According to BabyCenter.com, this week Baby Jensen is about the size of a lemon! (Surprise!) But he’s a lot cuter than a lemon!

After our visit with Grandma Martin, we headed to NC to spend the rest of the week with my parents and sister at Canaan Land. We enjoyed our week relaxing in the mountains of NC and the time we were able to spend with my family. We spent most of our week hiking around the mountains and waterfalls. It was nice to be away from the busyness of technology and school life. A great break before my summer classes.

We had a lovely time visiting with Grandma Martin in Atlanta, GA (June 14-16). It was good to be able to spend time with her, instead of arriving at the “Martin Hotel” late at night and then heading out early the next morning (as we’ve done in the past).  Our visit included trimming some hedges, eating at Ted’s Montana Grill, and playing a couple rounds of Rook. 

We’re home to our apartment after 8 weeks away! We arrived yesterday evening at 7 pm CT. It’s so good to be home after two months away. Our apartment is bigger than I remember!

Total miles traveled: 4,800

Route (major destinations bold): Texas – Louisiana – Mississippi – Alabama – Georgia – South Carolina – North Carolina – South Carolina – North Carolina – Virginia – West Virginia – Maryland – Pennsylvania – New Jersey – Pennsylvania – Maryland – West Virginia – Kentucky – Tennessee – Mississippi – Arkansas – Texas

Total states: 15

Oldest person visited: Great-Grandma Hanyen (100 years old in May)

Places slept:

• Staybridge Suites, Jackson MS (credit card points)
• Grandma Martin’s, Atlanta GA
• Canaanland, Toxaway NC
• Mom and Dad Jensen, Greenville SC (6 weeks!)
• The Inn on Main, Spartanburg SC (anniversary)
• Mom and Dad Sutter, Dover PA
• Michael and Erin Lyons, Louisville KY
• Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Olive Branch MS (credit card points)

A great big thank-you to friends and family who put us up and fed us! More pictures to come at a later time.

Credit hours earned: 9 (my last three classes!)

Oral Comprehensive Exam: Passed!

Groceries from Grandma Sutter:

One year ago today I married my best friend. Happy anniversary, Amy! I love you.

(I told her in person, too.)

Last week Amy and I joined Dad and Mom Sutter (and Emily) for a week at Canaanland Camp in NC. On a hike, Dad saw this snake, which was later identified as a Timber Rattler (you can see the rattle if you look closely). Mom and Emily were taking a different path (the creek, actually), so only Amy and I were with Dad for the excitement. Fortunately, we had Mom’s camera because of the path she’d chosen.

In other news, Amy started her first block course this week (Differential Statistics). It’s pretty busy, so she probably won’t be posting here (or answering many emails) for a while.

Last night we had our friend, Yi Ling, over for dinner. Yi Ling is from Taiwan and has been attending our church since the fall. We’ve enjoyed getting to know her. After dinner we played Jenga and Uno.

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…

Two reasons for the title:

1. Apparently my sister-in-law Emily has decided to become a farmer when she grows up.
2. I just finished up a ministry website for my good friend Jeremy Farmer. Jeremy and his family are headed to Cambodia when they’ve finished raising their support (they started today with a service in Rockford, Illinois). Jeremy’s first visit to Cambodia was in 2002 as part of a threesome that included me. Once Jeremy’s there, I’ll be the only one still getting ready to go. (Brian Kane was the third, and his family has been in Cambodia for a couple years now.) Here’s the Farmers’ site:

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!)

During our premarital counseling, Tim Bixby encouraged Amy and me to make a regular practice of reading together, particularly books that would encourage us to strengthen our marriage spiritually. We read a couple books and book portions together in preparation for marriage, and since we were married, we’ve worked to keep up the practice.

In addition, we like to do some fun reading together, often just before bed. (With the marriage and devotional books, we read back-and-forth out loud. For fiction, I read to Amy.)

Yesterday we were reviewing what we’ve read together since we got married. We were surprised by how much it was. Here are the books we’ve completed (together and aloud) since marriage:

• The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis)
• The Odyssey (Homer, translated by Fagles)
• Reforming Marriage (Douglas Wilson)
• Christian Living in the Home (Jay Adams)
• When Sinners Say “I Do” (Dave Harvey)
• Essential Virtues: Marks of the Christ-Centered Life (Jim Berg)

We’re currently in the process of reading these:

• Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis)
• Beyond Suffering (Layton Talbert)
• Seeing with New Eyes (David Powlison)

Starting books — and then actually finishing them — has always been a little overwhelming to me. But you may be surprised by how much you can read if you do just a little at a time. It’s certainly been a surprise to Amy and me. I don’t feel like we spend that much time reading — and reading aloud isn’t the fastest way to get through a book — but (like saving money, I guess), it adds up.

After reading the previous post, you might ask, What does popcorn have to do with music?

There are a couple answers. One, the promise of a Friday popcorn party can add a little motivation to good behavior in class throughout the week. Two, one of the songs (well, a text with rhythm — no melody) in Amy’s music curriculum is actually about making popcorn. Here’s a performance (yeah, that’s my wife way up there in the air!):

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(If you’re using a blog reader, you might want to go to our blog to see the video that’s included above.)

I didn’t mention this in the previous post — but I spent yesterday at Cochran Elementary School with Amy, participating in her classes and (during a couple classes) making some photos and videos. After a day with her at school, I wonder how in the world Amy does anything at the end of the day but come home and sleep. Lots of jumping, lots of energy, lots of talking and singing. When we came home, I wanted a nap (and took one).

As you would guess, Amy’s a great teacher, and her students like her very well. So do her colleagues. (So does her husband!)

What are these kids so captivated by? (Well, one of them appears to be interested in the camera, but I mean the rest.)

A hot oil popcorn maker, operated by a music teacher:

The popping process was “boring” for the first couple minutes (before the popping began), but after the first pop, there were lots of oo’s and ah’s and a few shh’s. They liked eating the popcorn, too. (No surprise there.) Some said it was the “most delicious popcorn” they’d ever had, and a few determined to buy a popcorn maker.

It’s said that air poppers are healthier than oil poppers, but Amy uses Canola, so it’s good fat. Here’s one more photo of the wonder of the popping popcorn:

The other ingredients of Good Times are cookies (we — mostly Amy — made 300 small chocolate chip cookies on Thursday evening), singing, a team competition to put notes in their proper places on a staff (you can see the staff on the floor behind Amy in one of the photos further up), and lots of jumping up and down (little kids like jumping up and down). The cookies were a big hit (“They’re so soft!” “They’re better than … Chips Ahoy!”)

Yesterday evening, Amy and I had over a classmate of mine, Fahad, along with his cousin, Rakan, an MBA student in Oklahoma. They’re from Saudi Arabia. (Fahad is the one on my right.) We had an enjoyably evening and a wonderful roast.

Did you notice that I got a haircut? We had decided to wait till the semester was over. So Amy took care of it Friday evening. (And she did a marvelous job!) If you’ve forgotten how long my hair had gotten, here’s a recent photo (taken after an event that required a tie — something unusual for me these days).

The semester ended well. I had two final papers (due Tuesday and Wednesday), and some final exams to grade (I finished those yesterday). So summer has begun. My plans are to study French, continue my work for Nightlight Christian Adoptions (formerly Carolina Hope), design a couple websites, and conduct research on Jarai for my dissertation — along with some other miscelaneous items.

By the way, Amy’s old computer (very graciously given to her a couple years ago by her brother Jon) is on the way out. If anyone is trying to dispose of a (still reliable) laptop that’s a couple years old (at a reasonable price), please let us know!

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.

Back on March 15, we had our pastor (John Lutz) and his family (Shawn, Micah) over for dinner. Amy made a wonderful pot roast (maybe she’ll put up some photos?) and some great cookies out of yellow cake mix (the only cookie-making ingredients on hand!). Here’s the cookies:

The Lutzes tried out our Boomwhackers — introduced here — (new church orchestra?). They were pretty good, especially considering that they didn’t get much prep time. (Does “especially considering” turn a compliment into an underhanded aspersion?) Here’s a 20-sec clip:

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Finally, since you can see from the top photo (which we’re all part of) that I obviously have a timer function on my camera, here’s a little something showing … well, you’ll see:

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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!