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.

I had great ambitions to give Josh his second haircut of our marriage before we went to visit our relatives for Christmas, but we ran out of time before our departure and Josh assured me that no one would think I was a bad wife for failing to give my husband a haircut. My worries were completely relieved when one of my younger brothers commented, “nice to see Josh has his hair back.”

On our return home, I gathered my courage together and decided to try giving Josh a haircut again. With some helpful advice from a professional hairdresser (and from my husband), we successfully accomplished the mission and I was satisfied that no one would be looking at Josh’s hair and wondering who his “butcher” wife is.

This Christmas all six Sutter siblings (and three spouses) were able to celebrate at the Sutter household in PA. We enjoyed our visit with the whole family.

We had a wonderful time in SC visiting family and celebrating Christmas with the Jensens. We’re looking forward to spending more time with them this summer, when I take my last nine credits of classes at BJU.

Last week was my first full week of teaching at Cochran Elementary School. The rotation for Special classes (music, art, gym, and computer) for grades K-6 is 5 consecutive days of each special every 6 weeks, so I see each class for one week out of each 6 week grading period. Last week I only had two classes per day . . . a nice way to be integrated into the school. (This week I have 7-8 classes per day — PreK-6th grade — in 45-minute back-to-back sessions. More on that later.) I’m currently working on trying to learn the names of my over 600 students. Or at least the 100+ I’ve had so far. Let me introduce you to class 2C and class Pre-KC.

Class 2C                                  Class Pre-KC

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Park family this year. Jun Suk is one of Josh’s fellow students, and this is his first year working on his Ph.D. at UTA. We had a lovely time with their family and enjoyed our fellowship together.

Thanksgiving preparations kept us busy both Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Wednesday night, while Josh was in class, I made three loaves of Challah bread. (Challah bread is traditionally served in Jewish homes for the Sabbath meal and at feast times, but I love it and decided to add some Jewish flavor into our Thanksgiving meal.)

Thursday morning I popped the turkey in the oven (love those oven bags), and when it was cooked, Josh did a wonderful job carving the turkey – just finishing as our guests were arriving.

After our guests left, we took a traditional after Thanksgiving meal nap, finished reading Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, went on an evening walk, and enjoyed warm turkey sandwiches for dinner.

We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving – our salvation, our marriage, our apartment, our jobs, and the many other blessings God daily gives us. He is our faithful Father. To God be the glory.

Being married is one of the most wonderful things in the world – I love it!  I love living with and sharing everything with my best friend – my husband. I love the way he points me to Christ and challenges me to be more like our Savior.  Happy 5th month anniversary, Josh- thank you for choosing me!

Saturday afternoon, I had Lily over to practice our pie making skills. Our plan for the afternoon was to make three pies – a cherry pie for Lily, a pumpkin pie for the Hills (friends of my Grandma Buecher), and a peach pie for Josh and me. We successfully completed our mission with time for two games of Othello and a couple games of Uno before Josh arrived home with our pizza dinner.

After dinner, we drove to visit the Hills. Mrs. Hill took a nasty fall last Friday and broke her shoulder, but she was in good spirits and we enjoyed our visit with them. From the Hills we drove to Lily’s grandparents (the Kahlers) to drop Lily off. Mrs. Kalher has an amazing rock collection, and she took time to show us a “few” of her rocks and fossils, and Mr. Kahler made us some very rich hot chocolate.

Sunday evening (while writing this post), the fire alarms in our apartment building went off . Apparently, there was a grease fire in one of the first floor apartments – exciting times.

For the past 3 months, many of you have been praying with us that the Lord would provide a job for me. For weeks, I spent countless hours searching for jobs and sending applications and resumes to employers, with little to no response. About a month ago I got an unexpected call from the Dallas School District, and to make a long story short, I have been hired to teach music at Cochran Elementary School. Cochran Elementary is a Title One K-6 school, primarily made up of Hispanics and African Americans (I have yet to see a Caucasian student in the school). Cochran has not had a music program, so I will be starting  and building their music program. I spent today (my first day) cleaning out the classroom, learning my way around the school, and making friends with the head custodian (something they taught me in school as being essential to the well being of my music program).

Thank you for praying for my job. The Lord has provided in unexpected ways a job that I am trained for and I will truly enjoy. To God be the glorly.

For those of you who are wondering where we’ve been in the blog-world, here’s a short update on our weekend adventures. Friday night we went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner (compliments of the Bixbys), and then I took Josh on a surprise adventure to UTA’s planetarium show Seven Wonders, and we enjoyed seeing the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World and the constellations of the Texas night sky. Friday night was buy one get one free, so with Josh’s student discount, we paid $2.00 for the show (and the $2 was compliments of Grandma Sutter’s change).

Saturday night we played another game of Monopoly, and I, once again, beat Josh. He now regrets “teaching” me how to play. Sunday we enjoyed fellowshipping with our NLB Church family and during the afternoon Josh finished our new church website. Sunday evening we enjoyed a time of food and games (Dutch Blitz, Taboo, and Scattergories) at Debbie and Lynnelle’s. This week is “normal” for the Jensen family – Josh is working and studying and I’m enjoying being his wife.

Living on-campus works out really well for our one-car family. Josh is able to walk to class and work, and usually, I’m able to walk with him to class and meet him after he’s finished for the day. I always enjoy meeting him on his way home, and sometimes I hide along the way and “surprise” during his walk. You should have seen his face the time I ran up behind him and grabbed his hand!

Fall has arrived in Texas, and I’m enjoying the cooler weather and the autumn colors.

Josh “celebrated” Election Day in a unique way (actually – it was a study break and a way to make his wife burst out with laughter).

I’ve been having fun with the Johnson girls. Last week we made cupcakes, and this week we played hide-n-go-seek. I was surprised how many good hiding places there are in our little home.

This morning we received a call from the campus police requesting that Josh come down to meet them in the apartment parking lot. Josh asked if I wanted to come along, but I decided to let him face the police on his own, while I watched (and took pictures) from the window.

Apparently, someone had a little fun last night and ripped several peoples’ sideview mirrors off, and we were one of their chosen cars. The police took down our information, but there’s little hope that the vandal will turn up. This morning I drove into Dallas and have found that driving without a sideview mirror is an interesting experience.

On a typical class day for Josh, I walk him to class and meet him on his way home from campus. He usually gives me a call, when he’s leaving campus, and I start on my way to meet him somewhere along the way. Sometimes I leave before he calls, so I can pop up unexpectedly and surprise/scare him on his way home. (You should have seen his face the time I came up behind him and grabbed his hand.)

Today when Josh called, I pretended to be well on my way to meet him, when I was actually trying to finish up some last minute things before I walked out the door. To my surprise, when I went to meet Josh, he was coming around the last bend before our apartment. He surprised me! As we walked together to check the mail (another daily ritual), Josh tied his jacket over my eyes so I could practice being blind (a remnant from Education for Exceptional Learners at BJU). As I was trying to find our mailbox with my eyes closed, my hands felt something rather different than the usual keyhole. My dear husband bought me roses for our four month anniversary. I was so surprised! After class instead of working in the lab, Josh had walked to our parking lot, taken our car (he was really worried I would notice that our car was missing), and went to buy roses and pickles (I love Claussen pickles!). I should tell you that Josh went to three grocery stores and called my mom before he found my favorite pickles. I have such a sweet husband. It was one of those “blah” days for me, and Josh’s gift of roses and pickles was simply perfect.