Posted by stamper on May 4, 2008 in
house
Can you tell just by the activity of the blog that we are finding more time for fun? Well, with 19 days of school left, I’m feeling a sense of relief, accomplishment and a bit of stress to fit everything in, but it will be okay, I just keep telling myself that and hoping I’m right!
It was an action packed weekend, we hosted Todd’s students for the annual cookout, attended the Adams Custom Homes pre-parade party, attended two more soccer games and spent the day enjoying the beautiful weather. Tonight after dinner, we decided to try out a family bike ride…. it was rather interesting considering it was Ryan’s solo flight on his new tag-along system! His pedals fell off several times, the tire started to rub and of course it started out rather wobbly (it wasn’t completely attached to Todd’s bike)…..perhaps reading the manual before our next voyage will help, but we did manage to ride to McDonald’s for an ice cream and get back home before dark and to find that the dog had wiggled through our gate and was sitting forlorn in the driveway. Never a dull moment, but great little taste of summer!
Posted by toddjensen on May 1, 2008 in
house
We delivered lots of May Day baskets today between dinner, soccer practice, and gymnastics. While we were out and about we received more then we delivered due to the wonderful large size of our family. Sometimes it makes me wonder if we should give 2 for every one child most others have 
I snapped a quick picture of the crabapples on campus today.
They are just astonishing every year. There are so many things in bloom right now, great time of year in Nebraska after a long, cold winter. We have yet to have a consistent few days in a row that are above 68, though we cherish those that do come around.
Posted by stamper on Apr 28, 2008 in
family Well, since it’s been a long while since my last post and Todd didn’t really share much with his, I figured that an update was in order. First off, I’m staying at Beattie and so far (it’s hard to type with my fingers crossed) I’m keeping first grade…. this is an enormous relief, since I’ve figured out the curriculum and have a game plan that works!
Track is up and running (pardon the pun). Todd and I are in our 4th year as head coaches of the Teddy Bear group for South Lincoln Track Club. This year, we have 110 three year olds, Todd mans the “Starts” station and I’m “Music and Movement” -basically jazzercise to the Wiggles and Raffi for a solid hour…..trust me when I say that by the end of the season, I’m in shape! Ryan is thrilled to be in the “big track” as he refers to it, he’s finally old enough to participate independently in more advanced activities and Eric looks forward to Dairy Queen afterward.
The middle two boys are involved in YMCA soccer, both on teams that are defeated EVERY stinkin week. Todd and I are running out of motivational speeches and reasons why they should even show up. Emily has advanced to a level 6 gymnast. She is now braving back walk-overs on the high beam, although I’ve yet to witness it, I cringe at the thought. Gymnastics is definitely a physical and mental sport, and Em seems to have the guts to pull off those awe-inspiring moves and relishes in her nightly ice-bag ritual after practice.
Hope that you feel “in the loop” once again, and with only 23 days of school left, plan to have a bit more spare time to scrap, blog, and relax!
*I wanted to post relevant photos, but the camera cable is awol so you’ll have to be content with a few shots of my new found talent~face painting!
Posted by toddjensen on Apr 16, 2008 in
family My, my it seems that every time I post more time has passed since the last. No we didn’t get lost in Mexico, just got busy (or lazy in layman’s terms), after all it was vacation. It’s been so long I can’t even remember where I left off with postings, doesn’t really matter I guess. Tonight I checked out what everyone in the digital space has been up to. It’s kind of funny at work we’ve created an “internal blog” where no one posts anything. This was created as an aggregation of people’s happenings. I’m not bashing the idea, just think that the approach was a bit out of touch with what people really want. It’s not just about people in the work place but what we do as people. We love to work, but also love to play, spend time with friends, socialize, and whatever else ‘people’ do.
You really learn about people and what makes them tick by reading their blogs, facebook, twitter, and whatever else is coming down the pike. I tried starting a podcast, which pretty much died on the vine, mostly because we were pushing what we should discuss rather then engaging in conversation and getting to know each other as colleagues as well as opening up the door for others to engage in the conversations. Hope to get it going once again, I need to commit to it and involve whomever is interested, willing, and steadfast. Back to the drawing board it is, though a simple ‘let’s get back together request’ is in order.
The family has been having fun with the Lincoln Safari. With all my extra time on hand I think it would be fun to build a place on the site to talk about the safari, and our experiences at the events. They encourage you to feed back to them experiences and photos, what better way to let them know what we’ve been doing.
Posted by toddjensen on Mar 5, 2008 in
house We had a great time yesterday, decided to take a short bike ride to town. I was on a mission to find a light weight t-shirt and big brim hat to help with cooling and sun deflection. Amy found a swimming suit and we even got some pictures with a couple of cute monkeys from the zoo. After playing in town we sat down for some cerveza and headed back to the resort to hit the beach. It was crazy windy with waves slamming against the beach. The waves take the sand out for a while then it comes back in. You can see in one of the pictures how the sand erodes during high tide.
Amy and Lisa also decided to get a henna tatoo, they look pretty cool. Seemed relatively harmless, though doing a bit of research this morn after the fact, the FDA doesn’t seem to like it due to the other things that are sometimes mixed with it. Oh well, I guess you only live once Well gotta go, we are heading to Coba this morning be back later this eve. I’ll post a few pictures here this eve or tomorrow morn.
Posted by toddjensen on Mar 4, 2008 in
house 
We made it to Playa Del Carmen, just South of Cancun. The kiddos get to spend the week with Grandpa and Grandma Jensen, I think they will enjoy it. Of course a busy week for everyone as usual with science projects, gymnastics, school, CCD, and all else, the bus will be busy. It’s been very nice here of course, breezy and 86. The food is great, sun it hot (see my photos at the restaurant), and all is well. Already starting to miss the kids a bit, there are a few families here. I’ll check in again tomorrow, we plan to head to Cozumel today. Here are the photos we’ve taken so far.
Posted by toddjensen on Feb 19, 2008 in
house Never ending, trying to keep up with all the security fixes in software on the web. Got it done, though I’m still working on the photo album area. I know enough to be dangerous so who knows the outcome. It will work for now, hope to have it looking a little better when I have time to play with the CSS. Feels a bit more snappy and I’ve updated the header photos in anticipation of Spring. We’re getting ready to take a trip to Playa Del Carmen. Exciting times at work specifically regarding media deployment. The stars are aligning and it seems as if everyone is talking about it. There’s a change in how WP handles categories/tags, already decided I don’t like it due to the fact that the system doesn’t pre-fill tags after you’ve used them, guess I’ll have to go looking to find a plug-in to help with that. Enough tech talk, welcome to the new site!
Posted by stamper on Feb 16, 2008 in
Uncategorized 
Okay, it was only a matter of time before the kids realized that this new pet had play possibilities. This evening, they discovered that the Imaginext and Playmobile accessories actually fit on our bearded dragon. For Sparky’s sake, I hope that he continues to grow at a rapid rate and this sort of thing is short lived…. and I’m especially glad that the Barbie clothes have moved on!
Posted by stamper on Feb 14, 2008 in
house Officially it’s been 5 weeks since any type of post here, what does that say about our lives? Volumes. A quick update, the lizard has grown 3 inches, Eric has turned seven, I’ve discovered that laser tag is REALLY fun, a trip to Mexico for the grown-ups is weeks away, plans for Disney World as a family are taking shape, Eric and Trevor both qualified for the district Pinewood Derby race, Todd is teaching a Podcasting course at Southeast Community College, we’ve begun to frame our basement, had some issues with the concrete floor downstairs and I’m in the process of searching for a teaching position next year due to staff reductions in our building. Whew, I’m exhausted and out of breath just remembering all of this and sadly, most likely I’ve forgotten something!
I must take a moment though to lavish kudos on our builder Mike Adams. He’s once again amazed us with his ability to get things done and done well. In the matter of TWO days, Custom Concrete cut out a 36″ swath of concrete the length of our house, removed the chunks, repoured it all AND moved all of our dear belongings (okay, crap) from one side of the basement to the other. What a Valentine’s Day surprise! Thanks guys, it looks awesome!
Posted by stamper on Jan 8, 2008 in
house Just wondering if there is some type of prize for blogging? Seems to me that Todd challenged himself to blog everyday and fell off the Earth, so I’m just wondering. Perhaps if you see him, you could put in a good word for me?
Anyway, we must announce the arrival of our newest family member, a Bearded Dragon named Sparky! He joined us on Dec. 27 as Trevor’s Christmas present. He’s been wanting a pet of his own for years, even had an aquarium in his room with a plastic lizard inside for several months and basically we finally caved in. He’s a great little critter, pretty intelligent so far and a voracious eater.
He recognizes me as “the great cook” when in fact it’s only left over veggies from dinner, doesn’t take much to impress the little guy. Anyway, look for Trevor’s input soon, I think that this lizard thing could really cover a lot of academia -math to calculate how much of his allowance is eaten per week in crickets (did you know the going rate for mini crickets is .09?) and of course writing on the blog. By the way, he’s becoming an entrepreneur too, if you’d like a chance to hold Sparky, it’ll only cost you .05/minute and that’s quite a bargain!
