Emma's high school friends are mostly all back from their missions now and with it being Christmas break everyone is hope for Christmas so she decided to invite them over for pickleball, snacks, corn hole, etc. during the day! Then that night her and Anni went out to some New Year's Eve parties!
We headed up to Nathan's cabin for a couple of days to play in the snow during Christmas break! I nailed Eli in the balls with a snowball dropped him to the ground, somehow we avoided many trips to the hospital despite all of our close calls with kids sledding right into trees, rocks, etc. Me, Emma and Jenn built a snow couple. It was a great relaxing little trip!
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Oh it was a good Christmas season this year for sure! First Christmas in our forever home and it felt like we had been here forever - just like it should feel. We spent many nights over the month of December staying up late and watching Christmas movies together, Jared took off of work for 2 weeks over Christmas and he has been playing pickleball with the boys, him and Tyler have been working on the red bike and replacing chains, brakes and we even did family workout sessions together in the garage gym!
This year for our service project we went to downtown Phoenix and volunteered at St Mary's Foodbank. Eli and Jared worked outside unloading the carts of food into the people's cars. Me, Emma and the twins got stuck on the milk station. We had to put 15 little milks into a bag and put 2 bags into a cart and push it to the next station. It sounds easy, and it was...but it was the longest station and our backs were killing us! Next time - we ain't doin' no milk station - we will take the easy salad station - ha ha!
We drove around and looked at lights in Agritopia this year, went to the Mesa Temple to look at those lights, picked up dinner and dessert and came back for another movie.
The Sunday before Christmas we did Jensen Christmas at Nate's house. Everyone had to do a little Christmas thing for the family show so our family did a tik-tok dance and then Kara's family did the bells and then that was it. No one else did anything. Then we all played a couple of songs with the bells and then Brandon played his guitar and we sang a couple of Christmas songs.
On Christmas morning we opened our gifts from Santa, had breakfast, rode Tyler's new bike and then went to church. Then that night both sets of grandparents came over and we all had dinner together with Rj, Dalton and Alyza. After dinner we played Left Right Center and Grandma Rodgers won the whole thing and the grand kids took some of her winnings! Then we all relaxed to another Christmas movie and then to all a goodnight!
We soaked up a lot of Christmas memories together!! This was one for the books!
Emma got her 2 wisdom teeth pulled. We did have to switch doctors from the original one we met with since I had to ask him 4 times which teeth he was pulling and at first he said all 4, then he couldn't get the sides correct, etc. I did NOT want her going in and having her molars removed too! So we switched doctors and this one knew exactly on the first try which teeth to pull so I felt very confident in letting him put her under and take them! The boys wanted me to video her while she was waking up but she wasn't really funny. She just talked a lot. Wanted to call Anni Hall. And kept asking if the water bottle was touching her lips or not so she wouldn't spill when she drank. She has taken really good care of her mouth with the rinsing, irrigating, staying on top of her ibproufen & tyelnol. She is healing up quite nicely! She even got a surprise visit from Anni, Nate and Sophie!
Eli had the amazing opportunity to go down to Mexico with the Cardons and the Worthens for Noah's Ark.
Noah's Ark was started November 2021 when the Worthen's were trying to figure out how to celebrate Christmas their first year without Noah. While they were replacing their carpet they were talking with the worker and he was saying how he collects donations every year and takes them down to Mexico for kids in the hopsitals, orphanges & the people living in the landfills and what not. They decided they would like to participate and help out. They decided to call it "Noah's Ark". They collected so many things! They were not in a good place to take the stuff down there personally so they set truck loads with their workers down there. When their trucks pulled up into the hospital there was a giant wall mural of Noah's Ark - the exact one she had been using as her image for this as well. Many tears were shed.
This year they did Noah's Ark again and again we gave money to each of our kids and headed to Target to let them pick out toys for Noah's Ark. Then Eli was given a lucky opportunity to take Tanner's place and go down there with them. Tanner was going to stay at our house that weekend so he could go to WINFO and Eli would go to Mexico.
Eli learned and grew so much! He grew a huge appreciation for how lucky he is to be living in this country, this house, this school, etc. Him and Jake would walk donations to these houses were people lived, talk with them, play with them, Eli even translated a little bit at border for Doug, they got to stop by the Hermosillo Temple on the way back home, they worked out at the hotel and even ordered room service - oh and he said the McDonalds was the biggest and nicest McDonalds he had ever seen.
As soon as he got back to the Cardons I picked him up and we went over to the Jensens Christmas get together and Jared showed his pictures up on the TV and he wrote a little talk about his experience and ended it with his testimony. The spirit was for sure felt at that moment. The kids were loud and crazy before he spoke but as soon as he started, the room got completely silent and he began. Hopefully he keeps this spirit and Christ like attitude with him and he will grow up to be quite a successful missionary and man!
This was an experience he will never forget!
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