Water Slide

This summer we've been so fortunate to have a lot of visits from loved ones. We've recently had a great gathering with Holly's family, some of whom came from as far as Massachucetts. The boys have had a great time with their cousins Ileana and Gabriel, including a couple of fun afternoons at a nearby water slide. We'll hopefully get a lot more pictures up from the whole vacation, but for starters here's a great sequence of Jackson and Ileana and the end of a water slide run.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

Just thought I'd post a few pics of the kiddies enjoying some of what summer in So Cal has to offer. Our three guys enjoyed running around the sand with their cousins a couple weeks back. You can see the reddish pink light in the picture. Often the marine layer comes in at evening time and the sun "sets" early, but that day we got to watch it all the way down to the water.

Here are some closer shots of the Jones boys sitting on the grass on a school field trip...
















clambering around a newly chalked climber...




















and ascending a step ladder in the front yard during car wash time.

Moving back indoors, Grandpa had Jackson and Ethan enthralled with some vintage Lionel toy trains. Guess what Santa will probably have in his sack this Christmas...

More pics soon!

Everyday Finance Contest

Hello everyone! Many of you know that in the last year and a half I've become very interested in learning more about the stock market and other kinds of investment possibilities. Nothing like an impending 40th birthday to make you think more about financial security. I've pretty much done all my reading online and one of the sites that I've turned to frequently is a personal finance blog called Everyday Finance. A link to that site has been in our Blogs of Note section for some time now. In addition to interesting discussions of the market, EDF has turned me on to Prosper.com and a more effective use of cash incentive credit cards. Everyday Finance is currently running a contest to celebrate its 250th post and, while I think the site is worth checking out for its information alone, I thought some of you might want to get in on the possibility of a cash prize. This blog post is serving as my entry into the contest, but you can enter with as little effort as an email subscription. Here's a link to the contest posting: Everyday Finance $250 Contest

One of the things that has drawn me into reading financial blogs is hearing about what other people are doing with their investments and why. So in that vein let me share that if I win any of the cash prizes I will either put the money into my Prosper.com lending account or I will use it toward the purchase of a stock I found out about on EDF: ticker symbol WWE - that's right, World Wrestling Entertainment. If I get that stock I would enjoy a delicious irony as well as a nearly 9% dividend yield...

An Experiment

So today marks the "National Turn TV Off" week - when people are encouraged to turn off/unplug and otherwise not use their TV's for an entire week. I knew this was coming up, but I actually thought it was next week (so as you can guess, I'm off to a great start so far!) NOT!

I'm a person who believes there is good that can come from TV/movies but that it shouldn't continually take the place of time spent together - but I'm also a mother of three young children who sometimes needs a moment to 1) get dinner made, 2) fold 2 pieces of laundry and put them away, 3) clean a gross toilet, 4) insert something here! It IS hard to spend the whole day, every day creating "moments" for your children. And I don't know that that is needful or even wanted every moment for the kids as they enjoy having time on their own here and there to play too. This all said, I DO turn to the TV sometimes as a way of getting a moment or two to clear my own head, get something done during daylight hours (rather than hoping I can squeeze something in once all kids are asleep and then having no energy to do it - and besides, my kids seem to know this desire of mine and do their level best to deter me from having said "moments" after bedtime to do anything), and as a way of recharging myself and my ideas of things I can do with them. I also wonder if teaching them about limits and moderation isn't possibly a better way than making them think it's all or nothing.

This all being said, I think it's a great opportunity to get creative, push the limits of my own imagination (and stamina) and see just what we can come up with as a family.

I don't know if I'll actually make it an entire week with NO TV ("Lost" IS a new show this week!) But then again, if I ask my children to go without "Curious George" then I should be able to cut something too! :) We'll see...we did have some great time today playing games and continued the fun into Family Home Evening!

Who knows how this will all pan out...perhaps it will be a raging success, perhaps we'll try some new things we've never done and discover something new about ourselves and each other, perhaps we'll strengthen the bonds of family love and affection...or, perhaps we'll just look like this at the end of the week:

I'M GAME! BRING IT ON!!!

Three peas in a pod

Well, we decided to take photos of our family for Easter and per usual that was quite the experience! At least we didn't have to wait in line at some overcrowded photo studio, have our appointment be 1/2 an hour behind schedule, have to nurse the baby during the photo shoot, wait around for an hour after the appointment for our photos to be "processed", and in the end, pay waaaayyyy to much for them! :) Something good comes from getting all our own photography equipment!!! Anyhoo...here's one of the pictures I just love - a "let's all cuddle together" (which, I might add, then did on their own without my coaxing them!) Joseph's face is particularly priceless as we're not sure whether he's annoyed or just about ready to laugh (if memory serves, I think he did giggle a bit after this shot.) The Jones boys...hard to resist! But biased I am...

Lost Blues

Okay, so we're all set to get our weekly fix of LOST last night, and we realized nothing new was on the DVR. It seems we were the only folks in America that didn't realize Lost was taking a month-long spring break. I guess filming in paradise can really wear a cast out. Yeah, sure, writers strike, yada yada yada. Is anyone else cheesed off about this? I can't get by for a month on Dancing with the Stars!

Okay, I feel better. By the way, speaking of Dancing with the Stars, I think a Star Trek reunion smackdown would be a serious ratings machine. It's high time the question of "Best mambo - Kirk or Picard?" be put to rest. Who's with me...

Doin' the Time Warp...

We had another glorious stay at the beach cottages, this time at the Painters' Cottage, just as we had last month for an evening. Our other two stays last year had been in the Long Board Lodge, which we also love - but it was soooo nice to be 20 paces or so from the actual sand, as opposed to dealing with the brief but sometimes annoying stair hike from the Long Board. As Douglas, a friend of Elliott's parents, said when he stayed over one evening at the cottage: "It's like a time warp." Too true, too true! The boys love any cottage stay and this time was no exception! You just have to love living in Southern California when you can hang out on a beach, and with the exception of just a few other people, be the only ones there! So choice!