Allison had her 10th birthday. Double digits for her is a big deal! She has told us that her standing in the world is basically an adult now that she has two digits in her age. She is beyond excited to be able to say, “I am 10 years old!” Instead of the slightly less dignified, “I am basically 10.”
She originally approached me with a three day two night party plan with her closest 20 friends. After some negotiating we were able to get it narrowed down to something a little more manageable for her no fun mom. She helped plan a very good party for herself. She invited a few friends over to watch a gymnastics movie about mid afternoon and play some games. Then per her request we had Wendy’s for dinner. Of course their was blowing out candles and a cookie cake and opening presents. Then they went not just swimming, but swimming at the end of the day so it was dark and the pool lights were on. It is fun to swim in the dark.
After swimming they cleaned up and watched a movie outside in the driveway with lots of movie snacks. Then they goofed around in the basement until they fell asleep. The next morning we had donuts and juice for breakfast. After breakfast they all piled into the car for the last activity of the party, open gym at the gymnastics gym. When that was over everyone was pretty tired and went home to hopefully take a nap.
It was a fun group of girls, I think Allison had a fun time and loved celebrating herself. Her dad and I gave her a hover board which she was beyond excited about. She zips around all over the place with it.
Since school ‘ended’ after Spring Break in March, it has been a LONG break. I started working a few days a week in May and the kids are technically old enough to watch each other but to be blunt, they aren’t very good at it. Maybe because they aren’t old enough after all, or because like me their patience with each other is low after being together 24/7 for months. Whatever the reason, it was causing me some stress to come home to arguing kids that had eaten junk food all day, a destroyed house. Ryan’s boss has a daughter who is in college that was not supposed to be home but like everyone else, her plans were canceled when COVID started. We asked her if she would come over on the days that I work and help keep the peace and sanity of the kids. It has worked out great. The kids get up and get ready and do their jobs and then she comes over from 11-5 and takes them to the pool, or does things around the house with them. Matthew is more on his own and can do things with them or go hang out with friends. The girls love her though. They ask if Claire can come over everyday. I am glad it is working out for all of us.
After two years I am signing off as the Girl Scout Leader for Emilee’s troop. She is old enough for Primary Activity Girls now and enjoys going to that. I don’t have as much free time once all the kids activities get going too. We had one last activity together this past week to celebrate the year and their hard work selling cookies. I rented a big blow up water slide, set up the slip-n-slide and they played on those for a few hours. We had pizza for dinner and played some more. Then when it got dark we watched Aladdin on an outdoor screen in the back yard. It lasted about 7 hours. It was exhausting, but the girls had a blast. They were a really good group of girls. I had fun being the leader but I am ready to pass the torch.
Girl Scouts watching a movie in the back yard.
It seemed like things were slowly getting back to normal and school was scheduled to start August 12th. Then the Kansas Governor decided to make an announcement saying that she was issuing an executive order to post phone school starting until after Labor Day. I am not going to lie. It was a big mental blow for A LOT of people, and while she had her ‘reasons’ they seemed unfounded to me. The Kansas school board voted against her executive order, which meant each school district could decide when to start for themselves. The two biggest districts around us decided to just do what the Governor said so they could be better prepared. I am not sure what that means…did they not know they were going to start school on August 12th when they made the calendar and gave it to everyone?! Everyone seems to be sitting around waiting for someone to tell them what to do instead of making a decision and moving forward. Anyway, our school district is having a meeting soon so decide when we will start. It will be Aug 12th as planned, Aug 26th to allow ‘a little more preparing time’ or September 8th. I think if they delay it once they will just continue to delay it and dig the COVID recovery hole deeper and deeper. We need to start and get society and life back on track. A regular school schedule will help with that A LOT. Unless you think I am insensitive to the pandemic, I am not, I check the numbers, I know the risks, I am just in the opinion that we mitigate the risks (reasonably) and keep life moving.
We thought last year would be our final year in Lincoln Nebraska for July 4th. However, Roger and Rhonda dragged their feet and delayed long enough to get another one in. This one will be the last though because right before the weekend they bought a house in Olathe, right down the street from us actually. Then shortly after the weekend they listed their current house and it sold in less that 24 hours. They are set to move mid August and will be Kansans again.
The Fourth in Lincoln is always a great time though. I will miss our gatherings there. Neighbors all around us do amazing fireworks for hours and we get some good ones of our own. It is just a nice relaxing holiday. This year I asked Ryan to blast some patriotic music while we lit them off, that was inspiring.
It will be better to have a Grandma and Grandpa closer all year round though.
Spring baseball for Matthew didn’t end up starting until June, so it was more like REALLY HOT SUMMER BASEBALL but Matthew and the rest of the boys didn’t care. They just want to play and have fun. We did lots of tournaments and played League games so we were able to get plenty of games in. The girls have a good group of friends that they run around with during the games (other players younger siblings) so they love it just as much.
Matthew likes to wear silly socks to games and practices. These are the best ones.
If they aren’t playing they are watching.
Lots of practice in the garage.
We had a fun tournament scheduled in Branson Missouri in June. We decided to post phone until July to have more/better competition. Then to make a long story short a few lame parents were able to manipulate the head coach into canceling it all together. Instead of Branson Missouri we went to Liberty Missouri which is not the same, but we tried to make the best of it and planned some team activities to get the boys together on the days we were supposed to be in Branson. They had a sleep over with the whole team and basically stayed up all night. We went to a baseball museum and lunch at Chicken-n-Pickle were they could play pickle ball for an hour or so. We also scheduled a parent vs player whiffle ball game but that hasn’t happened yet because of weather.
Negro Baseball Hall of Fame Museum
The boys were playing hide n seek in the hotel and we found them and told them to go to bed at 11pm.
Recovering from the all night sleep over.
One of the highlights of this season for Matthew was his double that ended the game with a walk off. I made a little ‘news shot’ from the Game Changer recap of the game. I was the one keeping score and I know the score would actually be 4-3 since it was a walk off hit, but since he hit a double the App recorded both runners that came in. Anyway, it was an awesome hit and the boys were pretty excited to win.
Matthew just his a double and they won with a walk off.
Team running out to celebrate.
Yay! Matthew!
Walking off the field.
The parent that takes all the awesome pictures for us is moving so this is probably the last season she will take picture for us. After this the quality of pictures will change drastically because I am the one taking them. I am trying to improve my photography skills though.
Another big change for baseball is that Ryan and Coach Jimmy Adams didn’t like the way the 14 year old program is run so they have decided to leave NBA (the academy Matthew has played for the past three years) and do their own team for at least the next year. They are combining teams with another coach and are planning on having two teams that will practice together and mix and match through the Fall then be divided into more permanent teams in the Spring. Matthew will now be on a team called FBC (Fire Birds Baseball Club). We played a tournament with some of the boys on his new team this past weekend. There were a few bloopers because they had never played together but they ended up winning the tournament. Matthew is pretty excited, they will be a pretty competitive higher end AAA team. Ryan likes to say, “They will be a really salty team.” Once they practice with each other and get to know each other. I think it will be good for Matthew because instead of being closer to the top of the team talent, he is more mid range so he will have to challenge himself more to get better and have more kids to learn from.
This is a tournament that his new team FBC played and won together.
Emilee and Allison have a group of friends they hang out with during the game. The younger siblings of players group. They all have a good time together. At one of the last games, the boys dugout had some weird holes in it, probably for drainage, but the girls decided to make good use of them.
The last two league games for NBA were back to back. The first game was a blow out. The final score was 18 to 3 or something like that. One of their players ended up getting hurt and they didn’t have enough so we lent them one of our just so we could keep playing. The coaches let the boys try spots they usually don’t play, one player even tried batting left handed and got a double. Matthew got a chance at pitching, which he has been begging for all season. While he was warming up the score was 17-0 us, the catcher and him were joking around that hopefully their lead was big enough Matthew didn’t blow the game. He only gave up 3 runs though.
Matthew takes the mound
So excited he gets to pitch.
He did a pretty good job.
The last event of our season and time with the NBA-Adams team was a parent vs player wiffle ball game. It was a lot of fun. A lot of cheating from the parents, but a lot of fun. For example, after each hit I relocated second base to give us the advantage of them not knowing were the base was to get them out.
Our little Allison is getting less and less little everyday. We celebrated her 9th birthday this week.
For her birthday she wanted to have a sleepover with her cousin Leah and then go to the World’s of Fun and Ocean’s of Fun Amusement Park. We went for the first time last summer, she loved it so much she wanted to do it for her birthday.
She had her sleep over with Leah the night before her birthday. The morning of her birthday we picked up birthday donuts on the way to pick up Aunt Lauren and the rest of her cousins. When everyone was aboard we were off. We started in the World’s of Fun area. We rode the roller coasters, water rides, and as many of the other fun rides as they wanted before we were ready for lunch. Once we finished lunch we spent the rest of the day at Ocean’s of Fun. There was water slides, obstacle courses, and a wave pool that kept them happy and loving life for hours. Everyone played and swam until we were exhausted. On the way home we stopped at 5 Guys for a yummy dinner and then by the time we got home everyone was ready to go to bed.
For her present this year she wanted a new bed. She asked for a loft bed with a desk under it. While she was gone on her trip with Grandma and Grandpa Jones we got her bed and set it up for her. We got a few other things for her room so she had a fun knew room when she got home. She was pretty happy with the final product.
Leah spent the night again later that week. In the morning they woke up early and made menus, and a breakfast for everyone. When we came downstairs they handed us a menu to order our breakfast from then served us. It was pretty cute. They did a good job. She had a fun birthday. We did lots of fun things throughout the week to have a fun week in general.
I’m glad to have my girl back with us. We missed her and her spunky self.
9th Birthday
Allison likes to leave her Froggy in silly places. She made him a little Kleenex thrown.
These are pictures that the rafting company took for us while we were on our trip. We didn’t see all the animals pictured, I wish we had, but they were included in our picture package so I stuck them in here.
Since Ryan and I got married we have been switching off Christmas’s between our families each year. When we all started having our own kids some of us wanted and/or thought it was easier to stay home for Christmas so a few years back my family decided to start having a biannual family reunion in the summer as our ‘Christmas’ get together. It is a little easier to travel in the summer, a less crazy time of year, and we all seem to be more summer activity people than winter. It has worked out pretty well I think. We get a VRBO cabin or home that is big enough for all of us and we all stay and play in it for the week. We have picked different locations each time too which is also very fun to travel and see new places.
The first year we did Castle Rock Colorado. It was a fun place. Tyler kept telling us there was a monster in his room one night and we kept telling him to go to bed, there was no monster. Then we found out there was a bat flying around in his room…basically a monster to a little kid. We then spent over an hour trying to eradicate the bat. I went on a hike with the Caziers and my kids and we almost got washed off the mountain in a flash rain storm. We also rode horses and did some target shooting.
Two years later we went to Orlando Florida. The house we stayed at had its own pool and a huge community pool with a lazy river. Matthew swam for seven hours one day and ended up getting swimmers ear. He said it was totally worth it though. We also went to Disney World, Sea World, and spent a day at the beach along with all the swimming.
The third reunion we picked Gatlinburg Tennessee. It was a unique place. The house we stayed at was not as big as advertised so we were a little cramped. We also ended up with about 50% of us getting a stomach bug so there was way to much throwing up going on. Emilee even dumped her puke bucket full of puke all over the van, that was fun to drive home in. We still squeezed in some fun though. We did a lot of sight seeing in Gatlinburg. We went on a helicopter ride. All of us played at the rec swimming pool, and some played racquetball. Some of us went to the Dolly Parton Country Stampede dinner show. The dinner of soup potatoes, a whole chicken, corn, and dessert was all served with no silverware. The kids thought it was great to eat everything with their hands. We also did hiking, zip lining, and white water rafting. Lots of fun new activities.
This year we ended up back in Colorado. This time we went a little more north to Oak Creek. It is pretty close to Steamboat Springs Colorado. The name of the cabin we stayed at was Maverick Hollow.
After last time we made sure we had a home with enough rooms and bathrooms for each family to have their own private area. We left Sunday morning from DeAnna’s house after my Grandpa’s birthday party the day before. The cabin was pretty remote. There were other cabins around but I didn’t really see anyone else while we were there. You couldn’t see any other homes from our cabin. We all arrived and got settled on Sunday by about six. We made a big breakfast dinner (kind of a tradition) to eat together that night. Pancakes, hash browns, eggs, and bacon. The cabin was 5900 square feet so there was lots of room. There was a big loft too that most of the older kids slept in each night. We finished the night off with a fire and smores.
Most of the days we started with a walk/hike around the cabin with anyone that wanted to go and explore a little. We did that on Monday. There were lots of beautiful wild flowers. We saw bear tracks, deer tracks, lots of chipmunks and ground hogs. We only got lost the first day too. After our hike and breakfast we played some games then everyone got ready to go to the Stagecoach Reservoir, about a 15 minute drive away. Matthew explained to me that he was excited to go to the reservoir and swim because usually they are man made so there is not any fish to worry about touching when you are swimming. I smiled and let him swim without fear of a slimy fish touching him. He also didn’t notice the “fishing areas” and “fishing license sold here” signs on the way to the swim area. We rented a paddle board, and the Caziers rented a canoe so we played on those and swam the afternoon away. After we got home, showered, and ate dinner, we had a Family Home Evening together. It is another tradition we have done each time. Grandma and Grandpa taught us a lesson about recognizing miracles in our lives and ways that Heavenly Father helps us daily. When the kids were put to bed that night the adults did a white elephant party. This is another tradition we do each time we get together. There is a nice blend of ridiculous, silly, and semi-usefulness with the gifts. Ryan and I found our gifts at the Limon Colorado gas station gift store. It was a gold mine.
Food shopping for the cabin
Waking up from a nap on the way to the cabin.
Coming into the Oak Creek area.
Smores time!
Flowers on our walk
FHE Minute to Win it Game
View from our room.
Hiking.
I used Matthew’s shirt as a hat…looks ridiculous but was effective.
Hannah and Allison on the paddle board.
Dad got a surprise re-gift from the previous year.Mom got a love your selfie cat mug.
DeAnna got her big glasses and fancy suspenders. John got chocolate bacon and a cow pie frisbee.
Matthew got popcorn and spam, Ryan got ugly teeth and funny glasses. I got a cherry pitter and a decorative basket.
Kenny got a cat puzzle and twix, Sherri got a children’s book and toy.
Tuesday we went to Steamboat and tried out one of the Alpine slides. Everyone went down except my parents, my mom had fallen down the stairs the night before and hurt her knee. The first time I went down with Tyler. He was a little nervous at first but had a fun time once we got going. The second time I went down on my own and raced Matthew. We switched back and forth going down but he ended up winning by a smidge (a small smidge) at the end. After the slide we all ate lunch together at Qdoba. We ate at a Qdoba several times as we were traveling. It is now one of my favorite restaurants. Another great place we tried was Which Wich. One of the best sandwiches I have ever had. We wandered around Steamboat a little after lunch. We found a fun little stream to play in a little and cool our feet off. It was freezing cold but it felt wonderful. That night after dinner we all played games and hung out together. Ryan and John played a few of their more involved several hours long games. The rest of us played Bananas, Cobra Paw, Avalon, Bonanza, and a few other quicker games. We had smores again that night. My dad also heard something early that morning and when he looked out the window saw 5-6 deer just outside our cabin. He found a salt lick that someone had set out for them so every morning and evening the deer would come to get the salt lick. It was pretty awesome. We saw a lot of deer while we were there on walks, drives, and at our cabin. They were almost easy to find.
Playing Bananas.
Deer coming for the salt lick
Emi watching the deer.
Sherri and I eating our smores and ignoring the deer.
Matthew didn’t care about being wet in his clothes, the water felt to good.
Cooling off in the stream.
Driving back from one of the fun filled days in Colorado.
Wednesday the Caziers minus Hannah and Tyler, and my parents went on a hike. The rest of us went to Kremmling to go white water rafting. My mom was going to come with us but her knee was still hurting so she thought a hike would be better then bouncing around in a raft. It was about an hour and 10 minute drive. The first half was a dirt road with gorgeous views and steep drop offs. Two huge elk jumped across the road in front of Kenny and went straight down the almost sheer cliff on the other side. It was pretty cool to watch them. Once we got to Kremmling I went to check us in and found out we were not rafting that day. We were rafting the next day. Grrrr! It was pretty annoying. We decided to go back to Steamboat and go tubing down the river there. It was more driving but we were able to make it before they closed for the day. Kenny and Aubry didn’t go because they said Aubry was to little. We should have just brought her anyways though, it was not that bad. It was a lot faster than any other tubing adventure I had gone on. Tyler got stuck in a ‘washing machine’ which terrified him while he was in it but when Ryan bumped him out he thought it was pretty awesome. We did a little souvenir shopping after that. Matthew got giant bear paw slippers. Emilee got a backpack with a little peak hole for a fox, deer, bear, and moose to poke their heads out. Allison got a stuffed animal- a guinea pig, now named Snuggles. Ryan and I each got a t-shirt. That night we played more games and hung out at the cabin when everyone got home from their hike or long round about drive to go tubing instead of rafting.
Thursday the Caziers and my parents decided that they were going to the Hot Springs Pool in Steamboat. Hannah wanted to do that instead of try rafting again with us so she went with them. They had a great time. They had several different pools to swim in that ranged from a warm pool, to bath water, to nice and toasty. The Cazier’s are pretty thin people so I think the warm water helped them maintain their body heat better than a regular pool so they loved it and swam all day. There was also some fun slides. My dad had a fun time but prefers regular cold pool water to swim in instead of a hot springs. Our cabin was on a vault system so we had to be careful with our water usage so they all took advantage of a nice long shower at the pools too.
Allison woke up with a stomach bug early that morning so Ryan and her stayed home from rafting and the rest of us headed to Kremmling again. Since our numbers dropped from 10 to 7 we decided to switch cars around a bit so we could take one instead of two. My parents took Kenny’s car and we took their van. The weather was a little over cast that day so it was a little chilly but we still had a great time. We went down a stretch of the Colorado River with class II-III rapids. Our guide brought along a five gallon bucket and several water guns. He was very good at instigating water fights with other rafts and guides and getting us wet. Everyone had fun going down the rapids. After the first one Aubry decided to put her head down on the raft while we went through the rapids. She preferred the smoother parts of the river. She also had no problem yelling, “Stop it! I do not like that!” when people splashed her. Overall I think she had fun. A little past half way through the trip they stopped at a place called Jump Rock. If you were over 90 pounds you could jump off the 25 foot cliff. If you were under 90 pounds you could jump off a shorter 10 foot cliff. Matthew and Emilee both gave the shorter one a try. They said it was the coldest water they had ever been in. I wish we hadn’t had to drive over an hour to get their twice to go rafting but we had a fun time.
Bus ride to or from the river.
Passing around water guns. Tyler loved squirting them.
Climbing around a little at Jump Rock.
Having fun together!
Our guides name was Christian. He fit the profile of a river guide perfectly.
Waiting to get in our raft.
Emilee on ‘Little Jump Rock’
Matthew on ‘Little Jump Rock’
Emilee being the hood ornament for our raft.
Aubry taking her position after seeing the next rapid coming.
Heading over to jump.
On the drive home most of us dozed off while Kenny drove. About two minutes before we got home to our cabin a car passed us and stirred up some dust, as Kenny was driving through the dust a deer ran in front of him. He slammed on the brakes which locked them up and we started to slide/fishtail on the dirt road towards the edge. Sherri and I woke up when he hit the brakes in time to see the van heading off the road straight for a tree. Kenny turned the wheel and hit the gas to pull us out of the ditch before we slid completely off the road and to avoid hitting the tree straight on. The van turned enough that instead of hitting the tree it side swiped us and ripped off the side mirror and crunched the side of the car and shattered the back window that Matthew was sleeping on. This all happened in about three seconds. My first thought when I saw we were sliding was a prayer that we were not heading over a sheer cliff like most of the ride home was and if we were the trees would be strong enough to hold us. Once we settled and I realized we were still on the road and not seriously hurt we took stock of everyone. Sherri and I were fine, Kenny was shaken up a bit and in shock. Aubry was crying but not hurt. Matthew, Emilee and Tyler were all sitting in the back seat were the window had shattered so they had glass all over them. Tyler bit his lip and it was bleeding. Emilee was not hurt. Matthew was next to the window and probably hit his head on it. He had glass all over him head to toe. Luckily his eyes were closed (one of the first things he said was, “I think Heavenly Father made me fall asleep so my eyes didn’t get hurt.”) so none of the glass got in his eyes, he had a couple cuts on his forehead and elbow. The car still worked fine so once Kenny settled a little he drove the last two minutes to the cabin. When we got there Tyler and Aubry hopped out like nothing had happened. Emilee had to go shower to rinse all the glass off her. Matthew started to go into shock a little bit. He started to shake and cry. We helped him out and got him showered and fixed up and then he was already saying he had a cool story to tell his friends. It put a damper on our evening for sure. Kenny felt awful for the accident and the headache my parents now had to deal with since it was their rental car. We were all glad that everyone was safe and no one was hurt except the car. Being in an accident is scary, and if you are the driver it makes you feel even worse because you are responsible for everyone in the car. I told Kenny I was glad he was driving though because he stayed calm and new what to do to keep everyone as safe as possible. The van could have gone completely off the road, it could have rolled, it could have been a lot worse. We all said a prayer of thanks for our safety and I am sure there were many individual prayers said as well. My parents took the news pretty well. They were glad everyone was safe first off. My dad seemed to handle it well and said it would all work out when he saw the van. My mom looked like she switched from wanting to throw up, to wanting to cry several times before she processed it all.
After everyone was home and we settled down from the accident and had dinner and visited about the positive parts of our day, we decided to have one more fire and smores night. We took some group pictures too. We should have taken them the first day when we were clean and fresh but we went for a more natural, week in the woods look.
You can never have to many smores!
Me and My Punkin!
10 of 13 Grandkids.
After a week in the woods we still look good!
View from our other bedroom window.
These two always find a place to play catch.
The Jones Clan, minus John, Rachel, Kylie, and Aiden.
Friday was checkout day. My parents left first to get to the Denver airport early to turn in their now smashed passenger side van. Kenny and Sherri left next. Sherri and Aubry were flying on the same flight as my parents back to Florida. They got home about 11pm Friday. Kenny ended up driving their rental back because there was a mix up with the one way rental and they were going to charge them a ridiculous amount of money. He is extremely adverse to flying and usually finds one reason/excuse or another to not have to fly. Intentionally or not instead of flying, he drove from Colorado to Florida with only a brief stop to sleep for a few hours at our house. He got home at 4am Sunday morning. The Cazier’s left the same time we did. They got home about 7pm that night to Utah. We didn’t get home until almost 2 in the morning. Stopping to charge the Tesla adds a few hours. Allison was still sick on our way home so she was a trooper traveling 14 hours in a car with a stomach bug. Much to all of our delight after the first three hours she stopped throwing up and just wanted to sleep the rest of the time.
Emilee will create a little home for herself full of stuffed animals, anywhere she goes. 🙂
Just told them we still have three hours to go.
Just like that we all go from being together in a remote Colorado cabin to being back to our homes in Utah, Florida and Kansas in a few short hours. (A few more hours for Kenny but crossing more than half the United States in less than 2 days is pretty crazy) It was a very nice week. I am already looking forward to the next reunion in two years, wherever it ends up being. I am glad that my family enjoys being together and we make the effort to see each other when we can since we live no where near each other. Hopefully next time John and Rachel will be able to make it and we will have everyone together.
My Grandpa Jones turned 90 this month! That is pretty awesome. There was a weekend celebration held in his honor. Friday night was a dinner with his kids and their spouses. Saturday was a party in his back yard with games, water, cotton candy, and snow cones. One of the games they had set up was called Nine Square In The Air. It is a really fun game. It is perfect for a large group too. Nine people play at a time, it is fast paced so you don’t have to wait long, and we had people age 5 to 65 playing. Saturday night there was a dinner with everyone and then we took pictures. It was fun to see everyone and visit. Almost all of my Aunts, Uncles, and cousins were there. My brother John and his family and my Uncle Jareds three kids were the only people not there.
My Grandma and Grandpa Jones
Aubry isn’t quite ready for her picture.
That’s better!
Grandpa talking to us before we all ate dinner together.
Nine Square in the Air, and other fun activities.
Endless cotton candy and snow cones.
Emilee ran into a bear on our way to Utah.
They became friends though.
Doing a word search with dad on our way across the midwest.
We left our house Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Oakley Utah Friday night. We stayed at Sam and Tiana’s house. They were both in the same mission as Ryan. We try and stop and see them every couple years. They have a little boy named Charlie that Emilee quickly became buddies with. We visited and had pizza and the next morning they took us to ride horses before we left for DeAnna’s. We stopped at DeAnna’s for a few minutes before we all headed to the birthday party. We got to see Allison for the first time in three weeks! It was good to see her and everyone else. Afterwards DeAnna hosted all of us at her house for the evening and then we woke up and headed to Colorado for our bi-annual Jones get together.
Riding horses at Sam and Tiana’s house.
My Aunt Kristin took pictures of everyone that was there after the dinner. She has a photography business that she does called Any Angle Photography. She is pretty good!
My dad’s parents and all seven of their children.
Four generations of the Richard and Annie Jones Family
We had a really fun busy July this summer! We spent a lot of it traveling which is the best thing to do when you live in Kansas in July-visit somewhere else.
The few days we were here we filled with summer activities. Emilee’s friend Laney asked her to do the school basketball camp with her. This picture is right after we signed them in. From there, Laney went on to have a great time. Emilee was all down hill from there. She spent the first half huddled in the fetal position refusing to even look at anyone. Then she sat with her group. The last ten minutes she finally participated and had a good time but said she would not come back for the rest of the week. She stuck to her guns on the not coming back part and I decided I didn’t care. I think it was mostly because camp started at 8:15 and she was exhausted from being at Grandma Terry’s the whole week before. She has also decided that basketball is not her thing, at least for now. Ryan is highly concerned she is wasting her natural athleticism and height. I keep telling him she is only six and has plenty of time to decide to like playing sports.
Matthew had a bunch of his rained out baseball games to make up so we squeezed all those in July. Not the best time to play baseball but still had fun. This is a video I got of him getting jiggy to the music during warm ups.
We had another trip to Harvesters planned. Allison was going to go with a group of her friends but she was on her trip so Matthew invited some of his baseball buddies. Emilee requested to stay home with a babysitter. We repacked over 5000 pounds of sausage that was given by Pizza Hut.
After Harvester’s they all came back to our house and we had a sleepover. We were planning on going to the pool but the collection of four boys brains decided to put dish soap all over the trampoline and then add a sprinkler and bam! You have four boys thoroughly entertained for hours on end until I dragged them off to go to baseball practice.
The French’s stayed at our house for a day or so on their way to Utah. Emilee has always been enamored with her Uncle Kenny and usually has to be told to remember that he has a space bubble. She is often found lounging across his lap or wrapped around his neck. I took these pictures in a two minute time span shortly after they arrived. What a nice uncle he is to her. We reviewed space bubbles after I took these.
Allison’s summer was supposed to be full of gymnastics and cheerleading. When she broke her arm the first day of summer her main two activities were cancelled until further notice. Of course, she was a little bummed. Not having a water proof cast the first 6 weeks put a big damper on her main third summer activity-swimming-as well.
My parents were moving to Florida in June and between the move they decided to spend a month visiting us in Kansas, spending the 4th in Florida, then going to Utah to see DeAnna, my dad’s family, and Idaho to see my mom’s family. Then finishing their trip off with our bi-annual Jones Family reunion in Colorado. They invited Allison to come along with them when they left our house. She thought about it for about two seconds when I asked her and said she was in. She was thrilled to have her own thing to do for the summer. Right before she left she got a new cast that was below her elbow and water proof. She was pretty pumped.
My mom flew from my house to Florida and my dad drove with the last of their stuff in the car. Allison went with him to keep him company and they had a fun little road trip together. After the Fourth of July in Florida with the French’s they all flew out to Utah and drove to the rest of the places they went from there. Allison had a great time. She loved being the ‘only child’ for a change and having Grandma and Grandpa to herself a lot. She also loved getting to see her cousins and spend a little more time than usual with them. She became pretty good buddies with Hannah especially. She loved helping out with her little cousins too. She played with Aubry a lot in Florida and became pals with her. She got really good at carrying Joseph around and loved a chance to help out with a baby. She had a very fun time and was glad that she went with her Grandparents. She got a little home sick sometimes but snuggles with Grandma, or a hug from her Aunts helped fight it off. We called each other often as well. The amount of witty comments dropped drastically at our house with her gone. We missed her and were glad to get her back with us.
Swimming with Cazier’s
On the plane from Florida to Utah. It was very early in the morning.
Hannah and Allison
Hannah, Peter, Allison, Tyler, and Michael.
She lost a tooth while she was gone but saved it for the tooth fairy at her own house.
