Basketball

Braylon entered Kindergarten this year, my heart aches still! So with kindergarten comes the opportunity to play B-A-S-K-E-T-B-A-L-L! Which in our household is a big deal! Braylon had his first practice on Saturday, I really enjoy watching him play sports and develop his skills.

  

Chest pass

Shooting, he made 3 of 4! 

Washington D.C.

Benjamin has been going to Washington D.C. every other month, for a week, for the entire year of 2013; for a total of 6 weeks! November marked his graduation from the National Automobile Dealers Association; he flew out on Sunday to attend his final week of classes. Ben's parents and myself flew out on Thursday morning, luckily... I am not an expert flier and I will admit that I worry far more about if my children had enough socks to make it the 4 days that I would be gone, then about if I made sure I had everything. We were waiting to check our bags when I realized that I didn't have my drivers license with me, 2 hours from home and our flight is leaving in 40 minutes, who does that???????? Through some serious interrogation and a very thorough pat down, I was allowed to board the plane without my driver's license. Ben was very on top of things and had it overnighted to us in D.C. so that I would be able to come back home when the time came, I don't think that I give him enough credit for all that he does for me! Once our feet hit down in Washington D.C. my nervous system was finally calmed down and my pulse had returned to a normal pace, and other then a small bout of the flu bug the rest of the 4 day trip went off without a hitch!

I was so excited and honored to watch Benjamin receive his "diploma", he worked very hard to achieve this and I am so proud of him!

Ben received his diploma!

The group that Ben graduated with.

Myself, Ben, Joan, and Rick

Proud parents!

Proud Wife!

His name was called!!!!

 

 

After we were finished with the graduation ceremony on Friday, we headed into D.C. for the rest of the weekend. We went site seeing on Friday evening.

Washington Memorial was under construction from an earthquake.

The front of the white house.

A daylight view of the Washington Memorial

The capital

The capital at night

Before heading out on Friday night. My favorite part of this entire vacation was getting to spend 4 days with my husband without our children. It is a wonderful feeling to know that we can pick up right where we left off when it is just the two of us.

My favorite historical site, I LOVE history and I LOVE Abraham Lincoln even more!

Relaxing before heading out Saturday morning.

Our boys received these bomber hats and aviator goggles!

Dinosaur exhibit at the Natural Science museum. Bray and Port would have gone crazy over this!

Flying home!

 

It was a wonderful 4 days, Congratulations again Ben! I love you so very much and am so proud of all that you have accomplished!

 

First Snow Fall of the year!

The beginning of November we had our first "major", I use that term loosely, snow fall of the year. Ben was in Washington D.C. and luckily it wasn't enough to warrant getting out the tractor snow blower out, because well frankly I am not sure how to use it... The kids were so very excited to see all of the white stuff all over the ground, and the best part was we have a ton of trees, so it took a few extra days for it to melt!

The boys jumped out of our bed and immediately peaked out the window and instantly started screaming because there was SNOW!!!!

The B-E-A-UTIFUL view from our bed!

The view on the way home from dropping the boys off at school!

Adalyn checking out the snow, she loved it last year, but doesn't remember what it is; she continued to ask me, "What that?"

After Porter was done with Pre-school he spent the better part of the morning and afternoon outside! Exploring all the new stuff...

 

I guess when you live in Minnesota if you can't beat them... join them...

$5 worth of fun!

We had to run to Menards this morning to pick up a few things for the house; Braylon asked if he helped me remember to get a new toilet seat cover (ours has been broke since the second day we moved in and every time I go to a store with the intent to get one it seems to slip my mind) could he pick out a toy. I told him we would walk down the toy aisle and see what they had. As I was getting ready to head to the checkout, just as promised Braylon reminded me off the toilet seat that we needed. So I held up my side of the bargain and we walked down the toy aisle. He spotted a box with a helicopter on it and asked if he could get the it; it was a build your own helicopter and car, included paint and decals, at $4.98 I agreed to let him get one for him and Porter (he was at pre-school).

After we picked Porter up from school the boys got to work...

 

Porter painting his helicopter

He wasn't afraid to use all the colors of paint...

Braylon wanted his to look just like the army helicopter on the side of the box; so he stuck with just the army colors :)

He is so detailed with his work!

 

It was easily the best $5 I have spent, it entertained the boys for most of the afternoon and right into the evening. We may need to add some more of these to our Christmas Lists...

The projects are now drying and waiting for the decals to be put on, more pictures to come.

Bouncing Boxer

 

Reese is usually a bouncing, licking, loving, energetic, snugly dog, so when he goes a few days not acting like himself, it causes alarm... When it has been a few weeks it causes panic! There were a few warning signs, not wanting to go running, not eating, and lack of energy. We took him to the vet last Monday for some testing, they wanted to follow-up with more testing on Tuesday. All those tests we ran and there was nothing found, they said it was probably a bacterial infection in his intestines. We would treat it with an anti-vomit medication and some bland food. We were instructed if he wasn't better to bring him back for some more testing...
On Friday the fun really began; Reese began drinking gallons and gallons of water. Well as most of you can guess, with increased water consumption comes increased urination; we were going outside about every 15 minutes and he was still having a few accidents in between. We could not figure out what was going on. My initial thought was diabetes; Ben thought damn dog just wants attention (he really does love Reese, even though he puts up a hard front). I was up with him 6 times on Friday night/Saturday morning. Saturday was worse, he couldn't relax or lay down for more then a few minutes. I had to head to the store when Ben got home from work, I was gone for 20 minutes when I got a call, telling me to please come home, Ben had been outside with Reese numerous times and he still had two accidents in the house. I got home and found Reese was standing by his missing water dish whining. After a call to the emergency line to the vet, it was determined that if his UTI culture came back negative they couldn't do anything for him until Monday; so we made an appointment for right away Monday morning.
The weekend was slow going with bathroom breaks every 20 minutes and an extreme lack of sleep; but Monday came and I was hoping for relief, Ben had left for his last week of class in DC on Sunday, leaving me as the sole care taker of our three children and our suddenly sick canine. When we met with Dr. W; he said he was doing some extensive research before we arrived trying to figure out what was going on. There was an extreme zig zag of symptoms and none of them added up to anything concrete. So we decided do to some more blood work, to compare it last weeks blood work; and Reese and I went home. At 3pm Dr. W called me to tell me that Reese's blood work came back normal... But Dr. W decided to run an enzyme culture on his blood as well and he found some alarming results; Reese's Potassium level was off the charts and his Sodium level was barley detectable. I had no idea what that meant; so I asked for further explanation. Apparently the combination of the two is a good indicator of 'Addison's Disease', it is very rare in humans and just as rare in dogs; most dogs go undiagnosed which can result in death. Dr. W said that their office usually sees less then 5 cases a year. To make 100% sure that this is what Reese was suffering from we had to take more blood and send them to an outside lab to have the test run.
So we brought Reese back to the vet for another round of blood draws and Dr. W gave him an injection of medication that he will need to get better from this.
I am so thankful for a Veterinarian that didn't just stop after seeing the second round of blood was normal, but decided to take it a step further and help us find an answer! Reese is a huge part of our family and I am looking forward very much to having our bouncy Boxer back!

 

And for him to begin snuggling with me at night again! I do miss that.

New blog

Welcome to the Jensen's new blog, I have imported our old blog into this one, so that I have it all at my fingertips! I will do my best to update often about the happens of the Jensen's! Check it out often! We look forward to entertaining you :)