TheTechFamily.comJesienouski Family News – Proud Bloggers since 2001

I just got the notice today! I’ve been accepted into the University of Utah’s Educational Psychology program. I’ll begin earning my Master’s Degree in School Counseling starting in May! I’m very excited!

We had a great birthday celebration for Scott the other night. I did not take any pictures…no surprise there. We were able to go out to dinner, thanks to IHOP’s new HCG menu. We didn’t have anything different that we would have done at home, but I didn’t have to cook it, and Scott didn’t have to clean it!!! That’s worth it if you ask me. After dinner, we went out to the movie, 2012. Scott and I both had seen it before and judged it to be all right for the girls. Boy was I wrong! I’m sure if the other audience members could have taken a vote, I would be a shoe-in for the “What-Kind-of-Mother-Brings-Her-Very-Young-Sensitive-Child-to-This-Kind-Of-Movie? Award” The entire time Shaylie was crying and asking “Are they dead?” “Did those People die?” “Not the puppy!!!” I kept offering to take her home but she didn’t want to leave Daddy on his special night. Instead, she opted to play video games under my jacket for a while, but eventually it was too much and she and I ended up sitting in the car waiting for Scott and Taylor to finish up. I learned a valuable lesson about the rating system that night. Scott had a good time regardless, opening presents…some accessories for his Drummel tool and train room stuff…his overalls and his beloved BNSF USB drive were also part of this day!

The girls are counting down the days to the next vacation. They are both doing well in school, but we all know that vacation is much more fun. Taylor is healing from her multiple injuries and is doing very well with her diet. She just finished Indoor Soccer (not her favorite) and is looking at a tournament in a couple weeks, as well as the spring season. Shaylie is having lots of fun at her Kung Fu class and is planning on competing at the Summer Games with her class. Her “Master” brought some neat uniforms that they will wear for that and for a parent exhibition. I’m so glad she is enjoying it so much!

Scott has been in full-throttle train mode these days with Shows, and Meetings, and working on his modules. Now he’s in the planning stages of hosting a big show down here. I think it will be a lot of work, but he loves it so it won’t seem like it!

As for me, I’ve been pretty low-key lately. Work is going well..I’m still enjoying it very much. The people I work with are wonderful and fun, which makes all the difference. I am ready to start down the School path again…I only need to find out if I’m in or not..then I’m ready and rearing to go! I should find out by the end of March, then classes begin in June.
The other thing that keeps me busy is Church and since our ward just split we are kind of in a hiatus. We are in a brand new ward, so all the callings are up for grabs. I’m very anxious to see where I will serve. I was already in Girls Camp Planning mode when the change was announced so now I’m just treading water, as we all are, until I can dig in again. I love serving the Lord and I just want to go where I can be of the most use.

So, nothing too crazy going on…just our normal lives. We are happy and, for the most part, staying out of trouble. If anything interesting happens and probably even if it doesn’t, we’ll be back with more updates soon.

My wonderful husband Scott is turning 39 today!  So in honor of this occasion, I am listing 39 random facts about Scott that show why he is so amazing!

1. 1- Scott is 6’2″ tall but he wishes he were taller.
2. 2-Scott is a great dad! He loves his daughters and is super supportive (Tay may say overly-supportive at times). He takes off work to go to plays, games, and other special events. He wants to know everything they are doing and he does his very best to make sure they know he loves them.
3. Scott is a family man. If there is a choice, Scott will always choose to be home with me and the girls. He loves spending time together, even if it is just sitting home watching each other play on the computer.
4. Scott is very photogenic…not to mention amazingly handsome.
5. Scott was born in St.Paul/Minneapolis, moved with his family to Fargo, ND, and then to SLC.
6. Scott is brilliant. He is super smart and can learn/do just about anything he sets his mind to. I think Taylor inherited this trait from him. I remember in college, he would be facing a challenging programming issue and wake up in the middle of the night with the answer his mega-brain had been processing in his sleep.
7. Scott makes us laugh. If you don’t know this side of him, you don’t know him well enough yet. He has a dry, sharp, sometimes cynical sense of humor, but I just get it! He cracks me up on a regular basis.
8. Scott has never had a cavity!
9. In High School, Scott was in the band, a sports manager, and school mascot. He also worked at AlphaBeta to earn money for college.
10. Scott loves trains! He has a train room full of beautiful works of art and engineering. He picked up this hobby as a boy, but has really started taking it seriously in the past 5 years. He was just recently written up in the paper for his latest Train Show exhibition. He loves to show off his latest and greatest creations. Just ask!!!
11. Scott’s favorite color is BLUE!
12. Scott is loving! One of my favorite things about Scott is that he says “I love you” to me everyday, many times a day. He never leaves the house without saying it in the morning and he never goes to bed without saying it at night. And usually he says it about a hundred times in between.
13. Scott does his own laundry and does dishes almost every day! He (almost) never complains about anything else I ask him to help with around the house either. He is very generous about helping me whenever I ask, and even if I don’t.
14. Scott loves sports and is quite an expert with rules and other nuances of the games. It drives me crazy whenever we’re watching a sporting event and Scott will make a comment about what just happened that is echoed seconds later by the commentators on TV. It justs one of his gifts.
15. Scott’s (not-so) secret dream job is to be a train engineer.
16. Scott hasn’t had a soda-pop in about 10 years. He gave it up when he found out he was diabetic, just before his 30th birthday. I don’t think he’s had one sip since. Amazing will power!
17. Scott loves biking! He biked to work and back for the majority of the past 6 years. One year he even logged over 3000 miles on his bike. He’s been hit by cars twice, I think; and he’s been just about anywhere a bike can go in St. George.
18. Scott’s favorite 80′s band is Def Leppard.
19. Scott is very supportive of me and my crazy stuff! He encourages me to write, to play, to sing–to pretty much do whatever I feel I need to be doing at the moment. He is so great to help drive kids, or stay home while I’m out at Girls Nights or classes or meetings or whatever! He always says when I’m happy, he’s happy. How great is that?
20. Scott has about 5 email addresses.
21. Scott loves his dogs. He never had a pet as a child and he is head over heels in love with our dog Blackberry, and to a lesser extent, with Cricket. He could play fetch with Bubba for hours. They adore him too!
22. Scott is an early bird. He wakes up every day about 5:30 and is always the first one to work in the morning around 6:30 or 7:00 am.
23. Scott is kind of a geek.
24. Scott’s favorite movie is Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back.
25. Scott was once in a TV commercial dressed as Darth Vader.
26. Scott is a closet Twilight fan. He’s just finished reading the book while walking on the treadmill in the morning.
27. Scott is pretty handy. He’s been channeling his inner Tim Taylor in the past few years. He built a wall in the garage, installed a ceiling fan, and repaired our washing machine, and has been mastering the few tools he’s acquired, while constantly wishing he had more.
28. Scott has a great singing voice.
29. Scott is a wonderful friend. He has become friends with several “older gentlemen” in his train club and I love that he thinks nothing of the so-called “generation gap.”
30. Scott loves kids. He really is a natural teacher. Whether with the kids in Primary or at the train shows, or coaching a team, he loves seeing them smile and enjoy something he has created or taught them–most especially if the kids are named Jesienouski.
31. Scott is passionate. When Scott decides to do something, he does it ALL the way. He throws himself into projects and does it the way he wants. This is something I admire very much about him
32. Scott is an Aquarius which means he is shy, with strong convictions, sometimes hiding the depths of his personality under a layer of frivolity. Fits, I think.
33. Scott’s favorite food, among several favorites, is Italian Sausage…or anything with Italian Sausage in it. He especially loves going to Olive Garden for Zuppa Tuscana and salad.
34. Scott is good with money, and by this, I mean he doesn’t really spend any. He has made a great effort to keep us out of debt and is very thrifty, much to his wife’s dismay.
35. Scott cooks the meals at our house about once a week.
36. Besides working for the state, Scott also runs a computer business on the side, is an officer in his train club, and serves in our church.
37. Scott is very creative. Trains, websites, logos, graphics…he has a very creative mind and finds lots of ways to put it to use. I remember in college he made a basketball court out of masking tape in his dorm room. I  never saw it personally, but I heard about it…it was legendary.
38. Scott is a wonderful provider for our family. He works hard and makes sure that his family wants for nothing. He leads out in making sure we are having Family nights, family prayer, and scripture study. He encourages us to be better in every way. He is always the first to suggest improvement projects and fun activities.
39. Scott is the best father, husband, son, brother, friend a person could have. We are so blessed to have this man in our lives. I have known Scott for 18 of his 39 years–that’s about half his life– and he only gets better with each passing year. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with this wonderful man.

We love you, Scott! I hope your day is amazing. Thanks for sharing your life with us!!!

Posted by Tonya. So, I can’t believe we haven’t blogged on the TechFamily for over a month! I guess with my HCG blog, my Random blog, Scott’s train blog, Facebook, and other daily doings, we haven’t remembered to keep up here. Hopefully, you know where to find us if you need to go what’s going on!

Christmas was good to us! And the New Year’s been going great, with just a few minor setbacks. I guess our biggest news is that we (Me, Scott, and Taylor) are doing the HCG diet. We’ve got one week under our belts, only 5 more to go! Already Scott’s lost about 9 lbs, I’ve lost about 8, and Taylor’s lost about 8!! We’re all doing pretty well even though it is hard on some days. Hopefully, by Spring Break, we’ll all be healthier, happier Jesienouski’s.

Scott’s been doing a lot of work with his trains. He is currently at a Train Show in Utah County and I’m sure he’ll have pictures and stories to share when he returns. I’m very proud of him!

We’ll try to post more often. I’m going to try to get back to posting family stuff on this blog, and keeping mine for me!

Thanks for checking in on us! And be sure to leave a comment or two so we know who we’re talking to!

We are ready for a fantastic holiday at the Jesienouski house and we hope you are too! This year has flown by and we almost can’t believe it is Christmas again! This year has been filled with fun adventures, most of which we’ve already blogged about, so I won’t recap now. LOL We are excited for the upcoming New Year…. 2010 is going to be a great one, I’m sure. We’ll keep you posted as usual!

Merry Christmas! We wish you and yours the very best as you celebrate with family and friends! May the Lord bless and keep you as we celebrate His birth! Love to all!

Well, I have finally gotten back to work on modules for the T-Trak Modular Layout. These two modules allow us to change directions on the layout so now we can do things with the layout instead of just making an oval. The first one is a mountain with tunnels. The mountain lifts off to deal with possible derailments.  I made the trees a new way this time, I used Caspia for the trees, with green foam glued on.  I believe it looks really good and it wasn’t that hard to make a whole bunch of trees, and it was quite cheap, made over a hundred trees for $17.00.  Lots cheaper than the normal trees I buy and a lot more realistic looking.

The next module is my lake module.  I like the sea serpent on my old layout so much that I had Tonya make me a new for the T-Trak layout.  Tonya made it so that it was looking back, so I put a little girl standing on the shoreline and it looks like the dragon is looking at her.  I have named the Dragon Susan after the character in Monsters vs. Aliens.   Again I used the new trees and used a quite a bit of Woodland Scenics Realistic Water in the lake.  Tonya painted the base of the lake to have a shoreline and look like it gets really deep.

Here is a closeup of the little girl and the serpent. You can’t see it in the picture, but I have three adults running away from where the girl is standing. Also, I put some dead trees around the lake to show that when there are not kids to eat, Susan goes around and eats the leaves off of trees. Also to the side you can see part of the dam. On the other side, it has two culverts where water is coming out, looks pretty neat, but the picture of it was blurry, so you will have to trust me.
Lastly, here is a picture of them together. With these two modules and their sister modules that James is building, we can have four trains running on their own tracks and the layout is shaped like a +. It was very popular at the last show we were at, and it is still very easy to move the layout and setup. Can’t wait to put the big layout together again! Hopefully in January! BTW, if you didn’t notice, you can click on the pictures to see a bigger version.

Last night for our 25 days of Christmas we went to Handel’s Messiah performed by the Southwest Symphony. It was really good and we knew a couple people that were performing. I loved the trumpets, the lead trumpet player was great! It was really nice to go and hopefully they will do a Halloween concert like they had this year, they played great music and I wish we would have gone.

This morning, for some unknown reason I turned left going off my street (normally go right). As I turned to get out of our neighborhood, I saw a house that had 10 reindeer in their front yard. I thought that was a very nice decoration and wondered where they stored such big decorations throughout the year. As I got closer, however, I found out they were not a decoration, there were 10 deer in the people’s front yard! 2 of them had antlers! I went to grab my cell phone to take a picture, but I guess stopping a car really fast in front of them spooked them and they ran off. I love where we live!

Scott and I wanted to make this year a special one for our family and we have made it a point to have a fun family activity for each night of December as a kind of countdown to Christmas. The only requirement is that it has to cost little to no money (but we may splurge on a couple things) and it has to be something we do together.

On the first night, we attended a special program that celebrated the things Taylor has been working on this year in her Young Womens group. We listened to some great spiritual motivational speakers, and had a chocolate fountain, which Shaylie loved.

Day two: we visited an amazing train layout built by a friend of Scott’s. It is a huge room full of Christmas villages, ice skaters, sledders, trams, and much more. It really was a treat. I also got to see Shaylie’s choir perform this day, though unfortunately the others had to work/school.

Day three: We went to Taylor’s winter band concert as a family and enjoyed their talents. Taylor really is a great flutist. They were very enjoyable.

Day Four: Again, a musical outing–don’t you just love music at Christmastime–Taylor’s piano recital. She played O Holy Night and did very well. Shaylie’s choir performed again at school and this time her dad and I and Grandma Dawn all got to go enjoy it.

Day five: We spent the day at the annual Dicken’s Christmas Festival. Always a ton of fun! We got to see Shaylee Sabaitis dance and another of her friends in a short production of Oliver! My mom, Anissa and Anje joined us as well.

Tonight, day six: We watched the LDS Christmas Devotional and baked sugar cookies. Yum!

I will post another update after the next few activities. I am really enjoying the time we are spending as a family. It gets harder and harder to remember the real reason for the season and I hope this will bring us closer together as a family.

Taylor begins playing on Monday with the Strikers FC! This is a team comprised mostly of the Pine View High JV team. We are excited for her to have this chance to get to know the girls and coaches she will hopefully be playing with in high school. She is excited too! More than she should have been, probably…but that’s a long story.

This is a competitive league and they will likely play in the Summer Games in 2010, as well as some regional qualifying tournaments. It will be a bit pricey, but the team is looking at doing some fundraisers, so that will help. I think of it as a good investment.

There is only one catch–I probably should have mentioned that earlier–and that is: She is only 13 years old and she may be playing against 18 year olds which the league has to approve with a signed waiver from us. So all of this pending that approval. The good news is that the coach already told us that even if she can’t “officially” play with the team, she can still come to practices and work out with them. So it’s all good, but better if she can actually play!

I’m excited for her! And for us too! What would we do without soccer to keep us busy? Or maybe I should say distracted? Anyway…we love it!