HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is a special day for a special person in my life.
Today is Amy's birthday. I won't tell you how young she is because I don't think she'd appreciate it!! I can't wait to see you, Amy and celebrate your big day!!

Home bound

We left Myrtle Beach Saturday morning and had a great week! The weather was great for being outside.
Mid 80's most of the week and cloudy. At some points in the day I would even get a chill.... on the beach. That's crazy!
But at least it wasn't smothering hot. The kids enjoyed the ocean and the pool, but the pool more!
By the time we left, Gracie was swimming on her own. She's not able to swim the length of a pool by any means, but she can go a small distance underwater. I'm so proud of her. As for Isaiah, he can't swim but thinks he can. NO FEAR!!

We'll leave North Carolina first thing in the morning (that's around 10 AM for me) and head back to London. It feels weird going home to London. This is the first time we've left town and came back to London as "home". I must admit, I've not missed the small apartment.
Especially after having our own suite at Pop and Nor Nors brand new house. It is so big and beautiful. They've only been in it 2 weeks now. Anyway, I hope our travels are safe and smooth tomorrow as we head through the hills of Tennessee and back to Laurel County.

Myrtle Beach

The Jones fam is heading to South Carolina to north Myrtle Beach on Monday.
We'll head to North Carolina tomorrow night after church and stay the night with Nor and Pop, and get up and head to the beach on Monday AM.
We can't wait to build sandcastles, ride the waves and work on our tans!
We're looking forward to quality family time with the kids and Nor Nor and Pop!
As long as I have internet access I'll be posting the days' events.... as I know you'll be awaiting.

Delorean Grey

Community Christian Church had the privilege of hosting London's own band Delorean Grey.
This rock band consists of Shane McCowan-lead vox, Logan Miller-Bass, James Wheat-Drums, Steve Hampton-Guitar .
These guys are awesome! It was so loud in the church that I could hardly understand them, but over all they are a greatly talented band.
Check them out on www.myspace.com and listen to their latest radio release!


Thanks to the New Life crew that drove 2 hours to see 10 minutes of the concert!!!
You all ROCK!!

High School Musical

Today I have been so tired and sore. My legs are feeling it from all the trips up the stairs yesterday hauling stuff.
I tried very hard to get things straightened up today, but I didn't get a whole lot done.
I did manage to fill up 6 more large garbage bags of clothes and towels to take over to the storage building. There's just so much to go through.
We've almost got our bedroom done bust most importantly the bed is clear with clean sheets and ready for me to crash on it.
I did manage to watch high school musical twice today. That makes a total of 4 times within the past week. I don't know who likes it more, Cris or the kids!!! He said he liked it because it was about basketball...... ok!
I also watched Raise your Voice with Hillary Duff. It was a sad movie.
If you're wondering why I was able to watch 3 movies in one day, we don't have cable/dish and only one local channel comes in. It gets really old watching one channel that plays the old stuff such as Mama's Family and Andy Griffith.

I did have a funny thing happen today. Gracie wasn't minding me so I told her to come here and get a spanking. She walked over to me and I gave her a spanking. She then walked over to Cris and said "that didn't even hurt."

And from a more serious note, if you can, get to Wendy's as quickly as possible and try their new root beer float! It is AWESOME!! Their vanilla ice cream is better than DQ's!! LOVE IT!!!
It's my new obsession.

Load 'em up, head 'em out

What a day! There is so much about this day that I can praise God for!
We managed to get the house packed up and moved out.
This absolutely would not have happened without a few key poeple!
A simple Thank You is not even enough to Gina, Thurman, Jarrod, Jackie, Nina, and Hannah!!!!!
YOU ALL ARE AWESOME!! I remember about 3 1/2 years ago on a cold December night when Thurman helped us unload our whole house into a storage unit. And of course 3 1/2 years later he's helping us once again move away from Flemingsburg. You all are what we call "good people"!!
Jackie and Nina have driven to London twice now to help us move our stuff down. They have provided a truck and trailer for us to use both times! God has given us such good friends! We hate to leave friends such as these.

With that said, we're happy to finally be in London with all our "stuff". Although a lot of our stuff is still in our attic in Flemingsburg it's not anything we'll miss. Once we sell the house we'll get ALL of our things and be in one place (hopefully much bigger than what we're in right now). But for the next 6 months we're going to make the best of what God has blessed us with.

Again, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your hard work today. And believe me, it was hard!
I am completely exhausted after going up and down our apartment stairway 20 dozen times hauling boxes. I am going to sit back, watch a movie, and hopefully fall asleep soon!!!

Wild Weekend

We showed the house Friday morning and by Friday afternoon we had an offer settled.
The Lord finally sent a family for our home. We agreed on a "lease to own" offer. They will rent for 6 months and then purchase the house. We will continue to live in the apartment in London until the house is officially sold. This could be a long 6 months but we are so glad the Lord has provided a buyer for us.


We packed all day Friday and more on Saturday morning like crazy. You see, the family has to be out of their place by Monday (today is Saturday) therefore we have to be out of our house by Monday. We still have stuff to pack and get loaded all on Monday WHILE they are moving in.
This could be total chaos.

We're not sure how all of this will go, but we are sure that God's hand is in all of this.
He's getting us out of our comfort zone at this point and we just have to go along with the game plan.

We'll be heading back to 892 Pecks Ridge Sunday night to finish packing, so if you're looking for something fun to do come on over and help pack and load!

Fleming County

The family and I are headed to Flemingsburg this evening. We are going to show the house Friday sometime.... again. I'm not getting my hopes up too soon!!
And we need to pick up a few things that we need at the apartment in London.
We'll be at the house all day Friday and Saturday morning so swing by if you can!

You just said what??

I heard two things today that were polar opposites of each other.
One was a very nice complement, the other made me sick to my stomach.


The first was a compliment from a lady in a purse store. I was browsing around
and told her I'd never been in the store before and wanted to check it out. We got talking and Gracie and Isaiah came up. She said "You have kids? You don't look old enough to have kids."
Now that's a compliment I can handle. Especially now that I'm pushing 30!!!

The other was such an insult that I could have thrown up.
Cris decided to call one of our potential buyers since we hadn't heard from them in a week. They were honest and told us the house was priced too high, so Cris asked what price they were looking for. The guy proceeded to tel Cris that "if your house was on auction, I wouldn't pay more than $40,000."
Ain't that a kick in the head! I honestly don't think I've ever been so offended!

I listened as Cris tried to talk to this guy. You could tell he was dumb founded and didn't know how to respond to such an "offer". He told the guy that we can make a deal, but nothing that low. He explained to him that a bargain is one thing, but giving the house away is another.

Needless to say, I'm a little disappointed and frustrated at this point! This again poses a whole new set of questions between us and the Lord.

one year gone by

I started this blog page in July 2006 all because of Chad Doerr.
One year later, I've written and read more blogs then I could have imagined. I've inspired others to blog...... and that's so neat.
I look forward to my next year of "keepin up with the Joneses". This has been a way of therapy,inspiration and a connection from me to you, wherever you are!

Loves Abiding Joy

I sat down tonight and watched the 4th movie of the "Love comes softly" series, Loves Abiding Joy.
This was a good one. It brought tears to my eyes more than once. It has a great story where faith and love are challenged.
I rented it from our local laurel county library. I suggest you take the time and watch this wholesome family movie as well.

Happy Independence Day!!

Isn't July 4th cool? I'm so glad we live in a country that's free. I thank all the men and women of the past, present and future that secure our freedom.

As much as I love freedom of the USA I love my freedom in Christ even more.

I thank God that he sent Jesus to die for me so that I can be eternally free.

Free of sin, shame, guilt, sorrow,death, poverty and chains.

Today Chris was off so we had breakfast then headed to Levi Jackson park and hiked.
We went until the kids asked to be held, then we turned around and headed back to the car. They lasted for about 20 minutes out before having to turn around, and we trekked up some hills. They had more stamina then I did!

Then we came home and had lunch (the all American corn dog), watched a movie, took a nap(seeing a pattern yet?), went to church. Once home we had pumpkin pie then waited for the sun to go down. We lit some very wimpy fireworks and sparklers. The kids loved the sparklers and pop rocks!

We were able to see some really good fire works last night at the Corbin civic center.

They were BIG and LOUD!

It took us about an hour to get into the fairground area and another hour to get out. But the 20 minutes of fireworks were worth it. The kids loved it.

putting a dent in my day

I had an eventful day. I got up at 9:00 am, did 2 loads of laundry, had lunch with Chris, opened a checking account, went to walmart, cleaned house, took a small nap, and cooked our first dinner in the apartment. Thanks to Amy we had fresh squash and zucchini.
BUT in the midst of all this I managed to get side swiped by an old man in a big crown vic. I was pulling in the parking lot of the apartment on my way home from walmart when it all happened in slow motion. He began pulling out of his parking spot from the drug store right as I got behind him. I didn't have time to move, all I could do was watch as he slowly sunk into my passenger side door.
I watched him coming back and just said"OH KNOW!!" I LAYED on my lame horn, but he didn't seem to hear it. He had no idea I was there until his big blue car met mine.
He pulled forward, got out of the car and gave me his insurance information. I felt badly for the old man as he apologized.
I was sick at my stomach! I wanted to cry for the simple fact of crying but I didn't. I brought my groceries in and immediately called Chris and told him we needed to get an estimate on our car. He took it very well.

Settled in

All 4 of us are now settled into our apartment in London.
We don't have a whole lot here, just the essentials because it is a small place. I figure some part of my life could use simplicity!
We had a great week in NC with Nor Nor and Pop and are now looking forward to getting our lives started here in Laurel county.
There are several parks in the area and a public pool. There are also 2 families at church with pools, so we'll use those as well.
I think the kids and I will check out the library this week and get to know it better.
They have story hour on Tuesday so we'll probably go to that.
I've been told that the Knoxville, TN zoo is only about an hour 15 minutes away as well.
That's not bad at all.
Tomorrow I'll get some necessary moving things done such as finding a local bank and getting internet services at the apartment. So much to do and much time to do it!