The beautiful Christmas tree - a wonderful Christmas tradition

The ornaments!

Claire- Santa on a Roller Coaster

Jacob - License Plate

Kate - Girl on a Bike

Liam - Mandalorian helmet

Torin - baptism

Family - Buc-ees, Natural Bridge

It takes Jared hours and lots of strands of lights to get the tree lit up.

Once it is lit up, we get all the ornaments out. We are up to 4 bins of ornaments now.

Jared gets the spinners on - we had 23 this year!

We love sitting by the tree and remembering the meaning of the ornaments and taking pictures in front of the tree.

NHS Inductees

Jacob and Claire were inducted into the National Honor Society. Claire chose Sister Goldie and Jacob chose Dani as their sponsors.

We are proud of these 2!

 

Jacob and Jared Turkey Trot half marathon

Jacob and Jared ran the Cincinnati Turkey Trot around Lunken airport. It was a nice day for a race, and both were happy with the way they ran. Jacob got in front of Jared a 3-4 miles out and held a lead the entire way. Jared started to pull in closer with less than a mile left, but Jacob took off and finished nearly a minute ahead. It was both of their first official half marathon.

 

There were a number of people from the ward who ran - Luke had a fast race

and Anika was the 2nd finishing woman and Bracken ran well too!

Papa comes home in time for Thanksgiving

After a couple weeks in the rehabilitation facility, Papa was able to come home in time for Thanksgiving! The kids made a sign welcoming him home. He is still weak and lower in energy, but he is in so much better condition than he has been for the last 3+ weeks.

Taylor and family came to join for Thanksgiving. We watched the US Men's team's world cup game against England, which ended up in a 0-0 draw.

It was a sweet time that we got to spend 

The cousins had a lot of fun together!

Taylor joined the Montgomery Ward's Turkey Bowl - the Jensen boys were dominant :)

The younger group of boys went fossil hunting at a park in Sharonville and found lots of treasures. We didn't realize there was fossil hunting so close!

The weather was beautiful! One day we went to Glenwood Gardens Discovery Garden. We hiked around, looked at the model trains, and then played tag at the tree house area.

One of the last days of the weekend, Taylor and Jared went outside and played catch with Papa.

It was sweet to do something together again that we had done so many times in our backyard growing up. Papa was able to throw and catch every one!

We are all so happy to have Papa back at home, and we really enjoyed this memorable Thanksgiving weekend. We felt so grateful for the medical care he has received and for the joy of family.

 

Gatlinburg with the Christensens

We took a trip to Gatlinburg with the Christensens the weekend before Thanksgiving. They were going to drive to Michigan for Thanksgiving, and we decided it was a great meeting spot.

We decided that we needed to do some of the classic Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge tourist things - so we found a place that we could do Go Karts on two different tracks.

Cheering on the racers from a bridge on the course.

The second track went up and up on a spiral and then down a big hill.

Torin got to ride on this one in a 2-seater car with Jared.

We did Dolly Parton's stampede - the Christmas edition. Camie decided that the service was equal to in efficiency to Disney - everything was timed out perfectly! The food was actually pretty good.

Everything really did come out quickly and was cleaned up quickly to prepare for the next show.

 

The show was fun and was Christmas themed.

There was horsemanship, including, of course, the classic horse jumping through a ring of fire.

We did the Moonshine Mountain Coaster. It was a little bit of a wait, but it was pretty fun. A ride up to the top and then rolling down hill through twists and turns. 

It was a very Gatlinburg experience!

We went to a milkshake place that had the BIGGEST milkshakes! They were nuts - we shared 3 between our whole family and it was plenty! 

They were so fun!

We went on a hike to Alum Cave, a hike we had done as a family in 2020 as well. It was a chilly day.

Not all the hikers were cheerful the entire time - until Liam discovered that he could design an epic video game in his brain and talk about it for the last hour plus. Forks and Knives, Kitchen Battle Royale. Later in the vacation, Liam would start drawing all his kitchen drawer-based weapons.

We went on a run by the river.

Hillbilly Golf was everything Jared and Camie remembered it being, starting with the incline ride up the hill.

Near the top, Camie found a bear offering free bearhugs. Naturally, she took him up on the offer.

There was a bath tub

It was a fun time to make new memories with our family and to re-live memories for Camie and Jared!

As usual, Kate and Adele were always only a couple feet apart - often closer!

We didn't get many pictures of the house, but there were lots of games that were played constantly. It was a fun long weekend with the Christensens!