cRoSs cOuNtRy 2009......

{{TaYLoR}}

{{LaNeY}}

It is looking like fall is over and winter is on it's way!!!!!!

The girls had their 1st basketball scrimmage today.

Our schools football and volleyball seasons are over.

Halloween and trick~or~treating is in the past.

And as of Saturday the Cross Country season for 2009 is OVER.

I have not done a good job of keeping up with what the kids had going on lately so I will cram alot into this post......sorry!!!!!

Delaney and Taylor both ran cross country again this year....they both had a great season and we are sooooooo proud of both of them.

Kale played Jr. Hi football this year and this was his first year of contact football and he LOVED it.....I am not a huge football fan but REALLY enjoyed watching him play....he really had a great season too. I will post about that later.

I would like to focus this post on the girls' cross country season.

Taylor ran here last high school meet at regionals last week....she came up a little short to make it to state.....but ran a good race on a very tough course!!!! The team fell short too by placing 4th and they take the top 3 teams to state and we missed 3rd by 7 points.....grrrrrrr!!!

Anyway Taylor has had quite a career....she has ran cross country for 3 years and she went to state her first 2 years, has alot of medals to show for her hard work, has been ranked in the state many times, and has made some AWESOME friendships along the way!!!!!! Taylor I can not tell you how proud we are of your accomplishments so far in your life!!!!!! Not only has this experience alone made you a better athlete....it has made you a great person....lessons you will use the rest of you life. She is planning on trying to run when she heads off to college next fall....so we hope this was not our last time to watch her run cross country....one of our favorite sports to watch!!!!

Delaney too has had an outstanding year. This is her 2nd year of cross country. This has been her year to shine!!!!! She has gotten MANY gold medals, ranked in the state, many good friends, placed 1st in the conference and got 4th at regionals....and yes that qualified her for state!!!!! They take the top 10 individuals...so off to Ft.Dodge we went this past Saturday.....yes Halloween day...and brrrrrr it was quite chilly!!!!! But she was ready to run......she gave it everything she had and placed 29th out of 123 girls. Not as good of a finish as she would have hoped for but as a parent what more can you ask for!!!!!! We are very proud!!!!!

She has 2 more years to run so we are looking forward to that too!!!!

dELaNeY @ sTAtE.....

{This picture is Delaney in front of the girls who got 1st place!!!!!!}

OK......first things first I have to apologize to Delaney and all of you for taking FOREVER to get this posted!!!!!!!

Delaney ran at state on Saturday, May 23rd in the mile.

She ran a 5:16.48

Not her best time of the year but she ran a very good race and gave 100%.

She even was in first for a lap and a half!!!!!! {woo~hoo Laney}

So congrats to Laney for an AWESOME year and a great day at state track!!!!!

OH.......you may also want to know that she got 14th out of 24 girls!!!!!!

Delaney we are soooooooooo proud of you!!!!!!

 

bAsKeTBaLL.....

I have just been cRaZeE......I have wanted to post about this but in no way did I want to jinx our team.....I know weird right!??!!?!!

Our girls basketball team ended regular season play with an 8-13 record.  Not a great outlook going into tournament play for them!!!!  Their record did not really give them any credit.....in my opinion anyway!!!! I thought they played really hard this year!!!!! And most of the games that they lost they only got beat by just a few points!!! So having said that I just want to say AWESOME job this year ladies!!!!! 

 We started tournament play on February 12th. I am going to assume that we were not expected to win(this team beat us both times in regular season play)......but we did....in OT by 1 point!!!!! Oh my gosh.....it was a great game but my goodness I was a wreck by the time it was over!!!!! So that meant we got to move on to the next round.

  We got to play again on February 17th....once again they played awesome. My opinion was that Taylor probably played THE best game I have watched her play....don't get me wrong they all played well and Laney had some really good plays too but this was Taylor's nite to shine(my opinion only).....but once again we went into OT.....the outcome.....in our favor AGAIN!!!! Oh my goodness these OT's are going to wear me out!!!! (oh and probably the girls too!!haha!!!) So everybody was so excited for them...ya know when you have a crappy year and everybody just gets kind of down and you don't get a big crowd to come watch and nobody is expecting you to do very well.....and then you do....that is AWESOME!!!! We are going to show them!!!!!

  Next game Friday, February 20th....this is the team we want to play, we have a good chance to win even though they have beat us twice in regular season play....I know we can win!!!!

We get there that nite and I am just so excited and nervous for them!!!! Poor Laney...."the freshman" has to start.....she is a wreck!!!! The regular starter had to have surgery on her hand.

My advice to her was to just go out there and do what you know how to do...play basketball, give it your all, and most of all HAVE FUN!!!!!! And she did.....the first half she was one of the leading scorers and she hustled her little....(and I do mean little) behind off.....they were winning and everything was great our team looked like a million bucks....better than they had played all year!!!!!(once again my opinion only!!) HALFTIME!!!! They came out in the 3rd quarter and I think only scored 1 point.....needless to say the other team scored more than one!!!!

 So we knew the 4th quarter was going to be crazy!!!!!! I thought oh no not another OT.....but if that is our "good luck charm" then let's do it ladies!!!! Our 4th quarter was better but not great so the out come of this game........was NOT in our favor this time!!!!! But we are so proud of our team and sooooooo proud of Taylor and Laney for working so hard this year. It was so fun to be able to watch both of them play together as a team this year!!!!!! So let's hope this year was just a warm up for what next year is going to bring!!!!!!

I do want to say I am sorry for not having pictures to post but it is so hard trying to watch those kinds of games and try to hold a camera still for a fast moving shot!!!!!

  

iDoL....

Are you the next American Idol??????? Are you an Idol fan??????? Oh my gosh.....we are!!!!!!

The girls had a little Idol get together today after school....I forgot to take a picture but they

watched 2 hours of Idol and ate monkey bread......you can't get much better than that!!!!!

Tonite it is on for 2 more hours!!!! I have to be gone.....but we will tivo it...or whatever we have that tapes it!!!!!!

HaPpY nEw YeAr!!!!!!!!

Just want to take a minute to tell you all Happy New Year!!!!!!!

2008 has had some ups and downs for all of us but lets all hope that 2009 will be everything that we all want it to be!!!!!! I think I will just post a few pictures of things that went on in our life in 2008....just random pictures no order and I will try to make a little comment on them.

I just want to tell you all how thankful we are to have you in our lives and thanks for everything you all do!!! So Happy New Year to you and yours!!!!!! From The Jensens

First things first.......Troy's huge purchase

our new favorite thing to do....we can't wait

until this summer!!!!!

Congrats to The Sweeney's

1 year!!!!!!!

The 40th birthday surprise....thanks to you all.....I was surprised

if you couldn't tell!!!!!!!!

Back to school 2008!!!!

Taylor at state for cross country...as you see it looks like Troy is telling me to hurry the

H~E~double hockey sticks up!!!!!!!

Ice Storm 2008.
Cool picture taken by Troy.

Labor Day Weekend

Happy Birthday Jayden!!!!!!

Laney's first year of cross country.....she did AWESOME!!!!!!
This is Troy's favorite picture he took this year!!!!!

Taylor was on the conference champs track team.
It says 2007 on the picture...it really was 2008 we put the wrong date on the picture

DUH!!!!!!

Grandma Dixie and the family.

Happy 40th birthday Troy!!!!!!

Kale's big purchase....with his own money!!!!!!!

And our sweet little addition to the family......

don't let those eyes fool ya!!!!!!

He has made us remember what it is like to have a puppy in the house again!!!!!!

GGGRRRRRR!!!!!

Happy 2009 to you all!!!!!!

LaNeY....

Monday nite was one of the very few junior varsity basketball games that Delaney has. She only gets to play 2 quarters in the JV games because she does get to play some varsity from time to time and the varsity plays this Friday and Saturday nite so I am sure she will get to play some!!! I just feel bad for her because she doesn't play alot of varsity.....only to give the older girls a little break or if somebody needs a butt chewin' she goes in for a couple of minutes and the rule is that you can only play 2 quarters in the JV game if you play ANY varsity.....so that kid of stinks!!!!!! I love it that she gets to dress varsity and play some but I hate it that she doesn't get to play more!!!! Anyway enough rambling.......they won the game!!!! Good job Laney!!!!! Then the ice came after the game last nite so we were stuck at home today......no school and the state recommended no travel in our area........so I had to stay home from work today......and I hate that.......:0) And man is it ever cold!!!!!! BBBRRRRRRR!!!!!!!I love the look on her face!!!!!!!

LiViNg HiStOrY FaRmS rAcE.....

First off sorry it has been awhile.....I am really waaaayyyy behind....on everything!!! So I think the first thing I want to talk about is the girls ran last Saturday.....yikes the 22nd....at Living History Farms in Des Moines. It was a 7 mile race......yes i will say it again......7 miles of cross country....hills, creeks, mud and anything else you may see while hiking in the woods. It was just an absolutely crazy day.....we left home around 6 am got there by 7 am and there were a ton of people there already.....and it was quite chilly that morning. We(I better say Troy got them checked in....I stayed in the car!!!) got the girls checked in and then had alot of time to wait. Kale went along and needless to say....he is not a good "waiter"....so he was in and out of the car.....let's just say MANY times!!!!!

So about the race....it was the 30th annual Living History Farms cross country race, 7,500 plus runners, the largest cross country race in North America, people from 40 states and 4 countries ran in the race. And in order to get your picture on the news or in the paper I assume that is why anyway.....people dress up in a variety of costumes!!!!! "the runaway brides" all had wedding dresses on, there was a 54 year old man wearing ONLY a loincloth......(yuck that just gave me the heebie-jeebies!!!!), all of the wizard of oz characters, Santa and the Reindeer, and how could I forget Elvis, many with no shirts and at the finish line I saw 2 guys run across with only a thong on........and it was not on their feet!!!!!! But if you can think of it....it was probably there that day.

Anyway Taylor ran it in 1:02.05 and Delaney ran it in 1:17.12. Very good if I don't say so myself!!!!! If you want to see pictures and any other info on the race just go here and go about halfway down the page and click on living history farm race and I think you can look at the info and the Des Moines Register has pictures on there and I think video from the TV station. We took some pictures but they did not turn out as good as the ones in the paper. But here are a few that we took.

This is the start of the race.....it took a little over 5 minutes for all of the runners to get past us so that we could got stand in a different spot......now that is alot of people!!!!

fT. dOdGe.....hErE wE cOmE!!!!!!!!

Last nite was our regional cross country......well not ours.....the girls!!!!! For regionals you have to finish in the top 10 or as a team you have to be in the top 3 to go to state!!!!! And because we had both Taylor and Delaney running I was hoping there was a way.....either way that they both got to go.....I just did not want to see the disappointment on their face if one made it and the other one did not!!! It had rained all day and it was very chilly....and all the way up my stomach was in knots worrying about them doing good or not because of the crappy weather!!!!

When we got there they both were in good moods and smiley.......good sign I thought to myself!!!They both had an awesome start......and away they went. Cross country is one of those sports that if you are not in really good shape yourself.......it is quite a work out!!!! They are usually at golf courses.......for the most part quite hiLLy.......and tonite was no exception......plus mud......ALOT of mud!!!!!! So where I was standing I did not see alot of the race. But at the end Taylor came in 3rd with a time of 16:23 and Laney came in 17th with a time of 17:27.........oh poop I thought that does not put Laney in the top 10........so it was like a nitemare in my head.....how horrible she was going to feel.....but how happy Taylor was going to feel......so as parents......what do we do??????? YIKES!!!!!! I can not talk to them right away if they are upset and look like they might cry.......because you guessed it.......I will cry too!!!!!! So back to the meet.......we still have a chance if the team finishes in the top 3.....................HOLY COW.......they got 4th place.........so Taylor will be the only one running at state from her team.....I am soooooo happy for her but I know she would have much rather everybody one her team to get the chance to run. So I just want to say to them both AWESOME!!!!!! job......we are SOOOO PROUD of both of you!!!!!! And GOOD LUCK at STATE TAYLOR!!!

WE LOVE YOU BOTH!!!!!

cRoSs CoUnTrY...

Tonite was our last regular cross country meet.....our next one will be next Thursday.....that will be regionals.....if they do well enough there they will get to go on to the state meet in Fort Dodge......if not the season will be over......i am so excited for them and yet so nerveous for them too!!!!! Last nite we went to Corning.....we were suppose to go on Monday but it got rained out......wow!!!! a 2 hour drive from here.....but very worth the drive.......Taylor placed 2nd with a time of 16:34 and Laney placed 6th with a time of 17:09.......they both did GREAT. Tonite we went to Chariton......they swapped spots tonite......Laney got 2nd with a time of 16:13 and Taylor got 4th with a time of 16:26......they did AWESOME again tonite.......i can not tell you how proud we are of them.......if you could not tell!!!!! So we will keep you up to date after they run next week and hope to go on to state!!!!! Cross your fingers for us!!!!!