Good News and Even Greater News!

Well, to start off, the good news is that I got a promotion at work! Yea! I am now Senior Staff Accountant at SNB and received a 20% raise! I really thought that was impossible since our bank currently has a salary freeze on each employee, due to the economy. But, it is really good for our family, especially while James is going to school (starting in mid-August!). So, if James realizes he can't work full-time with school, then we will still have enough money to make ends meet. So, I received that news on Friday, July 31...

And, the even greater news is that James and I had our one-year anniversary, Sat. Aug. 1! We had a lot of fun! Saturday morning, we decided to go to the temple for a little bit. We wanted to remember the covenants we made with each other when we were sealed for time and all eternity. It was a really great experience. Then, we went to Best Buy and bought a new digital camera for each other as an anniversary present. We ended up going to the mall to get my wedding rings soldered together. We also adjusted James' glasses. With his motorcycle helmet, it's a bit harder to keep them aligned.

These two pics show the fake ring we bought at Wal-mart while we're waiting for my rings to finish. It's actually a pretty close resemblance of my actual engagement ring! Imagine that! We could've saved tons by getting a $10 ring from Wal-mart! but, I like the way my real ring sparkles a little bit more....

We spent the rest of the day by going out to dinner at Chili's (I know, I know, but it really sounded good at the time, AND I couldn't resist the 2 for $20 deal!); going to a movie at the Warren, and staying the night at Bricktown in the Renaissance Hotel (thanks to mom and dad Scifres! :-)

This pic below shows the remains of one of the best desserts at Chili's! It's the White Chocolate Molten Cake. It just might be even better than the regular Chocolate Molten Cake. It was so yummy, with a strawberry glaze on the bottom, white cake, with vanilla ice cream, all smothered in warm white chocolate sauce. My mouth is watering right now.....

We saw The Proposal at the Warren. It was absolutely wonderful! Sandra Bullock still looks gorgeous! I am quite jealous of her!

This is us, walking the streets of Bricktown...it was nice...

This is the hotel, the bed was so nice! We loved everything about our room!

....and on that note...I think it's time for bed! Yawn! I'm so tired!!!

Michigan Trip

Alright, we figured it was about time for another post. This past weekend, my family, James, and I all went to Michigan for Memorial weekend. It was a lot of fun. The first night we stayed at my Grandpa's in Holt, which is close to Lansing. Then, the last two nights, we stayed at a house in Glen Arbor located in the Homestead Resort & Spa. It was a lot of fun! We missed Jared, Karri , and Logan, but we know there were good reasons for why they all couldn't make it. Here are a few pics from the trip:This is a cute pic of Emmi. She has the cutest smile!

This is Nate (and me in the background) at Grandpa's house! We're in the driveway, I think we're on our way to Glen Arbor.

This is the dining room. Matthew's walking and I'm in the background. The back door out of the kitchen led to the patio with a grill and an awesome view!

This is a video of Emmi wanting food (or water..can't remember). Christine taught her sign language at a very young age and she kind of made up her own sign language in the process. James thought it was cute that she claps her hands whenever she wants something. (whether its food or a drink)...pretty cute!

James and I are in the room we stayed in at the house. It was so relaxing! Since Nichole, Nathan, James, and I beat Josh and Dina and Christine, we got to pick what rooms we wanted to sleep in. It was really awesome!

This was too funny not to post. This is Josh sucking on his thumb while he's sleeping. Isn't this a cute pic?

This is a cute pic of Stirling skipping rocks (And, yes, it does looks likes he's dancing) Christine, are you sure he doesn't take ballet lessons?

This is a video of the boys skipping rocks:

Oops! This is a video of Matthew falling down! It's still cute though! He's so cute! (sorry, I know I'm using that word a lot in this blog)

This is a short video showing our sand dune trek. It was definitely a workout. It was all fun and games on the way down. But, the way up was a different story. It was awful! Nichole went down with me. But, she managed to do pretty well, even though she's preggers. Josh, James, Christine were the first to go down and actually touch edthe bottom and reached Lake Michigan. Nichole and I eventually decided to go down cause it looked like a lot of fun. We got about 3/4 of the way down and Christine and James told us to head back. It was not worth it! So, we took their advice (and all the other tortured-looking people slowly crawling back up the dune) and started to head back up.

Well, that's it for now. I'm getting kind of tired and I have work tomorrow! I haven't worked in five days! Crazy! Oh well, it was a nice break. I'll write some more later and probably post some more pics.

We're Back!

Hi Everyone. It feels really good to be back on this blog thing again. I told Shawnee that I would email her some pictures, but I figure I could get on here just as easy. It's been a fun start to the year so far. We've had lots of good times. Tomorrow is our 8th month wedding anniversary. That would have been more significant if we would have been married the Friday after we got married (8/8/2008), but I try to celebrate each month that were together. I'll start from the present and work my way backwards this time.

Last night (03/30/2009) we had some pretty major storms pass through Stillwater. Shawnee and I love storms. I mean when most people are seeking shelter we are usually outside watching the hail pound the cement or driving to our church (it sits up on a hill), because of the view. Here's what the clouds looked like last night. It was really pretty awesome. The clouds blew in so fast and before you knew it they were gone. But it is one of the great things about living in Oklahoma. I'm sure my Mom is way jealous.

It seems we've been really busy in March, but we've had a lot of fun. Last weekend Shawnee and I went down to Oklahoma City. Shawnee went to go hangout with one of her best friends, Karin. I stayed and helped Gary hang some drywall in Brayden's future room. I actually had a lot of fun, even though it was hard work. If you put Gary and Nathan in a room together you are sure for some good laughs. The weekend before that we all drove down to Dallas to barbecue at Karri and Jared's apartment. We had lots of fun. We went to the Farmer's Market which is like 2 blocks from their place. Needless to say we loaded up on lots of fruits. Shawnee and I got some awesome pineapple, tangelos, and the best looking and tasting strawberries ever. After the market we all went on a hike. I know you're thinking, "Where in Dallas can someone hike"? Well, we had to drive about 20 minutes away, but we found a place. It was really cool. We also found out that the stroller wasn't exactly "4-wheel" drive.
I usually don't do movie recommendations but we saw "Slumdog Millionaire" earlier in March and it was one of the best movies I've ever seen. Go out and rent it or buy it. Either way it is a really moving and happy movie. Two thumbs way up!

Shawnee spent the first part of March in Tennessee with her mom and her sisters. She had such a great time. It's actually all she talked about for awhile. I know she really misses having her sisters live close to Oklahoma. Shawnee and Cheri drove out to Tennessee early on a Friday morning and got back on a Saturday. They really didn't do much as in sight seeing, but they sat around and talked alot. I think they probably enjoyed that more than they would have wondering Memphis. They did get to eat some really good Barbeque at this place called Neely's. It's one of my favorite places to eat at in Memphis. Shawnee got some really cute pictures with Emmi.

I'm tired and off to bed, I'll finish the rest of this tomorrow.

Okay so I promised more and here it is. I'm going to go ahead and post some more pictures of Shawnee and Tennessee!

No, we have not died and gone off the face of this earth...

Ok, so maybe it's been awhile since we've posted anything. When most people say that, they usually haven't posted anything in a few weeks. So, it's been a few months (more like 6 months) for us.I've just been really postponing this blogging thing. I just see everyone else's cute blogs, and I get discouraged. I don't have the patience for this whole blogging thing (to make it look cute anyways.) But today, I decided to take some time and put some pictures up of what we've been up to for the last 6 months. Isn't everyone proud of me?!! yea!

ok, back to business:

Well, after the honeymoon, reality kicked in, and we were back to work. (ehh..not the funnest). James has a great job with great co-workers. The owners of his business really like James and do a lot for us. (They got us a really nice grill with all the utensils for our wedding AND the owner's wife just gave him a $100 bill for whatever else we wanted) The job is perfect for while he's still in school and everything.

My job is a good job too. I'm not really a people person, so it's a little different for me. That's ok, since I am an accountant and work in the accounting department at the bank. But, I work with a bunch of women. Need I say more? ...drama, drama, drama. They just like to gossip and it gets old after awhile. I generally like most of the people I work with. My supervisor is the best! She really likes me and we have alot of the same interests and values. My actual job just doesn't require alot of people's skills, so it's gets a little redundant and boring after while. There are two girls that I work with that I could definitely live without. They're the gossipers. I can think of great nicknames for them that also share a common name for a female dog. Imagine that?! But, anyways, altogether, my job is a great, stable job. It's perfect so I can help support James while he is in school. Ok, enough of the boring stuff...I'll show some fun things that James and I have done within the last few months.

Alright, so, in October we went to a concert that we'd been dying to go see for awhile. They're a band from Dallas, Texas called the The Rocket Summer. James and I have very different tastes in music. But we do agree on one band-The Rocket Summer. So, we decided it would be fun to go see one of their concerts. They were touring and the last day of their tour was Oct 18, the day we were going to see them in Dallas. It was pretty awesome! The main guy Bryce Avery, is really awesome and really, really talented. He can play any musical instrument and has a great singing voice. Karri and Jared, and a couple of their friends also decided to join us for the concert.

James and I actually had really good "seats" at first. (It was actually a no-seating concert, which we thought was cool, at first) We got there like 3 or 4 hours early and decided to wait in line. We didn't know how packed this concert would be since it was Bryce's hometown. We'd been waiting in line for a couple of hours, and noticed that it was kind of a small line for one his concerts that was supposed to start in an hour or so. Just as they were starting to take tickets and let people come in, we noticed that everyone had receipts with them AND their tickets. We finally asked why everyone had receipts. And apparently, this was a special VIP line, and only if you bought a certain amount of merchandise from the House of Blues (the place where the concert was at), then you could have first dibs in the VIP line and get to stand right behind the barricade for the entire concert. We thought getting there 4 hours early, would have been good enough. So, we didn't really want to waste the time we HAD been in line, so James went and got some souvenirs from the shop, just in time for them to take our tickets and receipts. But, to top it all off, the stupid guys didn't even check the receipts! So, we ended up buying a bunch of crap ($50 worth) we didn't need and for no reason! Well, the concert started and we had AMAZING standing spots. We were right up close and saw everything. But, I guess this kind of music was also popular for a bunch of 14 yr old girls and that's when it got crazy. The opening bands were pretty cool, but they got all the girls too excited and James and I literally could not move one bit. We couldn't even scratch the top of our heads. I could literally lift my feet off the ground and still see everything, cause the crowd was that close to everyone. We didn't have any water with us, so it started to get really hot. I almost passed out, but the security guard/ bouncer helped me out and pulled me out of the crowd. We ended up watching the rest of the concert in the balcony with Karri and Jared. It was still pretty fun. Nice to get away from the crazy girls. Let me just say one thing, downtown Dallas is awesome! Which is why we decided a New Year's gathering would be fun there...

A week or two after the concert, my dad decided to have his fall cookout in southeastern Oklahoma. That was alot of fun too. Even though we had to ditch out on a really wonderful, awesome Halloween party in McAlester (the one that I was absolutely looking forward to cause Halloween's my fav holiday), we did have alot of fun in Broken Bow, Oklahoma ( i know, it's a funny name). This camping experience was not like our usual camp-outs with dad. But, of course, we DID have some new additions to the family who were a little too young to actually go camping (tents, sleeping bags, campfire and all). Bradon and Matthew wouldn't have lasted with my dad's idea of camping. The camp-out ( I don't think I should even call it that) was so much fun though. It was a nice log cabin with three bedrooms, nice leather furniture, big screen TV, two bathrooms, king sized beds, a jacuzzi/hot tub outside, a ready-to-go campfire, nice patio...and tons more! That night, we roasted hot dogs, s'mores, and ate every other kind of junk food there possibly is. Everyone got in the hot tub because it was so freezing outside. It was so much fun! The next day, we hiked around a little bit and saw some of the scenery.
I'm not sure what we were do here exactly, but they had some shops around the area and a nice little lake that we went and visited. This is at one of the shops. We also did a little four-wheeling there. My family are fans of 4wheelers. My dad has a couple of them. We like to ride them whenever we get a chance. My dad only brought one 4wheeler though, since we only had his truck. And he doesn't have a trailer for them. So, it was a little awkward at first. As there was only one 4wheeler and 9 of us. But, we still had fun. We each took turns. It was a blast!

Here's a cool one of Luigi before he left on his mission. Aww, I miss him already! He is a pretty scary 4 wheeler driver though.

Here are some other cute pics of Brayden and Matthew on that trip:

Ok, I know this pic on the top left is not one of Matthew or Brayden, but it was part of the trip, and I had to stick it in here. I think I'm doing one of my famous poses.

The next couple of pics are kind of random, but here goes:

This one is James trying on my lifeguard shirt. He thought he looked like a body builder, so he decided to get out his weights and pose for the camera. Isn't he so cute? And, yes, I did have permission to post this pic. He even e-mailed it to me so I could save it on my laptop and upload it on our blog. I think he's pretty proud of it. Also, this pic shows proof to people that he actually works out. He's definitely a cutie!

This pic, on the left, is a little more dirty. We'd actually been having a bug problem (when I say bugs, I actually do mean roaches, not fun) So, in the process for the bug man to come spray our house, we had to move everything out of the kitchen cabinets and bathroom cabinets. We had to move the refrigerator and oven out, so they could spray behind there. And we found a little surprise when we moved the oven out. It looks like it had not been cleaned for AT LEAST a couple of years. There were beer bottle caps, cigarette butts, refrigerator magnets, etc. The people that lived there before us, were Nathan and Nichole and we know they didn't drink beer or smoke. So, yes, there were all kinds of goodies and treats behind the oven. It was pretty disgusting and this pic shows what we cleaned up that night. Needless to say, we actually have not seen a roach in a few weeks. But, we will be moving out when our lease is up. They're not the greatest apartments or the greatest apt managers. They obviously don't clean the apartments when new people move in. We're thinking about moving into The Links, which is an apartment complex that has a free workout room/gym, free tanning, full washer and dryer in each apartment, huge pool and hot tub, and other nice commodities. But, we'll see...

The next few pics are around Christmas time and I'll try to tell about each one (I'm getting kind of tired now):

This is James meeting one of his heroes, Glenn Beck. James found out that Glenn Beck, a conservative radio/TV personality and recent convert to the Church, was coming to Oklahoma City for a book signing. He thought a great Christmas gift for his dad (and himself) would be an autographed book written and signed by Glenn Beck. And the chance to meet him was a dream come true. So, on a Friday, while I was at work, he took off a couple hours from work and went with Kara, his sister, and another friend, Burck to go and get books signed by Glenn Beck. Burck is a huge fan too. So they were pretty nervous on the ride down. He had no idea what he wanted to say to him. So, Burck and James conversed back and forth practicing on what they would say to Glenn. On the way down, they listened to his radio show on some AM station. Glenn was calling people and pretending to be someone else, named Clem, he would ask politcal questions just to see people's views on certain subjects. So, they were all laughing listening as Glenn (otherwise known as Clem) prank called a few people, just to get a reaction out of them. When they got to the store for the book-signing, Burck grabbed a magazine with President Obama on it, and thought he should have Glenn sign it. They thought that would be pretty funny, but decided not to do that. So, they were getting closer to Glenn, and finally it was Burck's turn to have Glenn sign his book. Burck said, "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Beck." Glenn replied, "you know, you can just call me Glenn." James heard this conversation and instantly said, "Are you sure it's not Clem?" with a smile on his face. Glenn was a little shocked at first, then he realized that Burck and James had listened to his radio show that morning. He started cracking up, laughing. The pic actually shows Glenn Beck laughing at the response James gave. They were about to walk away, when Glenn called after them and said, "You two...come here!" They turned around and Glenn gave them each a signed copy of the constitution and said, "Have a good Christmas!" The rest of the line was shocked and a little jealous that they didn't get anything extra. It was definitely a memorable experience.

This is Christmas day, at the Scifres home in McAlester. I'm wearing my new PJs and opening up something from Bath & Body Works, I think. Good times...(sorry I'm really tired now, but determined)

With some Christmas money, we decided to go ice skating in OKC at the outside rink. Tons of fun! And, yes, I have had the beanie for about 5 or 6 years now. Christine and I got matching ones at Old Navy in the baby section. They were baby hats, but we stretched them out. Remember, Christine?

Me, ice skating away!

This is the last time I saw Logan since he left on his mission. I think I'm crying in this picture. (I actually DO have emotions) We were at the church, right after he got set apart. It was a bittersweet moment. He went into the MTC on New Year's Eve. We miss you, Logan!!

Alright, I think I'm done for the day. I hope I caught everyone up on what we've been up to lately. I think I should probably go take a shower now. Havent done that yet for today. It's been such a lazy day. James and I love those days. Oh yeah, before I leave, James and I are Primary teachers in the Church. We teach the 7 & 8 yr olds. They're a fun class and keep us on our feet. We actually have to teach Sharing Time tomorrow AND teach a lesson for class. So, we better go do that now. Later!

Jensen Swam Ahead...

...well not technically, but if you know what the title of this blog means you get like 1000 blog points. So here I am, 26 and extremely happy! I'm married to the girl of my dreams and figured it was about time I put up some pictures of our honeymoon. After much deliberation we decided that we both wanted to go to Florida. We chose Clearwater, mostly because it didn't sound to touristy and Southwest flies to Tampa, it sounded like the perfect place to stay. Our flight was great. We really didn't even have any major hiccups, (thanks to a great tip from Nola). Tropical Storm Enrique forced us to go to Chicago instead of Houston, but we made the best of it. We tried some "Chicago Style" Airport pizza and I even saw Topher Grace. So we ended up arriving a little later than we had planned, but at least we weren't stuck at an airport. Shawnee and I went to pick up our car (a hyundai accent), but we both decided to pay the "extra" money for a Sebring convertable...it was so worth it. I'm not gonna lie, because when we pulled up the hotel looked a little "ghetto", they had mandatory valet car service, which was pretty gay...so we tried our best to work around the rules. Because I'm cheap and didn't want to tip a guy for parking our car. I mean "I would tip my urologist, because I can't pulverize my own kidney stones, but I'm quite adept to parking cars." We lucked out on our room, because the hotel only had three rooms in the entire building with sunset views and we got one. The room was really nice. We had a huge fridge, dishes, a dishwasher, a great view, and two beds. One bed for sleeping and the other one for eating and well you know...

So on our first day we went to the beach. We started out at Clearwater Beach, but we ended up not liking it as much, because it was a little crowded. So we took the advice of one of the locals and drove about 45 minutes north to Honeymoon Island. Yes, Honeymoon Island, but however it wasn't the final destination. The drive there was so amazing. We had the top down and the views along the coast were really nice. There's something really nice about being in a convertable, the wind blowing in your hair and then you have everyone staring at you, it's quite cool. This island was so much better than the crowded Clearwater Beach. We were both starving, so we found the only cafe on Honeymoon Island which was cleverly named Cafe Honeymoon. It was run by this Mexican family, everything looked really good, but Shawnee of course got a chicken sandwich and me being the adventurous one tried a dish known only as The Sea Monster. It was basically a piece of fish rolled up to look like a hot dog, deep fried, and put in a hotdog bun. Quite possibly the best seafood hotdog I've ever had. From the cafe we took a ferry to Caladesi Island which was our final destination. The ferry was not cheap, but that kept most of the tourest away from the island. I mean you could count how many people were actually there with us. The picture above is actually from the island. We spent lots of time in the water, but we also looked for shells and laid out on the beach. We saw a snake, a really weird looking spider, a gopher turtle, an osprey, and a dolphin. It was really cool. We finished the day by going to Target and buying some dinner so we could cook it in our hotel room. We watched the sunset from our hotel room. It was absolutey beautiful. It was a great way to end a very fun day at the beach. We started the next day early, because we wanted to go to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and see the zoo/theme park. We were both very excited. So we decided to eat our muffins and leave by 8:00 in the morning. I was eating outside on the balcony when I dropped a muffin crumb and a seagull decided to clean up the mess. I was pretty taken back that it landed like literally 6 inches from my foot so I dropped another crumb. So another bird flew to get that one. Well I got scared, (I've seen birds...I know what they are capable of), so I ran inside and shut the door. Shawnee thought it was hillarious and wanted me to go outside and take a video of it, so of course I went back out on the balcony and paraded around with the seagulls for a bit.

After driving around Tampa for a little bit we finally made it to Busch Gardens. There is really not much to say about the theme park. We rode some really awesome rides and saw a lot of wild animals. We recommend this park to anyone. We left the theme park early, because we got really hungry. So we stopped at Olive Garden and had dinner. We left for the hotel and got to bed pretty early because our flight left at 6:00 in the morning. We got home okay and now we are just living the married couple life.

The Wedding!

Alright, so it's been awhile since we've updated anything. In the words of my cousin Jamie, though, we decided to "come up for air." (Sorry, Jamie, I really like that expression though). Anyways, So alot has happened since the last time I posted anything. We've been so busy with wedding plans, the actual wedding, the honeymoon, my new job, moving both of us out of our apartments and into a new apartment. So, its been crazy. But, we had a beautiful wedding and two great receptions. The actual wedding day started early in the morning with a wedding breakfast/brunch, prepared my Nola Dill. It was delicious and everyone loved it and had a good time. It was good for introducing immediate family and close friends before the wedding and receptions. Then, we headed over to the temple to take pictures. It was great weather, other than the fact it was 110 degrees outside. But, we all suffered through it and the pics turned out great. (I'm praying you can't see the sweat beads on my face...) Then, the wedding was at 2:00pm in the OKC temple and it was absolutely beautiful. We had our Stillwater reception that night at 6:30pm. Lots of wings, cheese, my mom's delicious sugar cookies, and cake. My mom and Nola did a great job on the food and decorations. My mom had pink and white tulips in white baskets as the center pieces. It was really pretty and we all had fun. The next day, we had the McAlester reception. Carol, Kathy, and Kara Scifres did a fantastic job on everything! They really put themselves out there. The cake was gorgeous and the grooms cake was a fantastic guitar cake. Alot more smiles, pics, and talking and the night was soon over. Altogether, we had a wonderful time! We went to Clearwater, Florida (tampa bay area) for our honeymoon. Our hotel resort was directly on the beach. It was beautiful (sorry i know im saying that alot, but its true) Then we went to Busch Gardens, an amusement park in Florida. It's a zoo and amusement park put together. It was great for us since we both love the zoo and roller coasters. It was so much fun...anyways, we're supposed to go eat dinner with my mom for Sunday dinner. And James made his famous southern fried ocra...so later!

The Job!

Well, I guess the praying paid off! I was offered the job at Stillwater National Bank as a staff accountant! Yea! I'll get benefits and everything! The pay is a little better and the job is definitely more stable. I told them I would start July 7th. Now, I just got to go tell my current boss...ehh..the fun part. But hopefully, he'll be more understanding. Well, here goes! I just thought I'd post it up here, since I'm so excited! laters!