Jenessa Alyse rocks my pretty pink socks!

This past school year, Monday through Friday, the Hutchins high-schoolers, Ryan (18 - senior), Cameron (17 - junior), and Jenessa (14 - freshman) have left the house at 6am to make their way to the Danville stake center for seminary. By about 7:25, Jenessa has made the rounds, checking her locker and catching up on the latest gossip (which she is rarely a part of - smarter than her sister already!) By 7:30, Jenessa has found her way to my classroom to spend her A period with me. While I run around posting makeup work and writing the day's agenda on the board, she crammed two hours worth of homework into forty minutes. Though we have managed exceptional (and necessary) amounts of productivity during that A period, we have managed to laugh until we cried about everything from how to pronounce Miercoles to my teacher voice to the awkwardness of having a student walk in and say, "You're my best friend" and then turn around and walk out.

Flash forward six 55-minute class periods, one 10-minute break, and one 35-minute lunch, and you find us exactly the way we were in the morning, her sans the homework and me marking attendance online. We're laughing at that same kid who says I'm his best friend and who has now come in to inform me I'm his auntie (Cameron adopted him) or griping about lame parents, teachers, students, or classmates (depends on the day). We compare plans for the afternoon and evening, roll our eyes at the insane amount of homework she has, and on good days, plan an outing to High Tech Burrito. Then off she runs to catch carpool before Ryan leaves her.

The reason for explaining Jenessa and my weekday madness is to give you a glimpse into how special this kid is. On my worst afternoons (ie days when kids either lit things on fire or told me to my face that my class was &$#@), when I thought breakdown was inevitable, in tumbles this incredible kid who surpasses me in every way especially her goodness and her brilliance. Though Jenessa could be running around with her friends, she makes sure to check in and say hello. This school year has tested my limits - on two very specific occassions, I was sure that I was going to quit, but Jenessa kept me going. I couldn't leave her. Send her to the library during A period?! How could I? More than that - how could I miss this chance to spend so much time with Jenessa during her high school years?!

It's been so much fun to watch the "rug rats" as I used to call the youngest three take on the challenges of a new high school, especially after being away from home for so long. When I left for BYU, Jenessa was 8-years-old, reading up a storm and scribbling into her fifteen notebooks that she had stashed around her room. Her bed had over a hundred stuffed animals on it (all named by the way) which actually only left her a corner to sleep on. When I came home this past summer, she was 14, tall, beautiful, and much cooler than I ever was - she loved the Book of Mormon, had great friends, worked hard at school and piano, and aspired to the Ivy Leagues. In the last nine months, she's only gotten cooler. High school hasn't ruined her - she's just as friendly as she was last August and gets funnier by the day. Miss Ness has made my year. I'm looking forward to the question next year of, "Miss Hutchins, is Jenessa Hutchins your sister?" To which I'll reply, "Of course she is - she's taught me everything I know."