jennifee.

My big sister, Jen and I, went to see Breaking Dawn: Part 2 today. It's one of many movies we've seen together, like Harry Potter 4 when we went the next night instead of the premiere. Naturally, we talked about the book afterwards and what we've thought of certain characters. We commented on Les Miserables as we saw the poster for the movie walking past. I told her about college, and she told me about her cute little boys. I finally opened up and told her about some guys in my life who I had kept hidden from my family because of the pain they caused me. She listened. She didn't judge. We laughed. We talked about the most trivial things, as well as bigger things, just as we always do. It was as easy as breathing.

And so today, I'm thankful for Jenny.

Growing up, Jen was my absolute idol. In fact, looking back, some of the things that I still love today are things I owe to her, because when I was little and saw that she loved them, that automatically made me love them. And that "idol" love turned into genuine love, like my love for astronomy and the universe. or my love for boy bands. don't deny it, Jen. We all knew you wanted to marry J.C. from NSYNC.

One of my favorite memories as a kid is from one of the many times I went into her bedroom after a nightmare. This one in particular was about a tornado. No idea why, but for some reason I had gone through this stage of being deathly afraid of them. Which is ridiculous, considering I live in Utah and we get one in maybe a century. Either way, it was a pretty bad dream, and naturally, being four or five years old at the time, I was pretty shaken up and bawling my eyes out. Well, Jen, to lighten the mood, drew me the most amazing picture in the history of ever. I wish I still had it. As I mentioned before, Jen and I were both NSYNC fans. Well, she drew a picture of a tornado going through town, trying to be scary, while singing NSYNC's "Bye, Bye, Bye." Instead of everyone being afraid of it, she drew them finding it so comical that they just pointed and laughed, and the tornado couldn't hurt them. Funny enough, it stopped my fear of tornadoes and turned that fear into its opposite: fascination. Now, I cannot get enough of them. I am so grossly fascinated by them, that Twister is one of my favorite movies. All because of Jen.

Anyway, Jen did a lot for me growing up. She did a lot for all of us. Being the oldest, she had to look after us kiddies a lot and put up with our shenanigans. She dealt with me going into her bedroom in the middle of the night, often, because I had just had a nightmare. She was always the referee between Just and Kenz, who weren't each others' biggest fans at the time. She was always the babysitter. The chauffeur. The cook. The nurse. She stayed up all night to help me finish my science project on nebular in the 5th grade. Then stayed up all night the year after that, to help me finish my project on Mummies in the 6th grade. She was the second mom, basically.

And never, not once, did I hear her complain. 

She also let me play with her and all of her friends, because they were in high school and as a five-six-seven-year-old, I thought they were the coolest. I remember fondly her friends forming two teams and playing a game where the goal was simply to have me. Jen ran me into her room and put a glow-in-the-dark star on my little overalls. She said "keep this on. This way, I'll always know where you are." It was one of my favorite nights, being the goal of her and her friends' game. I don't even know if she remembers that. But I do.

Jen is one of the most selfless people I know. I don't tell her thank you nearly as often as I should; it's not like I deserve any of the things she has done and continues to do for me. But she does them anyway. And I'm so thankful to her for that. Her two little boys are so lucky to have a mom like her. She is so strong. She is so loving. She has such a testimony of this Gospel, and the light of Christ really does shine through her. She is so much like Him. And, in addition to all of that inner beauty, her outer beauty has always been something I've really envied; especially her fashion sense and piercing blue eyes.

Even though Jen and I are the oldest and youngest, it's always been us that's more a like, with our middle siblings being more alike. We're the drama queens. The fashionistas. The astronomy/nature obsessed. The bookworms. The school nerds. The attention wanters. The sometimes-over-the-toppers. We have our differences, of course, which make us, as people, better.

I'm so thankful for yeh-yeh/dah/jenny. When I was little, I wanted to be just like her. Now, the years have passed, and we've both grown. . But even now, I still do.