Wednesday, December 22, 2010

2010 Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas from the Joneses! Just wanted to share our 2010 Family Christmas Letter:


It’s nice sitting down to write this letter knowing that we are blessed with so many great friends and family. We appreciate our relationships will all of you! We’ll get right to the point and start bragging about our kids!

Abby (21) and her husband Simeon both graduated (with honors!) from Indiana Wesleyan University just this past week. Abby’s major was Christian Worship and Simeon’s Biblical Literature. They will continue to live and work in Marion until late summer when they plan to move to Jackson, MS where Simeon will attend Wesley Biblical Seminary. They are going to make a great ministry team!

Josh (20) has been taking some time off of college. He has a job at Taylor University (near Marion, IN) and lives in a house full of guys near that campus. He’s still crazy about music and guitars and plays in a band called The Colorful. His biggest interest in life is a sweet girl named Jessica. We’ve been enjoying getting to know her on her visits home with him this past year. He eventually hopes to get back into college with the goal of becoming a high school English teacher.

Paul (18) graduated from HS in the spring, spent the summer slaving over the dirty dishes at Burger King and is now a freshman at Bethany Bible College (Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada) where his major is global missions. He loves being a part of the College Chorale and enjoys his part-time job in the campus library. We’re excited to have him home for Christmas break!

Thomas (17) is in 11th grade. He followed in his older brothers’ footsteps and has a part time job at the same BK that Paul and Joshua worked at. He’s in the middle of figuring out his future. He’s currently in the process of enlisting in the National Guard and will be looking at ROTC programs and college options over the next year. He’s still very involved in music playing lead guitar for our worship team every Sunday and leading the worship team for youth.

Philip (15) is in 9th grade. His passion is classical music and piano. He also plays cello and a few other instruments in his school’s band. At church he regularly plays piano for worship and runs power point. He’s now officially taller than his mother!

Sam (13) is in his last year as a “middle schooler”. He’s yet another Jones musician! His first love is playing bass, but he also plays drums and keyboard. Sam continues to live life with enthusiasm. His response to Mom’s kitchen endeavors is so fun it makes all the work and effort worthwhile!

Andrew (12) is in 7th grade. He’s about as easy-going a kid as you could hope for! Very mild-mannered, easy-to-get-along with, and a great help for Mom around the house or watching younger brothers. He’s the oldest of the boys being homeschooled so he gets a bit of a taste of being the “top gun” each day from 8-3!

Peter (10) is a pleasure to have around. He’s a good student, loves to read, and is always quick to jump up to help when he sees a need. Peter’s especially looking forward to having his Grampy Gorveatte here for Christmas – they’re two of a kind!

David (9) is our little sports jock and drummer-boy. Just last Sunday he debuted as a drummer for the worship team and did an awesome job! He’s all about fun. He’s often been known to get up early and make breakfast for his Dad as a special treat. He’s a keeper!

Daniel (7) is our biggest talker. He’s had some strong personality traits develop this year. He’s become obsessed with making money and is always creating some kind of entrepreneurial situation. He sells toys. He created a back-massage business. He hires his brothers. He sells his Halloween candy. He’s also into tools and carpentry and has signs posted around the house advertising his “fix-it” business. He brings us lots of joy!

This has been a most unusual Christmas season. Several weeks ago Stephen had some abnormal lab results when he went for a routine check-up at the family doctor. There was no real alarm on our part as he has no symptoms of anything wrong and the lab report seemed only slightly abnormal – not drastic. That simple, routine blood test set in motion a series of more tests which ultimately resulted in a referral to a hematologist/oncologist who ordered even further testing. Finally, this past week, we were given an official diagnosis that confirmed the doctor’s suspicion of cancer.

The cancer, myeloma, is a blood/bone marrow cancer. Thankfully, it was caught early before any damage has set in to his bones or organs. We are still awaiting test results to determine the “stage” but the doctor seems to believe it’s at an “early” stage. We are very thankful for this! And again, he has no physical symptoms at this point. Yes, it is serious and we really covet your prayers! It could be weeks, months, or even years before we need to begin treatments and we may have no further information for awhile. He’ll set up a blog on the internet soon to provide updates so that we don’t have to bore people with medical stuff every time we have a conversation.

Otherwise…life is normal!  We continue to enjoy pastoring in West Michigan. Hard to believe it’s been three years since we left Alabama!

This Christmas Isaiah 9:6 has become very precious to us. We are standing on the proclamation that the baby whose birth we now celebrate is indeed our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Especially the reality that Jesus really is the Prince of Peace. Peace is not the absent of chaos (and certainly not the absence of noise!). Yet the peace of God has been something that we’re experiencing in high definition, in 3-D this Christmas. Philippians 4:6-7 and Isaiah 26:3 are “screaming” at us “loudly” in a profound and deep way these days!

We wish you a Merry Christmas! Glory to God – a Savior is born!!


Monday, August 09, 2010

My Silly Son

I guess we all have our own individual gifts and talents!  Here's Daniel's....


Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Can't post too many pictures, can I ?! :)


Peter, David, and Andrew








Cute imitators....

More pictures...

I thought I'd added more than just 2 pictures in the last post. Oh well....trying again!

David building his birdhouse at camp



Daniel


Peter and Andrew playing video games at Abby's


Not a very good picture, but this is special - my oldest and youngest together!



Monday, August 02, 2010

Random

Just a few random pictures...

Daniel, Andrew, and David
Peter behind them
(we're in the big van on the way to Marion, IN for Campus Challenge)



Peter (in the blue hat) building a birdhouse during Family Camp at Winding Creek



Funny Kid!


So this is Daniel's reaction when he hears his brother is sick! Germaphobic!!


Sunday, July 11, 2010

July 10, 2010



All settled in at Nanny & Grampy's camper ready for Family Camp at Winding Creek!  It's hot (around 90 today) so we're thankful for air conditioning and the swimming pool.  I'm sure it will be a great week!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Father's Day



We enjoyed spending the afternoon and evening with Nanny and Grampy and Mark and his family out at their camper at Winding Creek Camp.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Hmmmm...



Stephen's away and look what I find in my bed!  Good thing they're so cute! :-)

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Clones



When Grampy is around, Peter is often found doing whatever Grampy is doing.  This is a good example of that.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ice Cream!



Daniel, Peter, and David enjoying an ice cream cone in downtown Hastings.  Thanks, Nanny & Grampy!

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Summer!



The older guys gave a hand to help set up the summer bathtub for the little guys!  It's their cleanest time of year!:-)

Monday, June 07, 2010

Flowers



I enjoy puttering with perennials in my flower beds.  This year I hope to keep up with the progress by taking pictures more often.  Maybe the pictures will help next spring when i can't remember what's planted where!

Sunday, May 30, 2010

First trip to the beach - 2010



The beaches along Lake Michigan really are beautiful.  We haven't taken full advantage of living so close, but we did enjoy it today!

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Paul's Graduation

Paul graduated from Byron Center Charter School May 27, 2010.  We're proud of him and excited about his plans for the future.  He'll be heading to Bethany Bible College in the fall where he'll study global missions.

Congratulations, Paul!  We love you!!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

David playing ball



First time at bat for the night and he gets a beautiful base hit!

Hanging out on the deck



One of the things I love about warm evenings is sitting on my porch swing and having my guys hang out with me.  This was a rare moment when I had 5 of them at once.  The picture only shows Paul, Philip, and Andrew, but we were also enjoying the company of Thomas and Sam.

Just playing with technology...


I'm trying to see how smart my new smart phone is when the user is not so smart! :-) 

If i can figure out this mobile thing, I just might do more blogging!

Daniel lost his first tooth!


And no, the Elmer's bottle in the background is not him trying to glue it back in! Don't have a clue why that was on the deck!