March Madness: Jena-style

Jena continues to have an awesome experience at her college bridge program.  Not only is she having fun and making great memories, she also is learning things about herself, about independence including getting enough sleep, the list goes on and on.

A couple of weeks ago, Jena told me about a geologist whose last name was Angus and something she had learned about him in her geology class.  It is a little thing.  It will probably never matter to her in her adult life.  But she was sitting there in a class of university students with a teacher lecturing with his powerpoint and she understood and remembered.  More importantly, she knew she had learned something and was proud to share it with me---who has never taken Geology!  That is a win-win!

(Sidenote:  Jena has to choose her classes based on the Tuesday/Thursday class schedule that has a Best Buddy volunteer in the class to sponsor her and the teacher's permission.  She was hoping to do a theatre class but the teacher never responded with permission in time, so her second choice was Geology {probably thanks to Sis. Spencer, her fourth grade teacher, who made all her students love rocks.}.  Anyway, the Geology teacher quickly said yes and Jena joined the class.  Just a few weeks ago, Vicki (Wonderwood) told me that the Geology teacher has a 13 year old daughter with Down syndrome and whenever he sees Jena in his class, it makes him so happy and hopeful for his daughter's future.  And, besides, he just loves her in his class.  What are the odds that Jena would end up in a class with a professor at BYU with a child with Down syndrome.  Pretty Awesome!)

This evening, they went to the home of one of their staff and played games and cooked smores.  Happy day for Jena as you can see.

They have added a lot of fitness activities in their days at BYU.  On Thursday, a nearby trampoline and exercise place has invited them to come once a week to do different activities like Zumba, jumping on the trampolines, and other exercise classes.

Wednesday, Brooke and Bruna often take them to the Provo Recreation Center and try out lots of different things.

Heading out from their townhouse for another adventure:

In the report, Brooke said that Jena was "really killing it on the rowing machine."

And bowling is always popular with Jena.  Not sure why she has duck lips in this picture, but here it is:

Jena has also added a new activity at home as well.  Special Olympics Swim started a couple of weeks ago.  It was cloudy when we went into Layton Surf and Swim before 8:00 a.m., but we came out to this:

Snow.......Jena was laughing so much as neither of them had brought clothes to change into and Emily had forgotten her coat so she was wrapped up in mine in the back seat.  I told Jena I wanted them to get out so I could take a picture of them in swim suits, wet hair, and coats, but she didn't want to go back out into the snow storm.  The flakes were huge.

Jena has not been swimming with SQ since she started her mission, but I think she is glad to be back.  They work hard at their practices.

A day in the life of Jena.