Jensen Family Reunion!

Last Friday and Saturday (July 3 & 4) was the Jensen Family Reunion. It was up a Heber Valley Campground in Utah, which is an LDS-owned campground. It was organized by Nancy and it was so much fun!

Instead of tents and sleeping on rocks, we got to stay in cabins:

and sleep on air mattresses! Tyler and Emalyn even got to sleep on the top bunks of the bunk beds because there was a higher railing there than on the lower bunks. As you can see, they were pretty excited. Pictured above: Tyler and Emalyn using their strong heads to help Aunt Heidi get her air mattress into her cabin.

This is a picture of Scott with all of his Calder cousins that came to the reunion. It's amazing to see the posterity of two amazing people, Paul and Geri Calder. This was taken Friday night after dinner, and just before the skits. Last Christmas, Nancy gave us each copy of the history of James Hacking, and for this reunion we were given the assignment to prepare a skit based on one of his life experiences. Our family (Scott and I) chose to do the story where James (Tyler) was a little boy with his two sisters, Phoebe (Emalyn) and Eleanor (Krysta), running down a hill when they saw a diamond-backed rattlesnake (Scott) ready to strike. They were running so fast, that James decided to tell his sisters to jump with him over the snake, and by some miracle they weren't bitten. (I narrated the story.)

That same day before dinner, we all went out on the lake in paddleboats and canoes, but Scott and I forgot our camera, so we have no pictures of it. But we had a lot of fun with all five of us on one boat!

The next morning, we went to the challenge course. These courses have challenges that build teamwork, self-confidence, and teach gospel principles.

The first was the zipline:

These are all pictures of Tyler first climbing up the pole, then walking across the rope, then getting across to the other pole where a sister missionary was waiting for him. This was about 20 feet up in the air. He was so brave! After this part (we didn't get any pictures) he was supposed to ride the zipline down to the ground. That part was a little traumatic for him, he really didn't want to go, and started crying and holding on to this lady for all he was worth. She saw me down on the ground and said, "Are you his mother? What do you want me to do?" You have to understand, there was no other way down than to ride the zipline at this point, and we couldn't go with him because it would only hold one person at a time. But when she asked me what she should do, I knew inside that the only answer was to push him off of the platform, but I just couldn't say that outloud. I was just so scared for him, and I couldn't have him hear me say, just push him. So I turned to Scott, and he yelled up, "Just push him out!!" And that's why we all have Dad's who are brave enough to do what has to be done no matter what. So the sister tried, but Tyler's grip must've been pretty good, because she couldn't get him off the platform. She tried and tried, and all the time Tyler was just crying and crying for Scott and I to come up and get him. Finally, Uncle Chris, (our brother-in-law) crossed the rope to be with Tyler (I think this was technically against the rules, because it took a while for them to let Chris do this) and he helped her push Tyler off of the platform. I am so so so grateful he was up there with them!!! About halfway down, Tyler's screaming and crying turned to screams of excitement and joy and relief. He was grinning by the time he got to the ground. The first thing he said to me was, "I wanna do that again, mom!" What a boy!!!

Here are some pictures of Scott doing the zipline. These pictures start form the platform after crossing the rope, where the sister missionary helped him get hooked up to the zipline and then he rode down it, and used a ladder to get off at the end:

After the zipline, we more challenges, but I only got pictures of two more. This one was the spider's web. We had to get everyone through the spider's web, without touching it, and each of us had to use a different hole in the web. Here we are after we crossed it:

The next challenge was to get all of us on this teeter-totter log and make it balance. We had to all get on from the same side and not change the order once we got on. Here we all are on the balanced log!

That was such a fun time with everyone. I got to know a lot of Scott's cousins a lot better. And it's always good to spend time with family. We miss our families a lot, since we moved to Idaho, and we love any and all time we spend with them.