Bugs and Walks and Friends

 Monday evening, I was getting ready to go for a walk and found, to my delight, that both Eileen and Anna wanted to join me!  We walked a usual route, but we took almost twice as long to walk it as usual because we kept stopping to check out the wildlife.  We found a cute little toad, and a bunch of bugs and spiders.  We found this really neat app that lets you learn about the flora and fauna around you - so we were trying to take pictures of everything.  Then Eileen and I introduced Anna to the Portsmouth Sinfonia - which is an orchestra where everyone is intentionally playing instruments that they are unfamiliar with - so the music is intentionally and hilariously awful!  Plus the comments on the you tube videos are just gold.  So we laughed and giggled the whole way.  It was a wonderful way to spend an evening!  

We had some fun trying a new reciepe for butter chicken and it came out REALLY yummy!!  

Anna has of course been busy with cross country and marching band.  Anna and Evelyn had piano lessons on Tuesday and we otherwise mostly spent our week quietly.  I am hopefully approaching the end of my doctor drama.  I found another endocrinologist, and set up an appointment - unfortunately the soonest one is not for another 3 weeks.  Hopefully this one works out - I really don't want to have to deal with trying to figure all this out in a different state - a state which probably doesn't have any doctors that take our insurance....

Evelyn has been devouring her way though the Harry Potter books.  Unfortunatly at some point, the kids lost our book 6 - so we make a special trip to the library to borrow that one for her.  We let her stay up a bit later than usual to watch the first movie.  James hates it when anyone gets to do or have something that he doesn't get, so he threw a fit, but she loved it.  

This is what walks with Eileen and I invariably look like....  There are a couple tarantula burrows here and we could see the tarantula in his den! 

On Saturday, Dan and Aaron went to help some friends move, then invited them over for dinner - we had plenty (even after taking some over to the neighbors who just had their ADORABLE little girl Jada on Wednesday!!!)  Then I took Eileen and Anna with me to help with the cleaning up.  We invited them over again for Sunday dinner and they took us up on it again.  It was so nice to have friends over again and to get to just sit and chat with other adults!  Besides which - the Findley's are just awesome people and we're going to miss them.  

David loves to hunt flies - and when he does he goes prepared with sword and shield - yes - his sandal on his hand is his shield and he always has it there when he goes fly hunting...

David is so cute and loves to help out when we are cleaning up to get ready for showings - he really wanted to help vacuum the floor for us.  

We hadn't had any showings all week and had been kinda depressed by it, so we have been praying - Dan and I are both ready to be out of the holding pattern and into movement and progressing.  We had two showings today - one in the early afternoon - we drove down to the library to drop off books - and one in the evening when we were able to go and say goodbye to one of Dan's seminary students before he leaves on his mission.  The kids had a blast and even Koopa (who had to come be with us out of the house too) was well behaved.  We got home and got kids to bed, played a game and then I started on a massive batch of Creme Brulee - but I had to use a different cooking method since our double broiler wouldn't hold the whole thing - and getting the temperature up to the right place with out overcooking it took FOREVER - so now I'm exhausted and ready for bed!   

Showings, Showings and more Showings

We've had a busy week!  This picture of me is from less than 3 weeks post surgery - and the scar is hardly noticeable already!  I had a doctors appointment on Monday - the last one with the ENT and he was amazed at how well it had healed up.  For that matter, so am I!  

The kids found a mantis out on our trampoline - Eileen is a bug whisperer.  

We had tons of showings this week.  Which is great - especially if it leads to an offer, but it's a pain.  We spent a lot of time going to the pool and the library.  We had 7 showing total.  

Saturday, we went down to my parents house - both because we needed to be out of our house for showings and for my Dad's birthday.  We brought angel food cake and lunch and had a fun time together.  David has gotten to LOVE jumping in the water now.  And he usually prefaces his jumps with dances and faces and growling and it's hilarious!  

Happy 75th Dad!!  

Today was a hot and beautiful Texas summer morning.  We headed to church and I got to play organ again and we had a wonderful talk from our high council speaker.  As part of his talk he listed the many changes that have taken place in recent years and I was struck anew by how so many of the changes have been a blessing for us during the pandemic!  It's so wonderful to see how the Lord is looking out for us!  He also told a story about his daughter quitting thumb-sucking and how when it was hard for her, she would ask her mom or dad for help, he then likened it to us turning to our Heavenly Father when things are hard.  It was beautiful!  

In the evening, it started storming and pouring - a full on Texas sized storm.  So the kids got on swimsuits and went out and had a blast!  David (and mom and Eileen) didn't last too long before we got too cold, but it was still a blast!  

Dan has been on a cooking bender - this week he made cookies, salsa, angel food cakes, a giant heart shaped cookie and more.  

 

Evelyn has been playing Five Crowns all week - multiple times a day.  She loves this game - Dan and I are getting a bit tired of it.... so we forced her to give us a day off from it.  :)  She mostly did.  She just played with her brothers instead.  Dan and I have mostly got a house that we want in OR, but we still need our house to sell first, so we wait....  It seems like real estate agents in Texas take the Sabbath off - which has been nice not having to worry about showings today.  

Houses and Dates and Food, Oh My!

 We've had a busy week this week.  I'm ok for going in the pool again, so we've been going to the pool a lot this week - it's been pretty empty there which has been nice.  

Whenever Eileen wants her hair up and off her face and neck, she gets me to do her hair.  I'm not very good, but I have fun braiding her hair and trying to get it to look nice.  This was one of the attempts this week.  The funny thing is that she then takes it out when she showers in the evening, and I'm usually doing the braid after dinner time, so it's not in very long, but I like being able to serve her and show her I love her since she hates hugs.  :)  

Aaron and James were having fun trying to build houses of cards - David tried to help for a bit too - but he wasn't much help.  :)  Aaron managed a decently impressive one - certainly a whole lot bigger than I could ever manage!  James did a pretty amazing job too, but it crashed before I could get a picture :(  

David loves to play games with us, but of course, he has no concept of the rules and needing to play by rules.  Which can make it an adventure.  If he's in a good mood - it's fun and a bit silly - when he's not in a good mood... well  it's not worth the trouble.  

Thursday night, Dan and I went out on a date for our anniversary.  We met up with some friends at Fogo de Chao for dinner and had a lot of fun!  Before, we stopped off at my parents house and dropped off a chicken Dan had smoked the day before and some fried rice.  We chatted for a bit before we had to go.  

This little guy is such a ham!  He is just adorable and a ton of fun (unless he's tired and grumpy!)  He also loves to eat - especially breakfast.  He eats multiple breakfasts over the course of the morning and then he eats snacks - it's no wonder that he barely eats any lunch.  

On Saturday we learned that we had a showing in the afternoon, so we spent the morning and early afternoon cleaning up and vacuuming and getting the kids ready to take them out.  Then we headed to the library.  While having to be out of our house, we had a couple video viewings of other houses in OR to look at.  We still haven't seen something that we are in love with yet, but hopefully we will be able to find something when we are ready to take action.  

The viewing on our house seemed to go well - we got positive feedback and we are anticipating an offer tomorrow.  We've been waiting and suspended in being able to take any real action - it's kinda crazy to think that things could suddenly be moving very fast.  

We had to get the kids registered for school here this week - we opted for online school for all the kids.  School is supposed to start here on Aug 26th, but it's not supposed to start until September in OR.  

Church today was wonderful.  We talked about the story of Isaac and Rebekah and about temples.  One thing about this Covid-19 craziness is that I feel it has brought our family even closer together!  

I've had an awful time trying to get doctor's appointments set up.  I was told by my ENT who did my surgery that I needed to see an endocrinologist - so I finally had an appointment set up on Friday to see one - when I got there, they were still trying to figure out what our insurance would cover, and said that if they didn't figure it out by the end of my appointment, then I would have to pay out of pocket - but they couldn't tell me how much it would cost out of pocket.  I wanted to wait for the insurance, but they said they couldn't wait any longer, so I walked out and we found another one - but I can't get in to see them until a week from Monday - which means I'm stuck being tired on insufficient meds for at least another week+.  

I've gotten back to working out this week - it's been good, but I'm sore!!  

Doctors and Such

Monday, we got the house all ready to be photographed for the listing, then we headed down to swim at my parents house.  We got there just in time for me to leave for my doctor's appointment which went pretty well - the stitches came out - which I wasn't expecting, but the doc says it's healing really well!  

We've had a mostly chill week - the kids did some swimming and we've played lots of games, and we've tried really hard to keep the house cleaned up.  We found a new home for our bunny since he can't move with us.  Evie was bummed, but she was ok since she knew it would go to a good home.  

Dan promised Anna before we left on our trip that she could have her own birthday cake when we got back, so he made her an angel food cake and we had some yummy cake!  David insisted that we had to sing Happy Birthday to her - we couldn't just cut into the cake and eat it with out singing!  

David is loving having mommy back at mostly full capacity - he wants to play cars with me all the time.  Today during church he wanted my lip gloss on him, so he wiped his hand on my mouth, then wiped his hand all over his face!  He's such a sweet and funny kid!  Grandma Jones sent us these fun family reunion shirts since we hadn't managed to bring any shirts for Sarah and Rob to print for us - so they got the shirts and made them for a family home evening activity and then sent them to us - David wanted to wear his right away!  

Today was fast Sunday and our anniversary!  18 years together!  So for church today, after singing and doing the Sacrament, Dan and I bore our testimonies, then we told the kids our story - how we met, and our first dates and holding hands and kiss.  We told them about first meeting each others families and how we got engaged and had fun!  I think the kids enjoyed it, I know Dan and I did.  After church, Aaron was struggling and hungry, so he dozed off - Dan and I both found it amusing just how much he looks like Grandpa Jones.  :)   Thankfully we had an early dinner of Dutch Babies and then we watched the musical fireside that the church did this week!  

It's now almost 2 weeks since my surgery and the wound is healing well, Evelyn likes to peer closely at it and examine it every day and she informs me that it looks much better.  I mostly feel back to normal, but I do wish that we could get my meds figured out so that I'm not quite so tired!  

Surgery and Changes

Well it's been one crazy week.  After getting tested on Sunday and having the test come back negative, I was all set for surgery on Tuesday, but we needed to stay in a pretty strict quarantine on Monday.  Tuesday morning bright and early, Dan took me to the hospital, and my mom came  to stay with me.  Surgery went well though I don't remember hardly anything until after I got up to my room.  Once I got up there, it was mostly sleeping, watching TV and reading books, and of course, getting blood drawn and tests run.  I got to eat a liquid diet for my first couple meals, then thankfully I was graduated to regular food.  all went well enough that I was cleared to go home on Wednesday morning.  For me most of the rest of the week has consisted of napping and resting.  Friends from the ward have been very sweet about bringing some meals by for us. 

For Dan the week has been very different.  The company Dan works for is moving its office to Portland area, so we are also moving.  Dan has spent most of the week packing stuff up and getting the house ready to take pictures of so we can get the house on the market.  We are hoping it will sell well and quickly and then we will look into houses on Portland area.  Some of the kids are excited, and some are not and some are indifferent.  Evelyn is upset - she will be leaving some very good friends and a school and neighborhood that she loves.  David is very excited - he keeps talking about going on a "field trip" which is what he calls road trips.  He wants to leave now for Oregon.  So Dan has been exhausting himself getting things ready while I can hardly do anything since I'm exhausted and I can't lift more than 10 lbs.  Thankfully the kids have been helpful (well - the older ones... mostly) 

Now we got the house looking nice, we gotta keep it that way - hopefully not for too long.  Tomorrow we are going to have to be gone most of the day to let the people take pictures of our house for listing.  It feels a bit like we have been running one marathon after another with no time to rest in between.  

Today we got to go to church, which was really nice, and most of the kids wore their masks the whole time.  David got about 15 minutes in.  :)  This evening, we had a really fun time together all playing Spontuneous - which was all about singing songs and music and we had a fun time together - everyone but James and David who were in bed - it was fun getting the older kids to play along!  

Home At Last

This has been a long and busy week.  Lots of driving and seeing friends.  Monday was hiking and enjoying our last day at the cabin.  It was beautiful!  I love being up there and I love the beautiful scenery!

Tuesday, we cleaned up and headed down to Denver.  We got in to town before we were able to check into our airbnb, so we went to Dinosaur Ridge and hiked around and had a fun time together.  The gift shop was open, so I got a family souvenir there along with some shirts for the kids since they were half off.  

The statues in the parking lot all had face masks on them - the kids all thought it was so funny. 

That evening, Eileen got to hang out chatting with her friend for a bit and we picked up Anna's friend Nevaeh to spend a few days with us, then we went back to our Airbnb for bed.  The place was big - but we found out the day before we got there that the laundry machine was broken and wouldn't be fixed while we were there, so we had to try and figure out how to make it through the week and get home with out that washing machine.  I ended up going to Walmart to grab a few clothes and did a bit of laundry at Doug's and then we just dealt with it. 

Wednesday, we met up with Grandpa at the park.  Our place was near Grandpa's apartment, so he chose a park nearby and we met up and had some lunch and the kids played and we walked and chatted.   The kids had a great time!  Eileen found a caterpillar and we found an app that identifies plants and animals and you can try do challenges and complete collections - Eileen describes it like Pokemon Go, but with real plants and animals.  We had a lot of fun taking pictures of things and finding out what it is. 

Wednesday evening, we went and had dinner with Becca and Jeremiah and family.  Becca and I had fun playing around with her laser cutter and we had a wonderful dinner.  The kids had a blast playing together and even had fun playing in the bit of rain.  

Thursday, we took it easy in the morning, then I dropped kids off at Tina's and Anna and Nevaeh went to Nevaeh's house, then I met up with Becky for our craft night!  It was so wonderful to just sit and chat and watch Pride and Prejudice and of course, craft!  In the morning, I started collecting the kids again, then we went back to our place to do a bit of packing and getting ready to go.  In the evening, we went to Doug's for dinner.  We made some guac, ate hamburgers and hot dogs, chatted, played games and had a fun time together.  Before we left, Mark gave the kids some Magic: The Gathering decks!  He's such a great cousin!  We also got to zoom chat with Julia for a bit!  Then we headed back to the house again and Kay and Reggie came over for a bit to chat and hang out.  It was SOOOOO good to see them again!  The only thing that would have made it better was getting to hug Kay - but she's got to keep her grandpa safe - and that's more important.  

Saturday morning, bright and early, the we packed up the van and hit the road.  It was a long, long car ride home, but we made it - we got in around midnight that night and crashed hard!  

Today has been so great getting to be all back together.  Aaron has been playing Magic with Dan and anyone else willing to play with him.  I'm just glad to be back with Dan and back in my own bed!  This morning, I had to head to the hospital to get a pre-op COVID test done.  It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't too bad and I enjoyed chatting with a really nice lady while waiting for the testing.  

Now I just gotta get through next week!  Surgery here we come.... 

On the Road Again

Monday afternoon, we got to go rafting on the river - we were out there for 3 hours, but it was a ton of fun!  The kids mostly had a blast - though James got a bit cold sometimes. 

 

Tuesday morning, was checkout and then we headed down to Utah to stay the night with Paul and Candace. 

Wednesday morning, Dan headed to the airport to head home and the kids and I took off for the cabin.  We got to play and have fun with Becca and her two cute little girls, Doug and Mark came up on Thursday night, and Tina and Frankie came up on Saturday for the day to play and have fun.  

The kids have been having a blast playing Magic with Mark - especially Aaron - and walking around and whacking at trees and making forts.  David especially loves throwing "pooh sticks" into the creek.  We had fun playing Space Base and Killer Bunnies with Tina and playing Dominion with Doug and Mark.  There was lots of singing and lots of playing and lots of outdoor time.  It's been a wonderful week - but so full it feels like it's been much longer!  

By Sunday afternoon, we were all that was left at the cabin and we had a great church time and played games together and had Chipped Beef on toast for dinner - for the first time ever, the biscuits actually came out well!  The kids are missing everyone, but we will hopefully see them all again soon!  

On The Road

We had a fun and busy start to our week getting ready for our trip.  Trying to eat up all the food and trying to get stuff done without the kids driving us crazy.  Plus Dan had a release at work that he needed to make sure was done and up and running as it was supposed to.  Thankfully things went well there.  I had my last doctor's appointment on Monday to get all the paperwork in order before the surgery and thankfully that went pretty quickly.  After church last Sunday, we realized that David no longer had church shoes that fit or tennis shoes that fit - so we got him some new shoes and he was SO excited!  

Wednesday morning bright and early (well - not really all that early) we loaded up the car wearing our Jones Family reunion shirts and headed out on the road!  We had a long and fun day of driving that ended with a stop at a hotel in Farmington, New Mexico.  We got in and divided into girls and boys rooms and crashed! 

Our second leg of the trip was almost as long as the first, but it ended up in meeting up with Paul and Candace's family for dinner and our hotel stay.  We let the kids have fun in the pool for a bit before we divided up into our rooms for the night.  Poor Dan got the younger, and therefore slightly more difficult set of kids - plus he was sharing a bed with David, who sleeps like a moving helicopter - he is all over the place and kicks and wiggles and sometimes falls off the bed (it's why we have him on a mattress on the floor at home - but he refuses to sleep on the floor now....)  One early morning, he fell off the bed and then poked his eyes above the side of the bed and looked at Dan and said "oopps - I fell"  But then he climbed back on and went back to sleep. 

Friday was the day for arriving at the reunion.  We let the kids swim a bit in the morning, had some breakfast and then headed out to the cabin.  We stopped in Boise for lunch and a Costco run to get food for the reunion, then on to the reunion!  We were the second to arrive after Dan's parents.  So we claimed our room and unloaded and then watched and helped as the family began to trickle in.  Everyone arrived except for Steve and Claire who had a crazy series of events, including a sick dog, and a landslide blocking the way, that prevented them from arriving until Saturday afternoon. 

Saturday morning, we went to a nearby national park to play in the water, hike around the area and play games in the open areas.  It was a beautiful day!  The kids had a blast, but after a short time in the water, most of the ended up freezing.

We had a fun little 4th of July weekend including roasting marshmallows and having s'mores and setting off little firecrackers. We had a blast playing Jones Ball (which is basically baseball, but with fewer rules and more fun)

Sunday was wonderful!  We had a wonderful meeting with amazing talks and music and the spirit so strong!  In the afternoon, we had a baby shower for Emmalee.  We all had a fun time chatting and playing games.  

David loved playing with the uncle that he is named for.  He adamantly let everyone know that he was big David and Uncle David was little David.  He also had a blast playing with his cousin Ezra who is only a few months older than he is.  These two are the end of this generation of Jones' - now we are eagerly awaiting Emmalee's baby and the new generation!