Summer Adventures in Pictures

I'm so blessed!  We've gotten to do a lot over the summer- rock climbing, camping, hikes, food and games with friends, boating, and road trips- but probably my favorite part of the summer is getting to go home and see our families.  Last weekend, we took a trip to Rock Springs to visit the new busy mothers on Mike's side of the family, and this past weekend, we got to go to Kaysville for "the Jenson Family Reunion."  It's been so great to see everyone!  I'll have those photos soon (sorry to mislead you)...but in the meanwhile, enjoy some other pics from our summer!

We were just enjoying a walk down Center Street one day when we discovered a tree.

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We have gotten to be great friends with some people in our ward (the McQuays, Killins, Leavitts, Valentines, Scotts, etc.) and so we took a hiking trip to Mt. Timpanogos Cave.  It's actually really gorgeous and cool (temperature) even in the summer time and was a really fun experience!  There's a part of the cave tour where they turn off the lights and it gets pitch black.  When this part came, a man's little girl came up to Mike and, mistaking him for her daddy, grabbed his arm and used his hand to cover her eyes!  It was so cute, even though she got scared when they turned on the lights and she realized who he wasn't. 

From left to right: Heather Scott, Ashley & Mike Sanderson, Mike & Sarah Killin, and Kristen & Mark Valentine

 

 

This is another, er, part of the cave.  Perhaps the utters?

The cave walls were generally more moist than usual because of the great amount of melted snow they've had lately.  It was kind of fun to see!  Also, because this formation was closer to the cave's natural entrance, the rock looked a lot darker

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These were fireworks from the Orem Festival "Days of Summer" (I think...Firework pictures all secretly look the same to me).  We went with the Killins and my cousin Dan's group of friends

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Camping with the Blumels up at Glendo, WY was a TON of fun!  When we got there, we broke a streak of bad weather they'd been having, only to find that we brought with us other bad luck.  When they tried tried to get the boat running, they found that the starter had gone out; but they were so generous and actually rented a "water rat" for the day so we could still wake/knee-board and tube.  It was Mike and my first camping adventure together and we had fun driving the jet ski for each other, cooking, and even braving the nighttime gale which threatened to collapse our tent in on us about every 10 minutes!  It's kind of sad to see the art of tent camping is dead--ours was the only one out on the lake!  But even though we roughed it with our accommodations, we ate such good food, including our homemade garlic chicken kabobs, chili, chicken-salad sandwiches, and hardboiled eggs!  I swear, I was soooooo proud of the meal planning I did to get ready for this trip.  

Oh!  Side note.  So I woke up one morning sicker than a dog and decided to go near the car to...empty my stomach.  Well, Mike was such a supportive husband (as always) and came with me to, watch? or help, or just support me I guess. No sooner had I begun the chore than a group of college kids drove by and started honking their horn, waving out the window and yelled "Yeah! All right! Woohoo!"  It was hilarious because they thought we were partiers out on the lake who had had too much the night before (let me assure you that this was not the case).

 

Gorgeous water and a great view we got when we hiked this ridge on the other side of the lake.  When I skiid out by myself at night, this cove was beautiful in the setting sunlight and there were deer along the bank of the river. 

Did I mention the water was glass?

the cute couple (our nickname)

 

 

 

 

 

Chelsea is so cute!

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I finally got some photos of Women's Conference from my mom.  This is the annual Jenson girls' ritual that has expanded to include college-aged women in my family as well (so far, I'm the first new member).  Each year, my grandma and her three girls drive down to Provo and stay at the Water's house (owned by a family friend) and enjoy a week of spiritual insight, family, and crafting humanitarian aid projects.  This year, the concert on the last night featured Hillary Weeks (which is also a tradition at the conference I guess) and an amazing pianist just off his mission, Donny Osmond's nephew, Vocal Point, and was MC'd by Kirby Heyborne.  

While all of the speakers and entertainment were amazing, the part I enjoyed most was getting to be with my beautiful mother, and her mom...three generations which was very special to me. 

 

 This is where I work...the Skyroom restaurant.  I took a day off to just eat with the fam.  I think the other Server, Jamie, treated us like royalty

I love this photo!

So my mom and I both made the same spelling mistake without knowing it.  I am truly her daughter

All of these women were working on service projects

My Summer in Projects

It's been such a busy summer!  Before I dive into all of the fun things Mike and I have done together, I have some photos of class assignments I've been working on in the past two semesters.  Between my History of Creativity and 2-Dimensional Design classes, I've accomplished a lot in a relatively small period of time.  I don't post this to bore you with my kindergarten hand-print paintings, but only to chronicle some of the artifacts created by my mind as a testament that I can do it. Veni vidi vici!


These are my homemade corn-husk and flour-paste hieroglyphs.  I made these for my history class when we were talking about early Mesopotamia and Egypt specifically.  They depict queen Hatshepsut and her son, who lusting after her throne claimed it and then had her name removed from all of her property after her death.  This was done not only to erase her from history, but because the Egyptians believed that she would be unable to enter the afterlife without written record of her name.

This is the first piece of art I've completed since middle school, and was an experiment in negative space.  That means that the white space is in the traditional shapes while the rest is inked in.   Here is me going over my original pencil drawing in pen

...And the "finished product"  When we turn in a large piece, our classmates get the chance to critique our work, which I honestly and openly dread every time.  It's humbling to see my work stacked against some incredibly talented people and to have them talk about my art.  This piece generated a lot of suggestions for improvement, so after a few (some thought the tree was floating before and the version I turned in originally was slightly larger)  so I cropped it just a bit and made some minor adjustments.  Someone suggested that I remove the couple in the center and leave just the tree, which I also seriously considered so my subjects wouldn't be competing for center stage (the tree and the couple, that is). 

Here's my second project.  It's a variation on a sketch I drew earlier in the class of (if you can believe it) a table.  It's done in black sharpie pen and is a series of tiny lines hard to see here in great detail.

Drawing 3:  I'm still modifying this one.  It was originally in colored pencil and was based on an assignment to create a visual piece based on semicircles.  I'm adding paint and ink to give it greater contrast and make it darker

We learned about the Greek system of proportions called the "Golden Ratio" which is based on multiplying a square configuration by 1.618.  Because this exact ratio has been observed in nature in everything from spiral shells and pine-cones to the human body and has been used by many famous artists and in buildings such as the Parthenon, we did a project based on these proportions (I've left my lines on the page for reference). This was a still life in pencil

This was also based on the Golden Ratio, and was done all in pen (the shading is done with small, thin lines) based on things I have around my home.  Mike made me those paper flowers, just to letcha know how great he is.

I'm pretty proud of this. This is a magazine I made last semester for my History of Creativity class final project.  It's based on everything Greek and was about 30 pages long.  I had to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator in order to make it, and because of all of the hours I've put in, I'm pretty much a pro now.  The title of the magazine is Arete which means virtue or "that which is good"

Here's a perfume ad I made.  You can't see it in this picture, but the perfume is called "Sophia" which in Greek means "Wisdom" and it says by Aphrodite in the corner.

The Magazine includes articles such as "20 Things You Didn't Know About the Olympics," "Getting to know Plato," "Book Reviews," "Hottest Greeks" and "Family Tree of the Gods"

Interview with Plato using some of his real quotes

Another ad and "the Perfect Man." Some of his attributes include hot muscular physique, intellect, courage, a philosophical mind, and of course, the ability to bear many sons.

I love the Spartans

I found pictures of each of the major Gods and Goddesses in Greek culture and wrote about their relationships and general mythology for this article.  Ya, this took FOREVER but I'm really happy with the finished product.  Disclaimer: if you think the world is all "immoral" now, just read some of their stories.  Zeus was a player!