Merry Christmas from Us!

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas filled with fun, family, good food, and thoughts of the Savior who truly is the Reason for the Season. Merry Christmas!

Below is our Christmas letter in case you didn't get it via email.

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello from sunny Southern California! We are having a little bit of a different Christmas experience this year than we've ever had before because when it's 75 degrees in December it's hard to believe that Christmas is really coming. And yet it's almost here, and we're so glad for that! We'll be spending the holidays in Utah with our families and so we'll get a White Christmas after all, but we're okay with the warmer weather we have until then!

Sophie learned to count to ten this last year, therefore we'd like to share what we've been up to in 2008 with numbers.

0--The number of finals Joseph has to take this year. Why? Because he already graduated! Joseph received his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) with an emphasis in Finance from Brigham Young University in April. We're so proud of his hard work and that he accepted a wonderful job offer with Bank of America that has us getting regular paychecks again! Joseph likes his job so far and looks forward to completing the year and a half program at the end of '09 that will allow him to be a full-fledged Underwriter for BofA.

1--The number of moves we made this year. As I said before, we moved to Los Angeles at the beginning of May. We actually live in a smaller town northeast of the big city called Glendora, and we're loving life here. It's hard to beat this kind of weather, plus all the fun things to do around this area, and we're very grateful to be here.

2--The number of children we have now. We welcomed another daughter to our family with the birth of Avery Jane on the Fourth of July. She has grown up so fast already, adores her older sister Sophie, and is the smiliest, cutest baby around. We are so glad she joined our family and are so in love with our 2 girls!

3--The number of buses, shuttles, and trains Joseph has to take to get from our door to work. He works in a high rise right in the heart of the busy financial district in downtown LA and it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. But we're grateful that there are enough forms of public transportation that he doesn't have to fight LA traffic in a car twice a day! He's home by 6:00 pm which is very doable.

4--The number of times Sophie would drag us out to the pool and hot tub each week to go swimming. She is such a fish! That number has declined now that the pool water is much too cold to take a dip in, but we got to go all the time in the summer. The place we live in has a community pool and since most of our neighbors are elderly (read: we feel like we live in a retirement community!) we're usually the only people there when we go, so we like to think that it's our own private pool. :)

5--The age that Sophie acts like she is. Sophie actually only turned 2 in October but she learned how to speak well at such a young age that she seems older than that. It's so nice to be able to have full conversations with her and to have a little student to teach again. She has a great memory and can sing you any song or tell you any story that she's heard twice, she can tell you the capitals of several states, and she often recounts something that happened months ago that the rest of us have completely forgotten about. She still has bright red hair and such a fun personality and makes us laugh all the time.

6--The number of times we've used our annual passes to Disneyland. The latest trip was without kids for Joseph's and my birthdays. We felt old turning 30 so we thought we'd offset that feeling by being kids again for a day and going to the Happiest Place on Earth together. It was a lot of fun and we're glad we only live a half hour away from it so we can go often! We'd love to go with anyone who wants to come down and come with us! You're welcome to stay at the Jensen Hotel when you come, too!

7--The number of times Joseph has served in an Elder's Quorum Presidency since he became an elder. He was called to serve as the Elder's Quorum President again shortly after we moved into our ward here. He figures there must be something he hasn't learned yet in this calling, so he's determined to get it right this time so he can move on to his dream calling of being a Sunday School or Elder's Quorum Instructor.


8--The number of cakes I've made this year. I took two cake classes so that I could learn how to make cakes for the kid's birthdays and such, and I've been having fun experimenting ever since. I recently taught myself how to use fondant and had a good time playing around with that, so it's become a fun new hobby for me to do that I hope to continue to use a lot.

9--The number of times I stop each day and think how lucky I am to be a mom of two beautiful girls. I love getting to stay home with Sophie and Avery and go on adventures with them every single day. We have a park just down the street from us and whether we're there or at home, we have a lot of fun together. This is truly the best job I've ever had and I feel so blessed.

10--The number of Young Women I get to work with. I was called to be the Personal Progress Leader in the Young Women program of our ward and I love it! The girls in our ward are awesome and I enjoy helping them work toward receiving their YW Medallion. We have a wonderful ward here and feel blessed to be where we are.

We have enjoyed getting to teach the Christmas Story to Sophie for the first time really this year and to see the feelings these "tidings of great joy" have brought to her little life, and subsequently again to ours, through the multiple tellings of it. How blessed we are with the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ's birth, life, Atonement, and Resurrection that makes all things possible. We're grateful for the reminders of Him everywhere this Christmas season. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and joy for the New Year!

Love,

Joseph, Becky, Sophie, and Avery Jensen