Das Vedanya

After two and a half years, I am finally bidding farewell to this book:

Yes, it took me THAT long to finish Anna Karenina. Perhaps I'm not cut out to read much Russian writing. I think I put it down for an entire year before I started reading it again. But now that I'm done I'm glad that I read it. My first Tolstoy.

The Primary Program

Today in church we had the annual Primary Presentation. Having not been in a ward with a Primary for many years, I had forgotten how much I LOVE the Primary Presentation Sunday. Those kids are so stinkin' cute. And funny. Here was my favorite line, delivered by a girl who looked to be about four years old.

"Heavenly Father has given us lots of good foods. Like hot dogs. . . and apples."

I think her mom probably made her toss in the "and apples." So funny.

Welcome to the New Roommates

Yes, my friends, here we are. Me, Alicia, Ariane, and Heather. Believe it or not, this is the first time that Ari and I have actually been roommates. We're definitely having fun though! Please be warned that we don't have a ton of furniture yet, so if anyone comes for a visit, you may have to sit on a camping chair. But come anyway. We love visitors. And don't you love the pretty lights along our backyard fence?

We Lost a Tree

We had a HUGE storm here on Tuesday. Seriously. I haven't seen wind like we had since I lived in the Netherlands. We used to talk about the horizontal rainfall in Holland, and that's what we had on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, that means that we had a casualty in the backyard. Our poor tree, which we now know was a fruitless plum (thanks Steven) couldn't handle the rain and wind and completely tipped over.

A big thanks goes out to Pablo and his buddy who came to cut it down on Thursday. We still miss our purple tree though.

Some 'Splainin' To Do

I feel like I want to explain a little bit about why I’ve called this blog “The Adventures of Jenn” (emphasis on Adventures). I’ve realized lately that lots of people say on their blogs that their lives are adventures, but I really do have a good reason behind my titling. I’m not just trying to be like everyone else.

You see, you don’t get to be 31 and single without having been on a good number of bad dates. Especially bad first dates. Bad blind first dates. Now, not all first dates or first blind dates are bad. And sometimes a bad first date can blossom into a good second date. Not always, but I digress…

After extensive research, I have found that there’s one question that – when asked during the course of a date - almost always indicates that things are going sour. I can tell when it’s coming. There will be an awkward and uncomfortable pause in conversation. A little cough here. A head scratch there. Eye contact is averted. Both of us know that there aren’t many more easy avenues of conversation, and we’re hunting for something to bring up. Coming from a professional small-talker, if we get too far into the pause, I know that there are very few ways out without coming to The Question. It’s every bad date’s back-up. I start to panic a little, racking my brain for some topic to introduce before he utters the words. But I’m not fast enough. He opens his mouth and begins, “So, what are…” In my head I start yelling, “No! Danger! Danger! Abort! Don’t do it! Please – ANY OTHER QUESTION!” But before I can cut him off he finishes, “…your hobbies?” Long sigh.

My hobbies? That question is my nemesis. It haunts me. Why though? It’s not an uncommon question. People have hobbies, right? Wrong! I’ve realized that the reason I don’t like this question is mostly because I don’t have many traditional hobbies. Therefore, I have no good answer for this question. Sure I read. I like sports. My grandma’s teaching me to quilt. I definitely do NOT scrapbook. But that tends to be where the list ends, because I don’t think I can count watching TV. Pathetic in the world of hobbies. So, if you ask me this question, I just end up feeling like a loser who doesn’t do anything and the date conversation dies again. Maybe I should refer all potential dates to this post so they can avoid the question-of-death.

Anyway, after many hours (or at least a few minutes) of contemplating my lack of hobbies, I have come to a conclusion. I may not have many hobbies, but it’s because most of all I like to have ADVENTURES! I do like to do things! I like to try new things, go new places, and learn new stuff. Really my biggest hobby is adventuring. Is that a word? Today it is. And I like adventuring.

My roommates and I once made a list of adventures and put it on the fridge. The adventures ranged from going to Peach Days to snowshoeing to taking a tour of a chocolate factory to going to the MoTab Christmas concert.

My point is that adventures are everywhere, and at least a portion of this blog will walk you through some of my favorite current adventures. And every time you read about an adventure, you can know that I’m just keeping up with my favorite non-hobby. Thus, The Adventures of Jenn.

Enough ‘splainin’ Lucy.

The Summer Recap

In honor of it officially being Fall but officially still being as hot as mid-summer, I have decided to give my readers (all five of you) a quick summary of my summer highlights. In essence, I will paint a picture using words and…well, pictures. Here goes!

This year summer started way back in, I think, February when we went to the S.F. Giants Fan Fest. I got to actually WALK ON THE FIELD! And I saw Will Clark, my favorite Giant from my younger days.

The next important summer event was a little thing we (I) like to call "Friendrichment." You know - friends getting together to learn something or do something productive. In this episode we made 72 hour emergency kits. Thanks AmyAnn for putting this together!

This is a picture of AmyAnn running the half marathon that I was supposed to run with her. We signed up for the American River Parkway half marathon, but I pulled a dumb muscle in my leg so badly that I wasn't able to run with her. Instead, Jenn and I were the cheerleaders of the race. It was rainy and so much fun. Way to go runners! I'll be there next year (hopefully!).

Ariane joined my Stockton ward on a day trip to Big Trees. It was absolutely beautiful, but we did spend a bit of time looking at the map...lost. But we always found our way back.

June was actually a super busy month. Our big family trip this year was to San Diego, where all four of us kids took surfing lessons. Now, are we "surfers?" I'd say no, but we sure had a lot of fun. Here's the land portion of our lesson. David, my mom, and I all got spray tans for the trip. :) Totally worth it.

We totally look like locals, huh? Here's Danny, David, Kari, and me.

Perhaps the fact that I struggled to even pull the WETSUIT on was a precursor of how well I'd actually do in the water. In my defense, it was a new suit and it was very tight.

Shoot! I did have a picture of me looking like I was standing up and really surfing, but I forgot to upload it. I'm also not blog-savvy enough to add it in now. So...here's me kind of surfing.

And then fully wiping out. I have to say that surfing was so much fun and I'd totally try it again. I'm an excellent boogie boarder, so I'm sure that I could eventually get the hang of this. :) Definitely a fun day with the fam!

We also went to Legoland! We really did have a couple of kids with us even though you haven't seen pictures of them yet. We didn't really go to Legoland with just adults. This is Kari, Mollie (my sis-in-law) and me.

Ok - so this may seem silly, but this was one of my favorite parts of the week in San Diego. My mom and I took my niece, Kallie, and my cousin, Emma, and we went to La Jolla for a couple of hours. On the way there, we somehow decided that the girls were part of the "Miss Nancy's Bucket-of-Fun Tour" and Mom and I were the guides. We pointed out silly things all along the drive and our walk, and the girls would just "ooh" and "aah" like we were showing them priceless works of art or something. It was great! We looked at the seals, climbed trees, watched kayakers (our family), and walked out on the rocks along the shore. We'll be taking bookings for tours again next summer. :)

On the rocks.

In the trees.

Toward the end of June, Jenn, AmyAnn, Ariane, and I finally got the chance to see Wicked in San Francisco. Oh, how I loved it! Anyone want to go again?

Outside the Orpheum Theater with Lindsey and John.

The last major event in June was our good friend Jenn getting married to Chad. Hooray!

In honor of her wedding, we made the cupcakes for her reception. I think that learning this new skill also falls into the Friendrichment category. So, we made cupcakes...

...and cupcakes...

...and more cupcakes...

...and even more cupcakes.

Eventually we had 400 cupcakes! Yum!

Then we attempted a cake topper. This is me with my first cake with fondant. And, thanks to KB, the fondant actually tasted good! Homemade is the only way to go.

Here's the finished cupcake tower. The top kind of looks like a hat, but that's ok.

Delish...

The friends at the temple.
And, yes, I caught the bouquet. What can I say? They asked who really wanted it. So I fought Ariane (I did some classic boxing out. Thanks Dad.), and I won! But I did share the flowers with others. We all deserve them, right? :)
And I got to finish the night with a dance with Jenn's little brother, Brady. So cute!

Ok - This post is probably FAR too long, but brevity's not my thing. I'll try to be shorter in the future. Just as a final update, I did finish the summer with a move back to the Sacramento area, and the start of a new job.

That's the update of my summer. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe, right? I wasn't allowed to watch that cartoon.

My Little Corner of the Internet

There's a lot of pressure associated with the first post of a new blog. It sets the scene. It creates a tone. There's a lot riding on it. So the question arises...do you open with a joke? A story? A poetic tribute to all major life events since 1997? No. The only logical way to start things off on the right foot is to find the perfect picture that screams, "This is me!"

How better to say "Welcome to my blog!" than with a picture of me sticking my head through a lego shark head? Enjoy, and here's to happy blogging in the days to come!