Maddie's Back to School Fashion Show

Sunday night Maddie modeled all her new school clothes for Grammy and Grampy. She had a little too much fun "Striking a Pose"! I couldn't figure out where she came up with some of these poses but we were having a riot!

Maddie's First Day of School

Today was Maddie's first day of Second Grade. She was so excited last night she could hardly sleep. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Scott and is a very good teacher. She is actually in a second/third combo class which should be interesting. She has a new set of kids in her class which we are happy about and we hope she makes some new friends. When she went to bed tonight she was so excited for the next day, she told me "I wish it was school everyday!" I wonder how long that will last.

Jones Family Reunion 2008- San Clemente Beach

The second week of August the entire Jones family was here for our first official "Jones Family Reunion". My parents rented a huge beach house in San Clemente and we all piled into cars and packed up our Van and headed down to spend a week at the beach!

Growing up, my Grandma Vera Jean rented a beach house every year for our extended Jones family in Newport Beach. The tradition lasted about 12 years or so and then when she passed it did too. Plus the family just got too big. My immediate family just loved that tradition and really wanted to start it in our own family. We had so many fond memories and really got to know our cousins being in such close quarters! It was a great opportunity for my parents to plan this and we really hope to make it a tradition even if it is every 2 years.

We had a great time and spent just about every day on the beach. It was great to see the kids with their cousins. They love them so much and were really sad to see them go back to Texas! It is so hard when we have to say goodbye! Thank you sooooo much to Mom and Dad for the awesome vacation! Here is a slide show with a ton of pictures...

Trampoline Fun

As part of our backyard project we put up a trampoline. We don't have a huge yard but it works. The kids just love it! I still have to put up the net that goes around the top so it is safer. When the cousins were here we had so much fun. Here are some pictures I took with the cousins.

Extreme Makeover

Before

As I have mentioned on earlier posts, most of our summer has been spent working on our yard. Well this week the wait was over and all the hard work and sweat paid off when we laid our sod. We are sooooo thrilled with it, and can't believe we did it! In the beginning it seemed an insurmountable task, but piece by piece we accomplished it all. Some of the things we had to do were:

• remove an old tree stump (my poor brother Chris hacked at it for hours and the next day tree trimmers were in our community, so I paid them 20 bucks to get rid of it.)

• Replace all the sprinkler valves (Chris did this all by himself and after all was said and done, NO LEAKS!)

• Rip out all the grass and weeds (This took forever! but when it was all gone it felt so good)

• Create new flower beds and plant new flowers (this is my favorite part!)

• Put in new landscape lighting (Something I totally wanted to try and I couldn't believe how EASY it was!! If you use Malibu lights the wiring is foolproof)

• Plant a new tree.

• Built a Sandbox and filled it with 1300 lbs of sand!

• Put in drains
  

• Put together a Trampoline

• Hand layed 1900 sq feet of sod

We are so grateful to those who helped us. It was a huge project and we can't believe it is finally done. The kids love it and I especially love walking up to my gate and looking at my beautiful yard. I went from having the ugliest yard to the most beautiful in our complex and it feels great!