being apart of our lives. It's so much sweeter with all of y'all in it. Happy Summer.!

With Love,