A blast from the past! Merry Christmas!

This old photo is super faded now but kind of fun to share. Tommy is seven in this photo 

the very same as Ashton in the photos that Shayna just posted! That is so fun that 

Tommy is there in Kyoto with his family just before Christmas many years later! 

Shayna your photos are beautiful! Glad you  had such a wonderful day. 

We are not wearing jackets in our photo so it must have been taken a bit earlier in the fall. 

This is Kyoto's Kinkaku-Ji Temple the "Gold Pavillon".

This is our first Christmas in Japan I believe. Don't you just love my panda sweater? 

KIYOMIZUDERA TEMPLE . . "Pure Water Temple" in Kyoto

Are these photos just not the best? I love my sweaters! I had quite the collection. 

Here we are at the "Pure Water Temple". .  KIYOMIZUDERA in Kyoto.

Christmas in Japan 1988 just before Marianne was born. 

FAMILY REUNION FUN!

Meet my wonderful, fun loving extended FAMILY.  We had a great family reunion this year. 

We were beginning to think that it was time to change and considered not having the extended family reunion, as our individual families are getting large enough to have our own reunions. 

BUT . . . after realizing how much fun we have together 

WE JUST COULD NOT IMAGINE NOT BEING TOGETHER . . . at least once in awhile. 

So I believe we are aiming for another gathering in 4 years

2018! MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Unfortunately, we could not get many of our kids to the reunion this year, but we were grateful for Kim, Andrew and Katie for coming. Just 5 short days later we dropped Katie off at the MTC. She is now already in FRANCE serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

 Always need to show are inner personalities! 

Mmmm . . . What happened Nephi? 

 I would have to say that the AMAZING RACE which we had EVERYONE 

do on Friday morning was one of the best activities that we have ever done.

 It was fun, entertaining, fast paced, and best of all everyone was involved from youngest to oldest! 

I wish that we had more photos but honestly everyone was too busy RACING! It was crazy. 

We had 10 TEAMS of four or five, with everyone on a team being in a different age group 

(0-5, 5-10, 10-18 and adult). We did the best we could, mixing up guys and gals,

 mixing up families so that everyone was with cousins, aunts and uncles. 

Then we had challenges that each age group had to compete in plus team challenges. 

It was a blast.  We had clues, Detours, Road Blocks and Race Envelopes to open. 

We had races, building activities, brain teasers, physical challenges and family history challenges. 

We even learned how to make our own butter!

 MMM . . . Yummy BUTTER!

 Another favorite was mapping the entire extended family where they served their missions!

Our family has been to a lot of places 

ALL OVER THE WORLD!

One of our racers showing their race lanyard.

 Another of our all time favorite things to do at the family reunion is to WATER SKI.

Even teaching the young how to ski. Way to go Aly!

Norman is my HERO!
Can you believe this guy. My big brother is pretty amazing skiing like this at 68 years young!
I wish that was me!

I hope you don't mind Tara that I took some photos off your face book to share here.

Amazing photos of the family water skiing!

Let's not forget the horseshoe games!

It seems that a certain person said "I never lose in horseshoes!"  

Well, let's just say there's a new sheriff in town!

This could become a new favorite activity for the family!

Thanks to Norman we all got to try a bit of ARCHERY!

 Thanks to Taylor and his family we were all able to enjoy

  PADDLE BOARDING!

 We sure miss OUR PAM, but so happy to see so many of her family come to join the fun!

Norman and Bonnie's crazy family.

 Nephi and Ruby's family . . . Heather also joined us for a few days but missed the photo day.

 Ray and Charlotte's family

This is more their normal?

 Norman even let TOM drive his boat!

 Thanks to Norman and Bonnie for the boat and the JET SKIS!

Everyone has fun on the water!

     

The reunion was held of the 4th of July so we HAND painted these T's 

with the young crowd. (with some help from others). 

They were fun and easy to make.

Thanks to Ray we had a BIG SCREEN TV for video games and old time movies.

And thanks to Charlotte for making us super delicious SCONES!

(Which I don't have a photo of, dang. I was much to busy eating them with sticky fingers!)

 Many enjoyed the hammocks that Taylor brought up.

 Grandma Teresa and Grandpa Jack enjoyed a bit of the reunion 

before they returned home.

Thanks to Polly and Amber for holding the BUG HUNT!

It was a huge success! With many happy faces!

And even a bit of face painting was to be enjoyed!

The Gerald and Helen Jensen Family History Book.

Here are a few fond memories that have been shared with me about the family reunion. 

1.  Number one favorite I believe was the AMAZING RACE.

2. I've got to believe that the all the water sports was high on the list.

3. Seeing and Reading the FAMILY HISTORY BOOK.

4. Seeing cousins help cousins with activities and games.

5. Mike's trash talking.

6. Social Media sharing of photos and trash talking!

7. Playing reverse Charades! Thanks Polly for the tip.

8. Staying up late at night to "chat and play games".

9. Not having to cook the food!

10. Watching fireworks on the shore. . . . and some even enjoyed making smores over the fire.

11. Our nightly family gathering.

12. The archery and the bug hunt. 

and most of all seeing everyones smiling faces

 each day of the reunion!

Sights of Tokyo!

 Here is a sampling of some of the things we saw while on our visit to Tokyo, Japan!

We had a great time. Tommy and Shayna were GREAT hosts. Thank you 

Ashton and Weston who were great little troopers traveling all around the area

almost each and everyday! There are really some beautiful structures to

see and learn about in Japan. A truly interesting place to visit. And LIVE!

We also and most certainly enjoyed a great sampling of Japanese food

that we have missed, it did not disappoint us!

Meiji Jingu (Shrine)

Odawara Castle

Tokyo at night.

Sensoji Pagoda

Sensoji Temple

One of the busiest intersections in the world!

A fast food ordering machine. Like a regular chain food joint, like McDonalds but

Japanese style food. You order using this machine at the entrance, choosing your food, paying 

for it and then go inside and they bring you the food. We had an interesting time

trying to make sure we pick the right food choice. Good thing we had help from

Tommy and Tom to translate. It was just another one of the fun things to try.

Grilled fish anyone?

Katie outside the noise Pachinko Palor (gambling kind of). Eating fried noodles

on New Years Eve! and Lanterns on the temple grounds for New Years Eve.

Tokyo Tower, Tempura and strolling down the street to catch the train.

Kamakura Daibutsu . . . . . . Big Buddha