2012 Re-Cap: Missouri Trip, Mar. 31- Apr. 6

Every year I start with a new post stating how I'm going to do better at blogging, mothering, cooking, church, life, etc. And then by June I quit posting.

Not this year! Nope. Not gonna do it. I know I'm a slacker. I'm not even going to pretend I'm going to try harder. I've realized that it's better to just lower my expectations, and then I'm happier. I'm embracing mediocrity whole heartedly. I realize now that, no matter how hard I wish, I will never be one of those blogging moms that writes semi-weekly posts sprinkled with gorgeously, well-lit photos. Not. Gonna. Happen. E-VER. (And beside, my kids are well past the "cute" stage. Scrapbooking and blogging was way more fun when they were cute.)

Whew, I feel much better now. 

So here's a post I should have written almost a year ago. How's that for being fashionably late? Like I said, I'm embracing the fact that I'm okay with being mediocre. You know how some families have a motto? Well, ours is: The Jensens are always late, but we show up eventually. So at least I'm staying true to the family motto.

I neglected to blog a very significant trip we took to Missouri to see Grandma and Grandpa during our Spring Break. I took a LOT of pictures, all of which I will not share here. But here are enough to give a good idea of all the fun we had.

We flew into Kansas City and rented a car to drive to Jefferson City. We arrived one day before the Kansas City Temple open house. So even though we couldn't walk through, we stopped by to see it on the way to Grandma's house.

We took the girls to Nauvoo for the first time, which was a neat experience. I lived there the summer after I graduated from high school. My parents were serving a mission there, and I hadn't been back since before I got married. It was really special to go to the temple (which didn't exist the last time I was there) with Danika, Brooke, and Mike to do baptisms for some of my ancestors. Megan wasn't quite 12 when we went, so she wasn't able to go to the temple with us.

Some of our favorite sites were the Webb Blacksmith Shop, where we got a horseshoe nail ring.

Lucy Mack Smith's home--it's tiny and adorable.

The stairs are really steep!

Mike's favorite was the Browning Gun Shop. It was pretty cool to learn Jonathon Browning was a member of the Church and came to Utah with the Saints.

I found the Print Shop fascinating. Did you know that "dingbats," "stereotype," "coin (quoin) a phrase," and "cut to the chase" all originated in the printing industry?

The girls also liked the brickyard, where they each received a Nauvoo brick as a souvenir.

And on our way back home to Grandma's we stopped at Carthage Jail.

Other fun things we did during our stay in Jefferson City:

Ate ice cream at Central Dairy (twice!)

Visited the State Capital and the Lewis & Clark Monument (my kids are goofy and slightly irreverent).

Started making Danika's prom dress (see the finished product here).

Took a hike along the Osage River (beautiful, but humid).

(This is why I like living in a dry climate--nasty, creepy bug things love humid places.)

Dyed Easter eggs and had an Easter egg hunt (glad my kids aren't too old for this yet).

It was a very busy, but fun-filled trip. It was so good to visit Grandma and Grandpa. They have a beautiful home, and basically have a forest behind their house. They are so good to us, and always make our visits so enjoyable. They are awesome, and we love them!!!

There it is...finally in print. Better late than never, right?

A Happy Day

Yesterday was a great day for my in-laws. After 16 years of marriage, they were sealed in the St. Louis temple! Bill is Mike's step-dad, and when he met Annette he was Baptist. He was baptized in April of 2007. Then they moved from Tucson to Jefferson City, MO. They have been taking the temple preparation classes, and finally were able to schedule a time to go to St. Louis to attend the temple where Bill received his own endowments and then they were sealed.

Needless to say, we are all thrilled! Bill is the best grandpa, and we love him so much! It has been neat watching him progress to this point in his life. We are so proud and honored to have been part of his baptism, and we wish we could have been there with them yesterday!

Are We There Yet??? Our Trip to Missouri

Call us crazy with gas prices as high as they are, but we drove 3,100 miles round trip to visit Grandma in Missouri! We left June 28th and drove from Utah through Colorado, with it's beautiful vistas, mountains, and the Colorado River. . .

"Rocky Mountain High"

. . . and drove through Kansas, with it's "Amber Waves of Grain" and acres and acres of corn and beans. It was interesting to see the farms; each one had about 3 rows of evergreen trees planted all around the house and barns for a windbreak and everywhere else was just flat--no trees, nothing. There were a lot of bigger farms that had their own huge grain mills. We saw a ton of windmills too--they were like tremendous sentries guarding the plains. What was really bizarre were the huge churches out in the middle of nowhere!

. . . and drove halfway through Missouri to Jefferson City, the capital. The landscape there is rolling hills and trees everywhere! We crossed the Missouri River, which runs through Jefferson City--it blows doors on our rivers out West!

The capital building and Lewis & Clark memorial.


After a few days at Grandma's we drove to St. Louis to fly to Alaska. The Mississippi (also HUGE) was very swollen from the flooding. It was churning and flowing faster than it was the last time I was there in 1988. The streets closest to the river were flooded almost up to the top of the street signs. Grandma and Grandpa took the girls to the Arch and the City Museum (a very cool children's museum http://www.citymuseum.org/allattractions.html), and Mike and I went to the airport to fly to Fairbanks, Alaska.

The Arch

Inside the top of the Arch--630 feet!

The Mississippi from inside the Arch

City Museum Castle

Climbing around in MonstroCity--the huge jungle gym made out of two Saber 40 aircraft fuselages, a fire engine, a castle turret, a 25' tall cupola and several 4' wide wrought-iron slinkies.

Danika, Megan and Brooke on the banks of the Mississippi. You can see some of the flooding.

While we were in Alaska, the girls stayed with Grandma & Grandpa. They are busy trying to finish their new home, but they drove the girls down to Branson for a couple of days. They stayed at the "Boxcar Willie" hotel. The kids had never heard of him, so were extremely puzzled how he could be "the world's favorite hobo." That's stretching it, if you ask me...but who am I in the hobo world? They had fun swimming and visiting Silver Dollar City, which is an amusement park with a western theme. It's an interesting phenomenon--because Missouri was the "gateway to the West," Missourians seem to think their neck of the woods is "The West." Coming from the true West, I find that ludicrous. The girls' favorite things were the shows and the swing ride.

4th of July--Dippin' Dots Ice Cream and camel rides in downtown Jeff City.

Whew! this is a whopper of a post, so I'll do the Alaska trip later! We are glad to be home!