Out with a Bang! (It's About Time Right?)

This last week was so stinking amazing, and it was so hard to wait until today to post because I have so much to say and I was worried that if I posted earlier, then I wouldn't have enough for today. I guess I shouldn't have worried because each day was filled with many adventures that I will never forget. Anyways, one of the best things? Well, this little surprise that I found on my garage door yesterday might explain it a little bit.

In Case you can't tell what the faint writing says on the paper, School's out! I was going out to get in my car and drive to work yesterday when I saw this piece of art. I thought it was hilarious, true, and quite characteristic of my sister. It was obvious to me at least that Julia was the mastermind behind this all, so I guess I can applaud her on letting the world know how she is feeling in some way other that screaming "ow" when she stubs her toe about every five minutes. But for real, we are all so excited that summer is here. It has been long awaited at our house and now is warmly welcomed by the Jensen children.

So, I guess this will be the last school update for a while. I know it's kind of crazy, but I will just have to find crazier things to do this summer that will make up for it. So remember how much I HATE chemistry with a burning passion unlike anything that you have ever seen before? Well, I got just a high enough grade on the final to keep my A-. A few days before the final, my teacher handed us a paper that had our grade as it was then, the best case scenario from the final, and the worst case scenario from the final. I was at a 92.3 or something along the lines of a 92, and had the best case scenario of a 93-point-something and a worst case scenario of 78.8%. I was nervous going into that final to say the least. All I wanted was to keep the A-, which I barely was able to do. And what was my final grade in the class? 90.1%. I barely slid by on that one. Thank heaven for prayers and note cards! Now I'm just abnormally excited to burn every single paper from that class!

All my other classes? Normal for the most part. The story of Don Quixote was as interesting as ever in Spanish, the yearbook final presentation went basically as planned, and my US history final was a piece of cake. In seminary we were told last Tuesday that if we came to class on Friday that, "the doors might be locked, the lights may be off, and if you bang on the door, I might not answer" by our seminary teacher. So basically my last day of school consisted of going to advisory for 15 minutes, then going home for the summer because the only final I would have had on Friday was seminary. So I got home from school before Emilee and Sam even left for school! That was weird.

So now for the only class that I haven't mentioned yet: Jewelry. I basically finished my crazy "HLJ" ring on Thursday after school. I took a while, but it is temporarily done. Why only temporarily? I will show you, or at least try to.

Look where the lovely arrow is pointing. It is really hard to see in this picture, but there is no prong there. While we were setting the stone, that prong broke, so there is a little bit of epoxy stabilizing it until I can replace the prong cup. But that's not all that exciting, I will just have to break out the stone, cut off the prongs, and sand out the prong cup from inside the shank (that is the band of the ring by the way, not a weapon) before I can replace the prong cup. I am so excited to have it done though! Here are some more pictures and pics of my other ring:


Here is a decent shot of what the wire work looks like

Sorry, I'm not that good of a hand model. Just deal with it!

Kind of look like an engagement ring right? At least my sisters think so.

Here is the other ring. This one is the copper one with the custom bezel and lots of symbolism.

Here is a pretty good view of the Greek eternal life symbol that is cut out of the band on each side of the stone.

Top view-just so you can see how huge the stone is on my hand.

This is the "good side" of the ring as far as the bezel goes.

Front view-the stone is pretty abnormally shaped if you ask me. It was "so much fun" to sand this stone until it was flat. Not!

I know that it looks like this picture didn't focus. I promise you that it did. It just didn't focus where you originally expect it to. It is focused on the stamping inside the band that says "we will ever stand". I promised you I wasn't crazy!

So basically, life is good in the jewelry world. Yesterday I learned how to do laser welding. It was so scary at first, but it ended up being so much fun! I mean come on, how many teenagers can say that they have done that? I took me a few times of shooting the laser to be comfortable with it, but it is so cool! So basically, You hold the metal under a microscope, and set it on your fingers to steady it, center it under the laser, and shoot. So you are basically shooting a laser at your hand and hoping that you don't move, otherwise you will shoot your hand. I think that I only shot my hand once, so I guess I did pretty well for my first time.

I also was able to go to the grad party of my wonderful friend Ashleigh. She is so stinking amazing, and I'm very glad that she is staying here to go to school for two years before leaving home and going to school out of state. This ensures another wonderful year with her that I will have to take full advantage of before I go off to school.

All in all, life is pretty good right now, and I am definitely looking forward to an amazing summer before my senior year of high school.