Welcome to our Christmas newsletter! For Jennifer’s Substack subscribers, you’ll get a taste of what our personal lives have entailed this year, and for friends and family patching in via the QR code on our Christmas card, you’ll get to catch up on a bit of our lives here in Alabama.
Here are the big highlights:
We bought a house!
And the timing was totally a God thing. In January, the landlord of the house we had been renting since our 2023 arrival in Alabama announced he was selling it, and that we had 60 days to find new digs. Lynn decided it was time. Part of the reason we moved to the South was be able to actually afford to buy a home, so we are thankful that through a set of blessed circumstances we were able to do just that. Our move in date was just shy of that 60-day mark, and we had good friends and our church community who helped us pack and move. After painting the walls, we are pretty much unpacked and thoroughly enjoying our new space. Lynn installed his first Amateur Radio antenna on the roof, and Jennifer had lots of fun decorating for our first Christmas in our new home.
We welcomed our first house guest!
Jennifer’s ride-or-die friend Anna, who she has known since high school, came to beautiful Northern Alabama to spend Easter with us. Along with showing her the sights and eating lots of good food, we drove to Nashville — a short hop across state lines — to have breakfast with Jennifer’s other high school buddy George. What a fun mini-Lane Tech reunion!
We got a new dog!
After almost a year of having only two, our hearts were ready for a new little girl. Enter Miss Minnie Mouse the Rat Terrier! She was rescued from a hoarding situation and had already had two litters back-to-back, so she was ripe for some love, attention and care, and we were ripe for some liveliness and fresh activity. Minnie Mouse is that and more — in spades! Rat Terriers must be a close cousin to Jack Russell Terriers, because Minnie Mouse bounds, jumps, and leaps everywhere.
But she fits right in with Puppet and Ian, and enjoys car rides, which is perfect, because…
We traveled and road tripped… A LOT
Some for work, mostly for family and play. In February, Jennifer did her annual coverage for RedState of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in D.C. In May, Lynn and Jennifer traveled to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa for Jennifer’s RedState coverage of President Donald Trump’s commencement address to the 2025 graduating class.
Our first 2025 tri-state road trip was to Kansas to visit Lynn’s aunt Lucia, and to Illinois so Jennifer could check in on her older brothers Teddy and Gerry, as well as her recently-widowed brother-in-law. We were able to hang out with some good friends in between, like Jennifer’s friend Joan, a Columbia College Chicago alum and former alumni board president. Our spiritual daughter Nichole, and a California friend who, amazingly enough, had recently transplanted to Illinois.
In September, Jennifer flew to California for the wedding shower of her dear friend’s daughter Elizabeth. Jennifer was able to connect with old friends she had not seen in many years, along with our Beachcities Community church family.
When Jennifer came back home, in between other move-in maintenance and preparatory stuff, we bought a second car! Our faithful Nissan Xterra has taken us on some great road trips on the West and the East Coast, and carried us across the country TWICE. But with over 250,000 miles on her, it was time to get another, newish vehicle so that we had a second vehicle that would allow us to road trip even more.
Meet our new Nissan Pathfinder, which Jennifer has dubbed, “Speed Racer,” as in, “Go Speed Racer, Go!” She’s Gen X, so she can’t help herself.
The car purchase was right on time for our November road trip to California, via Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico, and Texas. Jennifer’s aunt Everette celebrated her 85th birthday. A majority of Jennifer’s family has passed on, so this milestone was important to honor and well worth the journey.
We hung out in Orange County for a majority of our 10 days there, where we once again were able to experience our Beachcities Community church family, hang with friends in the area, and eat the great food we miss, like In-N-Out and Porto’s!
Once our time in the OC was done, we headed to Ventura County, where we had a meet-and-hang with our San Fernando Valley/Ventura/Simi Valley friends, and to attend the wedding of the aforementioned bride. It was a perfect bookend to a perfect trip!
On the way back to Alabama, one of the stops was Arizona, to spend time with Lynn’s big brother Bob and his wife Melissa. Jennifer also got to see RedState colleague Becca before we headed back East.
That’s all the news that is fit to print. Both of us have experienced far too much death and loss over the last several years, so we were thankful for a year full of family connection that didn’t involve a funeral, and being able to connect with many of the people we love and miss the most back West.
As Lynn dives into his work and Jennifer continues writing for RedState and other outlets, we look forward to the opportunities and adventure these continue to bring. We pray 2026 gives us more opportunity to connect with friends, family, and our communities far and wide.
Here’s our best wishes for a healthy, prosperous, and peaceful 2026.
The O’Connell clan (human and fur)
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.