I’ve been planning to blog about Josh’s birthday for a while, but teaching and studying have delayed my blogging plans.  For Josh’s birthday I took him on a surprise adventure to a special hamburger restaurant. I was so pleased with myself for planning the surprise trip…of course, I wasn’t so pleased with myself when my Google Map directions took us to the middle of a development, instead of to the restaurant. (Josh thought I was planning him a surprise birthday party and was just trying to throw him off track.) We enjoyed the restaurant (once we got there) and the hamburgers were a success!

Since Josh’s birthday was right before my comprehensive exam, we decided to wait until after the exam to celebrate with his traditional strawberry cake. Mom J. sent the recipe and it turned out great! And in case you’re wondering what I gave Josh for his birthday…..click here to see…

Nancy Jane Cochran Elementary School is officially out for the summer! My last day of teaching was Wednesday, and there was a faculty work-day on Thursday to close out the year. On Thursday, I packed my room up, stored all my valuable instruments in the main building, enjoyed our end of the year luncheon, and drove off for the summer. I really enjoyed my first year of teaching. Being a music teacher is the world’s greatest (paying) job! I learned more each week and by the end of the school year I felt like I was finally getting the hang of things. I’m looking forward to next year!

To celebrate the end of the school year, Josh and I went out to eat at Olive Garden and then went for a walk at a park. It’s nice to have a break from the pressures of teaching and lesson-plan writing! In two weeks, I’ll be starting six weeks of summer courses – fun – fun! But for now … I’m going to enjoy being off from school and I’ll be studying for my oral comprehensive exam which will take place some time during summer school.

(Oh, and we had a lovely 11-month anniversary a week ago. Almost 1 year!)

Last Saturday night we had my friend Ms.  Carter over for dinner.  I was excited for Josh to meet one of my coworkers.  Ms. Carter is a 4th grade math teacher at school and has made me feel a part of the Cochran faculty.  I’ve enjoyed getting to know her and visiting her classroom this year.

During Spring Break, Josh and I took a “break” from our studying and spent an evening in Forth Worth. We visited the Barnes and Noble, and Josh read Poe’s The Black Cat to me. Afterwards we enjoyed a dinner of Mexican food and walking around downtown Fort Worth.  While walking around, we met the most interesting man. His job was to walk around town and scare all the birds away by either shining a red light into their eyes or by startling them with his large clapper. He told us that if we walked further down the road we would find all the noisy birds. We decided to test his word and just as he said, a couple blocks down the road there were hundreds of birds filling the trees.

Today is our 10 month wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe how quickly our first year is passing. Marriage is wonderful – I am married to the dearest sweetest man in the world.

Last Friday I took the written part of my doctoral comprehensive exam. My questions were:

1. Discuss the role of a Christian teacher in a public school setting. What are some of the issues of concern that a Christian teacher must address in the current public school setting?

2. How can popular music meet the National Standards of Music in a middle school general music curriculum? What pedagogical or curriculum problems can occur from an “overuse” of popular music in this curriculum?

3. How do the learning theories of Vygotsky and Piaget apply to the elementary music classroom? Which theory is more applicable in the elementary music classroom?

I spent over eight hours writing my responses and felt like my brain was fried by the end of the day. Josh made me a delicious spaghetti dinner to celebrate. And I’m currently enjoying not having the pressure of the exam weighing on me.

I took Thursday (the day before the exam) off from school to review for the exam. While I was home studying, the FedEx lady delivered fresh flowers that Dad and Mom Jensen sent to encourage me on my final day of studying.

It will be at least another week before I hear back from my committee concerning my results. After I hear back from them, we will set up a time for the oral half of my exam.

Today I decided to experiment with making soup using our leftover chicken and chicken broth from Tuesday night’s meal (Tuesday I made a whole chicken in the crockpot). I thought I would document my first soup making experience. Mmmm – mmmmm – good!

This evening, Josh decided to treat us to dinner at Moni’s (a local Italian restaurant) and ice cream at Braums. It was a delightful treat after a long week of school and study. The past two weeks, I’ve been working with the 5th grade reading class, instead of teaching music (my kids tell me they miss music…I do too!). Yesterday and today I taught all 5th grade reading classes  by myself, because the regular teacher was out of town due to a family emergency.  Life is an adventure.

For Saturday night’s salad meal, I tried browning chicken in Italian dressing and was pleased with the results. (Mom, just thought you might like to see how healthy we’re eating!)

We’ve both had a busy week. I have several pictures to post, but they will have to wait until after my comprehensive exam (April 17th).

Happy Birthday to my wonderful wonderful husband!!! I love you so much!

Happy 9 months of marriage to the most wonderful man in the whole wide world! I love you so much, Joshua Jensen – so much! Thank you for being the man who loves me, leads me, and points me to Christ. I love being your wife.

Saturday evening we had Sharleston and her son, Nick, over for dinner. Sharleston used to be the secretary for the linguistics department at UTA and was very helpful to Josh, especially when he first came to UTA.  She is a very sweet lady and considered herself the “den mother” for the linguistics department.

We had a delightful time with our guests. I made bacon wrapped chicken (thanks, Emily for the recipe), along with red potatoes (thanks, Ruth B.), mixed vegetables, and rolls.

Thought you might enjoy a snapshot of our Spring Break activities this week. Josh has a color-coded list of things to get done, and I’m preparing for my comprehensive exam. We’ve had our past few meals on our card table, since cleaning up our regular table and then getting everything out again seemed like too much work.

Last Saturday night (for our weekly Josh and Amy Night), we did some shopping and then went to Mimi’s for dinner. We both enjoyed our meals and then went home to play a game of Othello (you’ll have to ask Josh who won).

Sunday night we babysat the Johnson kids, while their parents went house hunting. The Johnsons have three adorable children and are expecting their fourth in July. We spent the evening playing games, having razor scooter races in an empty parking lot, reading, eating dinner, and watching a movie.

Today we celebrate our 8th month wedding anniversary. We thank the Lord for giving us eight wonderful months of marriage. I am truly blessed to have Joshua Jensen as my husband.

A few weeks ago, Josh offered to make our Valentine’s Day dinner. I wasn’t sure what he was planning and was delightfully surprised with our meal last night. Josh made salad, chicken (his own recipe in the crockpot), twice baked potatoes (ht to Sam and Abigail for the cookbook), veggies, and apple crisp (thanks Mom J. for the recipe)! Everything was absolutely delicious!

After supper, we read our cards to each other and then Josh read a P.J. Wodehouse story. It was wonderful to spend our first Valentine’s Day together. Wonderful to be married to the world’s most sweet romantic man.

Valentine’s Day at school was a big celebration. I received several Valentine’s, as well as a single red rose that was so perfect that it looked fake.

I had a good week at school. In my fifth grade class worked on writing and performing their own raps.

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In hopes of instilling a love for music class in my students, I recently purchased two sets of Boomwhackers. (Ok, you’re right . . . I just wanted them for myself!)

It was another busy week in the Jensen household. Josh was busy with his classwork, preparing and teaching his class (Grammar and Morphology), webwork, and meeting one of the syntax faculty candidates at UTA.

I had an interesting teaching week…it was the third week in the 6 week grading period, and I’m convinced that my three worst classes in the school are scheduled during week 3 – back-to-back. I had my first classroom fight between two 4th grade boys, met the school policeman, and had my first parent/teacher/principal conference. I’m learning a lot at Cochran Elementary School, and I know the Lord is using the school to teach me dependence on wisdom from above. The most hilarious episode of the teaching week was the teacher’s assistant sub who kept telling the bilingual Pre-K class to “andale” when they were leaving my classroom.

Wednesday night we had Micah and Anna over for dinner. It was great to fellowship with them. Friday night, Josh and I went to a park, then went grocery shopping, and ended the night by making chocolate chip cookies. Sunday, we had a church fellowship, including pizza and games.

So, there’s a short glimpse into our week. We’re looking forward to this coming week – teaching and studying.

Today is our 7th month wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been married 7 months already! I love being married to my Josh –  the most wonderful man in the world! Everyday I am reminded of what a treasure my husband is to me from God.

I decided to surprise Josh with a picnic for our 7th month anniversary. We had a lovely time, and the “weather” was absolutely perfect.

From Dallas ISD’s website this morning:

January 28, 2009

Dallas ISD schools are closed today due to the weather.

So, of course . . .

This morning, I got up preparing for an extended drive to Dallas — extended because of icy road conditions. But I was delighted to find out that DISD closed school for the day, and I get an “extra” day to get things done. Josh and I went outside at 7:30AM and enjoyed the wintry weather.

And here’s a little video (no sound).

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If you have trouble viewing the video, please let us know in the comments. Josh is trying a different format that should be more compatible with most computers. (In case you’re interested, the format is Adobe Flash 8.)

Since both Josh and I had MKL Day off from school, I was planning to surprise him with a secret getaway on Sunday night. However,  since I’ve been fighting a cold all week, I decided to forget the idea and wait until I was feeling better. On Sunday morning, when I mentioned my idea to Josh, he thought it was a great plan and we decided to see how I felt after church and then go from there. After church I was feeling well and was excited about our getaway.

We used Hotwire.com to find an excellent hotel deal and thanks to Mr. West’s Christmas gift, spent the night in the DoubleTree Hotel at Market Place Center in Dallas. It was wonderful to get away (our first official vacation since our honeymoon) and enjoy the evening and entire morning together. We brought Josh’s Mac and watched David Copperfield. It was a great way to spend extra time together, without feeling the pressures of lesson planning and other work calling to us. Now it’s back to work for both of us. Josh is planning for teaching his class tomorrow and I’m teaching piano lessons tonight and preparing lesson plans for this school week.