Happy Birthday Jennifer

I just wanted to take a minute and dedicate this post to my awesome sister, Jennifer. She is turning *insert your guess here* years old and is an awesome mom, an awesome scrap-booker, and a super awesome sister. I wish that I could tell you all how much she has taught me. One of my favorite things is that she is very encouraging of others. She encourages everyone to develop their talents. When I was in High School, i went to stay at her house in Virginia. She owned a scrapbook store. While I was there I had my first "1 AM Denny's Run". That was SO much fun! She also showed me responsibility by letting me work the register. It might seem small, but it felt so good to be in charge of something. Also, and this is gettin back to the developing talents, she showed me how to use chalk. Now let me tell you, I'm not all that artistic, but I did a chalk drawing and my sister made me feel like the Queen of the Chalk World by putting it up on the wall IN her store for people to see what you can do with chalk. She's always been like that, pointing out the good in projects. Even if she's not too crazy about the thing itself, she'll not tell you to stop doing it. She'll say "it's interesting" and try to find something good about it.

She's also a lot of fun to be with. Roger and I lived with her for a while and occasionally Roger will comment on how misses just talking with Jen. She taught me to stress less (or at least be more careful about the things I stress about). She's also taught me to let things roll off my back, the entire world is not attacking me (who knew?!). The best is late at night when you get her in a goofy mood. There's nobody I'd rather be around! It almost makes me want to invite her over for a slumber party.

Oh, and another thing, Jennifer is an EXCELLENT story teller. Nobody tells it like she does. And on top of that, she has a story for everything. Like the time they were on their way to a scrapbook convention and were listening to Bohemian Rhapsphody too loud and got pulled over.... see, she'd have to tell it.

Jennifer is also a great example to me. She's an example of service, helping others when they need it, especially if the help is a shoulder to cry on or someone to play mom when nobody else will. She's an example of how to gain a testimony and live what you believe even when you're in really rough situations (like crappy branch presidencies). She's an example of endurance, sticking it out through some more than tough times.

I just love my sister. I hope she has a happy birthday. And Jen, if you're reading this, just know I was thinking about you tonight and I love and appreciate you.