Hiking with Daddy

Mr. J took the kids hiking on Monday while I worked. They went to Red Rock, west of Las Vegas and hiked in Ice Box Canyon. Yes, I think if they had a daddy of the year award, he should win it. He dressed the kids, packed food and a diaper bag and off they went. They had to stop at Costco first (to get an external hard drive to copy files from our desk top.. we are having virus issues). That alone would be enough for me with the three kids, but from there he took them to Red Rock where they hiked about 3/4 miles up the trail and then back. Miss M told me that part of the way back, daddy carried them all and she said the other hikers were there thought that was really cool. He puts one in the front pack, one in the back pack and one on his shoulders. The kids said they had a great time and wanted to go again today. Below are some pics Mr. J took with the new camera. We have really learned to enjoy the beauty of the southwest. If you click on the pictures, they will get bigger and are quite beautiful.

Aren't the red rocks beautiful with the snow on them?

At the trail head

Sweet girls

Silly girls Mr. T ready to go, notice the Gonzaga hat. Like father, like son.

Going along the trail Lunch time!

Always a favorite part of the hike
Mr. J says these are juniper berries

Another pretty view of the rocks

Christmas Day

We had a nice relaxing Christmas day at home with Deanna and Tom. It has been the first Christmas I can remember that we have not traveled anywhere. Although we missed seeing everyone, we did enjoy our time together. Tom and Deanna were in charge of Christmas dinner and made a wonderful prime rib, new potatoes and peas and raspberry pretzel salad. It was all delicious!

The kids spent the day playing (in between sneezing.. they are all getting colds). I also did a lot of reading to them of the new books they got. This year we got them the set Big Thoughts for Little Thinkers by Answers in Genesis. I highly recommend these to anyone with preschoolers. The book explains big concepts in a language the kids can understand. I love the way the book defines sin. It says "When you try to be happy without God, you do bad things called "sin." " Isn't that so true? They make for great conversations with the kids.

Deanna and I cooked throughout the day and the guys worked out in the garage a little (Mr. J is making the kids bunk beds) and raced their new remote control hummers, after the kids went to bed we enjoyed fancy hot cocoa and a game of Monopoly (where Deanna creamed us all). Overall it was a super great day!
The guys raced the cars around the island in the kitchen, Tuff was one of the obstacles they had to get around.

Tuff finally caught a car

The race was getting close

Mr. J's strategy was to chase his car around the island. It was hilarious The cheerleading squad

Merry Christmas from Miss O

The kids spent time talking to grandparents on the phone...

Tom enjoying the delicious spinach dip (made with Knorr's Vegetable soup, served in a sour dough bowl... the only way to go). Thank Aunt S for getting us hooked!

My mouth is watering just looking at this pic, I think we will have to make it again for New Years.

Deanna posed for this picture because she likes to joke that the only reason we have her over is to do the dishes. That is not true! We also like to eat the delicious food she makes.. hahaha.

Christmas Morning

The kids slept in on Christmas until 8:30... their little gift to us. After a breakfast of cereal (I was so tired the night before, I fell asleep before I had a chance to make overnight rolls, our usual Christmas morning tradition. Maybe I will make that for New Years morning) we did stockings and some presents. We only opened about half of them in the morning because the kids were so excited to play with what they had opened, they weren't all that interested in opening more. Mr. T would have been happy with the first thing he opened and he didn't really like that we took it away from him to open more.
Miss M
Miss O

Mr. J took the kids shopping earlier this week to pick out presents for each other and for me. I got silly owl slippers from Miss O and Miss M had already picked out a present for me using some of her AWANA bucks at the AWANA store... it was a pastel yellow hairbrush and accessories,... very sweet!

The favorite part of the gift giving was what the girls picked out for each other. Miss M got Miss O a McDonalds cash register that has been a huge hit. The pic above is Mr. T admiring it. Miss M was very excited to learn that daddy really used to work at McDonalds when he was in high school.
Miss O picked out Miss M a Fancy Nancy crown and fake earrings. This has gotten a lot of wear in the last couple of days.

Christmas Eve part 2

Here are a few more pictures from Christmas Eve Aunt Nanny and Uncle Tom.

Miss O's hippo jammies.

Miss M's kitten jammies

Cutie pie Mr. T. His jammies had a dump truck or something on them
Me and Baby Girl.. she sure has been growing. I can tell because I have started to get heart burn. Ah well, it's a small price to pay for a sweet little blessing.

Jones Family Christmas Eve

What we did for Christmas Eve

• Delicious dinner at our favorite Vegas Thai restraunt, Pin Kaow (specifically the Lake Mead/Rainbow location) the service and food are excellent! Favorites include Pineapple Fried Rice (Mr. J), Red Curry Chicken (Mrs. J), Appetizer Beef Satay (all), Sticky Rice (girls), Thai iced tea (me). With Deanna and Tom and Mr. J's newest troop and wife.
• Wonderful Christmas eve service at Grace with singing and a great message about why we celebrate Christmas. We got there 10 minutes late so we sat up in the balcony with Deanna and Tom and another family with little ones. The kids had a lot of fun singing and watching from up high. Favorite songs of the night: Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Breath of Heaven/Mary's Song, O Come All Ye Faithful
• Story and New Jammies: Growing up we always had a tradition of reading The Night Before Christmas (regular and cajun style) and then opening up brand new pajamas. Since we don't really do much Santa at our house (even though the kids know all about him and like to sing santa songs) and we don't have a copy of The Night Before Christmas (although I would love to get a copy of the Cajun one)... we read What God Wants for Christmas which is a book that comes with an interactive kid-friendly nativity scene. There are 7 boxes the kids open and a corresponding poem/story that goes with each one. I highly recommend this to any one with preschool age kids! The kids love it. After that, we opened our new jammies and all went to bed. The kids slept so well.. they slept in until 8:30 (which is unheard of in our house)... and so that was probably the best gift we could have received from them.
  
  
  

  

  

Spokane House Update

As many of you know, we own a beautiful home in Spokane. We built it in 2005 and loved living in it. When we moved here almost two years, we tried selling it without success. So, we rented it to an air force couple. Unfortunately, they moved out in August and it has been empty ever since. Today we found out there are some people very interested in renting it starting in January. Please pray that this will work out and they be good renters! We would love to not have to pay for two houses. Another praise is that when the rental manager was showing the house, they found a broken pipe in the garage that was spraying water. They figured it must have just burst because there was no damage or flooding! Praise God cause this could have been pretty bad. Thankfully, the water got turned off and the pipes will get fixed promptly.

Although this house has been a burden at times, we have learned so much about trusting God though this process. So much of the home selling/renting process is out of our control but everything happens in God's perfect timing.

Anniversary Weekend

On Dec. 20th, Mr. J and I celebrated our 6th anniversary! Due to the proximity to Christmas and Miss O's birthday, we have only been able to "get away" on one other anniversary. This year, thanks to my wonderful sis and bro, we had another opportunity to. We didn't want to drive too far, but we did want to get out of Vegas, so we chose a smaller city in southern Utah called St. George. It's north of the base about an hour and a half and there is no bad traffic to drive though (if we would of picked some place south of us, it would have taken a good hour to get all the way through Vegas traffic)! We left around 11 am on Friday

We drove Deanna's car so they could have the van and they had it stocked with snacks and our favorite beverages... chocolate milk and starbucks.

We had lunch at Olive Garden and then did a little Christmas shopping for the kids at the outlets and Target before checking in to our hotel room. We stayed at the Hampton Inn and it was super nice. For some reason, our reservations got bumped up to the King Honeymoon Suite!! They also discounted out original room rate (maybe because we are military?) so we ended up spending 50 dollars less and getting a really nice room. The customer service was great and we would definitely stay there again.

View of our room from the kitchen area.

Our huge bed, and behind the glass to the left was a huge whirlpool tub!

We drove around a bit to see the beautiful snowy mountains. We also enjoyed a delicious dinner at Red Lobster in St. George. We found the people of St. George that we encountered thought it was kind of funny that we would leave Vegas to come there to get away and do some shopping, because they usually go to Vegas to do that.

The red rock mountains with snow on them were very beautiful.

On Saturday, the 20th, we had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel (their pancakes are delicious!) and then went to the Rosenbruch Wildlife Museum where we got to see "over 300 species over a quarter mile indoor mountain." It was actually really interesting and educational.

When we got home that afternoon, I received a special delivery... roses

Here is an ornament on our tree we got on our first Christmas that we were dating in 1999.

We had a great weekend and I am so happy to be married to such a wonderful man. I pray God gives us 10 times this many years together!