Snow!

Last Saturday, we took a long day trip up to the mountains of Northern Arizona near the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We left at 3:30 am for the 250 mile drive (my sister and Tom camped overnight, but Mr. J was not successful in talking me in to doing that with 3 kids....). We stopped at Cracker Barrel in St. George, UT at 5:30 for a nummy breakfast and got to our meeting spot around 9 ish. There we had a camp fire, the kids played in the snow and Mr. J and Tom cut down poles (for a bunkbed for the girls) and a Christmas tree for Deanna and Tom. We enjoyed eating "Bobbie" sandwiches from leftover turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce (our new favorite... we got the idea from a great sandwich shop here called Capriotti's). Also, Deanna and I entertained the kids and tried to keep them from getting too cold (I changed outfits many times). After lunch, it was naptime, so we strapped all the kids in the van and her and I sat in the front to listen to Christmas carols on the van radio and play rummy. However, our Christmas carol listening only lasted 10 minutes because the battery died on the van, and we had to wait for Tom and Mr. J to return with the rover to give us a jump. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and sunny, even though it was only 30 degrees out, so we stayed plenty warm and the kids took good naps. We left the mountains around 330ish and still had enough sunlight to see the Grand Canyon from afar as we drove through Fredonia back to St. George. We stopped at Cracker Barrel again on the way home (it's a pretty delicious place, and that is the closest one to Vegas) with Deanna and Tom. All in all it was a great day. I almost wasn't going to go and was going to stay home with the kids, because I thought it was going to be too much work, but thankfully I realized I was going to miss out on some great memories if I passed this up.. and we had an awesome time!

The snowy trees

Miss M posing

Miss 0's cold hands

Mr. T reading, he loves books! Especially ones that have cars or animals in them. He likes to make the noises.

Tom roastin a brat

Deanna had perfect timing in capturing this picture. This was the exact moment after Miss M asked if we had any marshmallows to roast and I told her no, that I had forgotten them. Pure disgust.

The girls getting ready for naptime in the van.
Me and Deanna playing rummy and draining the battery on the van, fun times! Tom finally getting the chainsaw fired up to go cut down their tree.
The tree he cut down for them, after they beautifully decorated it!

Why I love 4:30 (on base)...

This afternoon, I was sitting in the back yard blogging while watching the kids play on the playground with the neighbors. At promptly 4:30 pm everday, the Star Spangled Banner plays. This is to signal the end of the duty day as well as the time that the main flag on base is lowered. (A military custom called retreat) You can hear the song wherever you are at on base. The kids on the playground have been taught to put their hand on their heart. Some of the kids have seen their daddies salute, if they are in uniform, so they sometimes do that too. It is super cute to see 5 kids between the ages of 3-6 stop sliding and building their bark dust castles for a minute or two to listen as our national anthem plays. One of these days I will try to snap a picture to post. Mr. J and I also find it quite humorous to watch what people do on base when this plays (often times I am leaving work at this time). One time I saw this older civilian guy at the hospital try to run to his car so he didn't have to stand still. And although the main thought in mind is usually to get home asap after work, I do enjoy this time of quiet reflection and am thankful that I live in this great nation.

Speaking of the Air Force, I thought I would take a second to brag on my little brother. He joined the Air Force in 2004, right after he graduated high school (and Miss M was born). He was stationed in Wichita, KS (where he met and married his wonderful wife) and this year they got orders to England, where they get to travel and see awesome things (he took her to Paris for the 1st anniversary!). Anyways, while he has worked full time at his AF job, he has taken online classes and just a couple weeks ago graduated with his bachelor's degree! For the last few months he has been working on applying to a program that would allow him to become a Medical Service Corps (MSC) Officer. The civilian equivalent to this job would be a healthcare administrator. The application process has included interviews and essays and I am sure a lot of paperwork. Well, I got the very excited call from him this morning at 6:45 am that he got accepted! I am so proud of him! Way to Go!!! Below is a picture of them at their beautiful wedding.

Thanksgiving Pics

We had a great week with Mr. J's parents. Here are some pictures that Gma J just sent me. Enjoy!
This little dude is always ready to eat, so I think Thanksgiving might just be his favorite holiday.

Our table, complete with a ship, sweet turkey treats (see below) and hand written place cards done my Miss M!

A thanksgiving tradition, Spinach Dip by Aunt S, was a huge hit, especially of Tom, Deanna and Gpa J. It was so good, there was no leftovers!

Making 89 delicious rolls with Grandma. We still have some in the freezer! Yeah!

Making Sweet Turkey Treats with Gma J. My favorite part was their heads (made of whoppers!)

Miss M's flock.

Miss O's turkeys

Miss O was a big fan of Gpa J

Horsey Rides

P.S. My sister has a really funny blog post about our recent trip to the local Walmart (sorry Aunt S, I had to go, I needed a turkey baster really bad and the commisary and BX didn't have any). It's titled Vegas lesson #274 STICK WITH YOUR BUDDY. She also has a post with the recipe to her super delicous pecan tarts.

Survival Website

Hi Everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. We are doing pretty good. I am still fighting a cold. But everyone else is pretty much over it. We are looking forward to Mr. J's parents visit tomorrow. They fly in from Montana in the evening and we can't wait! We got to see them for one day this past summer at the Jones Family Fun Day, but other than that it has been since last January that we got to see them. Gma J has a fun craft planned for the kids (they are making Sweet Turkey Treats). She used to teach preschool and always has fun ideas. When she was here in January, the kids got to fingerpaint with chocolate pudding on the table! How fun! Her and Gpa J just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary. So if your reading this, happy anniversary! Below is a pic of them with all the grandkids (and Mr. J).

I wanted to tell you guys all about another very cool website. I might be a little biased but I think it's great. As many of you know, Mr J is in the air force. He works as a survival, evasion, resistance and escape (SERE) specialist. A few years ago, he had this idea to start a website having to do with survival stuff for both military and civilians. My friend Angie's husband gave him the name of a web program to use, and he has been teaching himself about web design so he could make this website. It is still a work in progress but it has got some great info on there. You should check it out. Also, I recently learned there is a television series on this cable channel called mojo hd all about the survival training school Mr. J. used to work at. It even features many of the guys Mr. J used to work with. You can watch some episodes online. If you go to here, there is a link to it. The address to Mr. J's website is www.serespecialist.com . Below are pics of Deanna and I back in July 05 pretending to be sere specialists at their training area in Washington. We had fun.
Deanna and her slingshot

Me and a kettle

And this is Mr. J, he is being a survivor here.

A new blogging friend

I thought I would let you all know that my great friend from Spokane, who recently moved to Germany, has started a blog!! It's called Memoirs from Narnia and you should check it out and send her some comment love. Here are some pictures of them I found on my computer.

The happy family leaving the hospital. Below is when Tuff and I flew to Spokane for her baby shower (thanks Angie!).

I also wanted to let everyone know that Shannon (my cousin's sis-in-law) who does "personalized blog fashion" is offering free seasonal backgrounds. They are at EightCrazy Designs and they are awesome. I need to figure out how to make my main picture smaller before I can put one on my site. But before Shannon did blog desigining, she made wedding invitations and programs for friends and she did ours! Maybe some day I will scan it so you can all see how beautiful it was.

Our sweet kids

Monopoly Night

Last night, Mr. J had a great idea... that we play a board game together as a family. The game we decided on was Monopoly. This might seem a little old for a 2 and 4 year old, but they actually loved it! They loved picking out their game piece (Miss M was the train and Miss O was the hat), organizing their money and rolling the dice. Their favorite part of the game was going to jail. For some reason, this was a lot of fun for them. They lasted about an hour, at that point we each took over a girls' stuff and continued on to the end. Of course, you need good snacks for a game night and we had chocolate mint cookie and caramel crunch chex mix... yum!