Tribute to Havyn

Havyn has earned the nickname Texas tornado but since we have moved it has been changed to the Hawaii hurricane. I know that kids are destructive and make a mess but we have never seen one quite like her. She is known for finding any kind of lotion, shampoo, etc. and rubbing it all over her body and hair. While I was sick, we had one of the hardest days! I got up to find her coloring black sharpie all over the hardwood floor and walls, luckily I have a fantastic cleaner that takes it out. That same day she drizzled chocolate syrup all over the kitchen, it was running off of the bar stools like waterfalls. A couple hours later dry erase marker in all the window sills.

Steve and I just shake our head in amazement, we have never seen anything quite as destructive! Today she told me she wanted to paint and I left her alone for 3 minutes while I was checking email and I returned to find that she had painted her body, the table, the screen door and chairs. I am glad I at least took off her clothes. The slideshow below is a small small small tribute of her work. I am usually so mad I don't think about taking a picture.

AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

Do I have the dirtiest kids in the world? Every time I buy Cole a white shirt, he gets one use out of it. I have stopped buying him white shirts but couldn't resist myself when they were 8 for $20 at the flea market. This is the first time both of these shirts have been worn and it may be the last.

A Visit is a Visit

We were so happy to welcome our first visitor....Grandma Jensen. Unfortunately, she didn't come for a vacation but we still had a good time. Steve's mom flew in to help us with the kids while I was sick and we are very grateful. It was so nice having someone here to drive the kids to school and keep and eye on Havyn(when I would drive, by the time I would get to the school my head hurt so bad that I was sweating buckets and so uncomfortable. I would lay down in the van and rest for about 20 minutes and prepare myself mentally for the drive back).

When I was on the mend we were able to squeeze in a couple of short outings. Thanks for your help Grandma.

Kailua Beach

Laie Temple

There really is life after.....a spinal headache!

Many of you have been calling and writing me emails wondering how I am doing, so I thought I would give a quick update. Since my last post I have been back to the hospital a couple of times. I continued to have severe headaches, which turned out to be a spinal headache from the spinal tap. I went in for a blood patch, they go back into the spine and inject a small amount of your own blood into the hole that they made, 99% of the time you feel better within minutes. I was so excited to get this and have relief finally. Well they wouldn't do the spinal patch on me because they didn't want to go back into the spinal area and cause problems to the meningitis. Instead they gave me a caffeine IV which helped with the headache that night but I didn't sleep a wink. The amount of caffeine they gave me was equivalent to six 2-liter bottles of mountain dew. I was buzzing! The next morning the headache was back.

My mother in law flew in to help us out and I am happy to report that I made it through one hour of church yesterday (I was one of the speakers so I kind of needed to be there). I also went to the doctor today and the store and I am still alive. I am getting better and better each day. I have never been more grateful to sit, stand, clean the dishes, wipe bums, etc. Thank you for all of your calls, emails and prayers some days were discouraging and it was so nice to get my mind off of things.

Happy Birthday to Amber - Not

I had the greatest birthday celebration....you are going to be so jealous. For my birthday I was admitted to the hospital, doesn't that sound fun! Ok, your right it wasn't fun at all. In all seriousness I think the weekend qualified as the worst weekend in my life. It started on Friday when I got a miserable headache. I tried everything tylenol, advil, excedrin, oxycodone (pain meds that they gave me from knee surgery), vice grips, a hammer, etc. Nothing was making a dent in the pain. By Sunday morning (my birthday) I was miserable! I had been in tears multiple times and I told Steve that this just wasn't a normal headache. Steve took me to the ER at Tripler, they did a cat scan and a spinal tap and came to the conclusion that I had aseptic meningitis. It isn't contagious so I'm not going to spread it to any of you. They think that it was caused by a drug called Mobic that I had been taking after knee surgery. I guess this medicine has been known to cause meningitis in some people....isn't that fabulous. So I am now out of the hospital but still pretty miserable. I feel good as long as I am laying down (which is why I am typing this slouched down in the chair as far as I can with my head cocked to the side resting on the arm rest) but when I get up I am reminded that someone is stabbing knifes into my head. I don't recommend this birthday gift to anyone! :)

Knee Surgery

I can only watch so much TV so I decide it was time to check all my blog sites and add an new post. I have been having knee problems since October of last year. I tried ignoring it hoping it was just old age :) and it would go away, but it never did. So I finally got it taken care of yesterday.

It was a very long day. I was originally scheduled for surgery last week but they canceled it because of an emergency they had to do. I arrived at the hospital at 10:00 am. I knew I would probably have to wait a little while. At about noon they told me to get changed into my gown because they were ready for me. They took me back to the OR waiting area where they get you hooked up to an IV and I waited and waited and waited. They had another emergency that came in so I ended up waiting in that room for about 4 hours. They finally changed me to some different doctors that I wasn't originally scheduled with because the others were still in surgery. At this point I really didn't care who did it. I hadn't eaten anything since the night before (doctors orders) and I was ready to eat and get home. They wheeled me into the OR put the oxygen mask on me and that is the last thing I remember until I was waking up in the recovery room.

I am feeling good, it is challenging being on crutches with three levels but I will make it. I would like to put my leg up and relax more than I am able to but for those of you that know crazy busy Havyn you'll understand. I am just glad to finally get it taken care of so I can start exercising and playing sports again!

Torn Meniscus before
After - All better

Havyn also has a hurt knee

Scary Halloween Costumes

Taylor and Madison wearing the scariest halloween costumes I have ever seen!

Jensen Illustrated - Swimsuit Issue

Welcome Baby Ryan!

My Sister, Erin and her husband Javan welcomed a new baby into their family on September 3rd. Ryan weighed 7 lbs. 14 oz. (I hope that is right). We are so happy he is here and so are his big brother Ethan and big sister Ally. We are very sad that we aren't there to hug and kiss him. Welcome to the family little man, we love you!

Hawaii Weather

Steve and I used to check the weather everyday to see what was in store for us. It is pointless checking the weather each day here, as you can see nothing changes! Seriously though, can it not vary by one degree?

Boogie Boarding

Havyn Boogie Boarding

Yokohama Bay

Each weekend we have tried to pick a different part of the island to explore. Yesterday we spent the day at Yokohama Bay (also known as "pray for sex beach"), it is on the north western side of the island. It was different than a lot of the beaches we have been to. The beach was steep and since we were on the northern side of the island, the waves were big with a strong under current. If you were standing on the beach when the waves came in it would pull you right out and the next wave would push you back in. The water was crystal clear which made for great snorkeling. There weren't too many fish but lots of pretty seashells to collect.

The kids have really taken to snorkeling, Cole's teacher says that is all that he talks about. All of his writings and stories are about snorkeling, last weekend we went snorkeling at Wahaiwa and saw two large sea turtles. When he gets excited you never hear the end of it, we have been hearing about those turtles multiple times a day for a week straight. The turtles are protected so they come in very close to shore, they aren't scared of you....you can float above them and watch them forever. One of these days we will take a picture of one.

Aloha! (I feel really funny saying that) This is the first Jensen family blog and I really don't know what I am doing....so don't laugh. This will probably be a long posting, there is a lot of catching up to do. I love seeing pictures of other people and I would rather show pictures than talk so here is a recap of the past month:

Steve graduated from his Orthodontic residency the end of June. We were so excited to be done, it was a busy two years. The morning of graduation he was also promoted to Major. A pay raise is always nice.

Yipee - pinning on Steve's Major rank

Grads with a post graduation pose

We left San Antonio the end of June. It was a sad time, tears were shed. I hate saying goodbye so I usually try to skip that part altogether. We drove to Blanding to spend some time with family before flying to Hawaii. We spent 2 1/2 fun filled weeks there. We stayed busy with family reunions, hiking, four-wheeling and a week at Lake Powell.

The whole crew - Halls family

The triplets, they had so much fun together

The latest skin treatment

Blanding puts on a great little celebration for the 4th of July. It started off with a nice parade that lasts about 30 minutes. Following the parade we headed to the baseball field for some foot races. They have races for all ages. The girls took first place in the three legged race. Steve and I were also silver medalists in the adult three legged race :)

Waiting patiently for the candy...I mean the parade to start


Video of the girls in the three legged race

The Blanding pool also does a bunch of swimming races and what they call "diving for dollars". They do this in age groups as well, and they add about $120 in coins to the pool per age group. Cole wouldn't participate but the girls both got about $10. This is one of their favorite things to do....what could be better than swimming and money. That evening they have a concert and firework show at a local park. The fireworks this year were amazing (for Blanding) they were done to patriotic music, it gave me the chills.

The following day we spent some time at a local reservoir fishing and boating. The kids also took turns riding Barley, one of Grandma and Grandpa Jensen's little ponies.

Havyn in deep concentration

Some serious girl fishing time

Jensen Family (except Josh)

Meet Barley (and Taylor)

Abajo Peak - This is one of the peaks on the top of the Blue Mountains by Blanding

These next few pictures were taken near Blanding. In the background you can see a small rim that leads out to the peak. On the far side of that peak there is an Indian ruin. Steve and I and the kids hiked to the ruin. It was already a two mile hike to where Steve and the kids are standing, the kids did great! We were all tired by the time we were done but it was definitely worth seeing.

Four ancient Anasazi Indians

If you look very close in this picture you will see some indian ruins in the crack. Believe it or not we actually hiked to them. We didn't allow the kids to go to these, it was a little frightening.

Good Times

We drove to Albuquerque on July 20th for our flight that afternoon. We checked in and thought everything was set. After waiting about an hour and a half in the airport we went to check our flight to make sure everything was still on time. Our flight was delayed two hours. Steve went to the desk to talk to them about it and they told him that our flight to Honolulu was canceled. After lots of searching and stressing, they were able to find us new flights, but none of our seats were together. We were able to work out two seats so that Havyn and I could sit together but everyone else was spread all over the plane. The kids had their first experience flying alone :)

We arrived in Honolulu at about midnight which was really 4 am on our bodies time....we were exhausted. The temporary military facilities were full so they gave us a list of hotels to stay at. We stayed at a place on Waikiki. It wasn't a fancy place but had so much room, we had two bedrooms and enough beds to sleep 8 people. The next 10 days were spent in processing and searching for a house - which was a daunting task. There really are not many rentals that are available. We found quite a few places that we liked ok but we really couldn't figure out how we would fit all of our things in them. We looked at one with a pool and we really tried to talk ourselves into it but it was just too small.

After about a week we found the place that we will be staying for the next three years. It is in a nice neighborhood and has a great school system. We had to give up a few things (a/c and a yard but we really couldn't find a place with either of them) but at least we all fit.

Our house

Sunset from our bedroom

This is a tiny gecko on my family room wall. They are all over the place, my kids have official gecko patrol badges. Whenever I see one I yell to them and they catch them and put them outside. They eat bugs so they are my friends (Jasmine I know you can relate)

Between all the chaos we have found time to make it to the beach a few times. The kids think it is the greatest thing in the world. And as you can see in the above picture it only takes us 5 minutes to get there. We have seen four sea turtles, I have been stung by a jelly fish (that wasn't that much fun), and we have had lots of bottoms full of sand. Being a resident has its perks, you get discounts or not charged at all for a lot of the places. The pictures below were taken at Hanauma Bay it is an old volcano crater that has formed a nice bay. It is an underwater nature preserve. We did some snorkeling there (the kids first time) and saw two turtles and lots of fish.

We are so happy to finally be about settled and are ready for the normal routine. We think once that all happens that we will love it here in Hawaii!