May

"The Wedding"

Abby and Simeon were married at College Wesleyan Church on May 9th. It was an absolutely wonderful time! The wedding was beautiful and the time with family and friends precious.

Tony Purkey, Thomas Jones, Simeon, David Turkington, Josh Jones, Paul Jones

David and Daniel Jones

 

Megan Stewart, Kelly Wright, Abby, Lindi Simmons, Holly Carlton, Amity Turkington

Anna and Caroline Norris

Our beautiful family!

She was very happy.....................                                 

                         ............he was rather bored! :)

Trying to catch up!

This may be hopeless...but I'd really like to try to get back to keeping up this blog! Some of the boys have been reminding me that I haven't been doing it, and they seem to enjoy it when I do. If nothing else, it's a good family archive!

So .....backing up to last February! The last entry was about Jack. He's still with us and doing great. He's been a really good pet. I didn't realize how much he'd shed, but other than that, no major complaints!

March brought us a spring thaw. All the snow was gone early in the month and while it didn't warm up much, we did stay snow free for the rest of the season. In March we also found our replacement vehicle for the Geo that had been totaled in the accident the previous fall. We enjoy having a mini-van. We find that our big van is rarely used anymore! A great gas savings!!

March and April were filled with wedding preparations, school, and baseball.

Here's a highlight from Easter.

Update

Yesterday was one of those rare days when everything just works out!

Paul and Thomas's school is out for a long weekend winter break, Stephen had a day off, the stomach bug that has been lingering around our house stayed away, it was my birthday, and we got to spend the day enjoying being together. We had hoped that the day would work out that way, but you just never know! We wanted to do something, but had had a hard time deciding what. Thursday night, something mysterious happened to me as I was preparing to turn 45, because it hit me that the perfect way to spend the day would be by going to the local animal shelters and finding a new family dog. It's been 10 months since Buddy died and I've not been very anxious to replace him. But, for some reason, this past week I'd found myself thinking about it some, and all of a sudden I was ready.

We spent Thursday night and Friday morning checking out all the shelters listings online. We had a pretty narrow list of requirements so we didn't have high hopes of finding something too quickly. At noon we loaded up the whole family to go out for Mom's birthday lunch and then to the shelters to see in person the dogs we'd found online. We warned the kids that we were just "window shopping". This statement led to Daniel telling one of his brothers that we had to go buy some windows. :)

Don't get me wrong on this next part, because I do appreciate what the humane society and animal shelters do, but the adoption process was unbelievable! The evaluation was far more about us proving we were "fit" for the dog than about the dog being right for us. But, we jumped through the hoops until we were able to have the dog of choice come out of his kennel and "get acquainted".

Jack, a 2 year old beagle, was an instant hit! We did go to another shelter to go through all the necessary screenings to check out another dog just to be sure, but there was no doubt, Jack was the winner.

We have a 4 day waiting period so Jack can think this thing through and prepare himself for his adoption, but it looks like he'll arrive home on Tuesday. We'll keep you posted on his adjustment!

Citizenship

Wednesday, I became an American citizen! After living here in the US most of my life, I finally began the process of naturalization last May. It's been interesting! Things went very smoothly and I was surprised at how simple it was.

The swearing in ceremony was held at the Gerald Ford Museum here in Grand Rapids. There were 81 people from 35 different countries being naturalized. It was a very meaningful ceremony! Immediately following the ceremony I was able to register to vote - something I've been very anxious to do!

I'm proud to finally be an American!

This is the "swearing" part. You swear to renounce your homeland, be willing to protect the US, bear arms, etc...

Posing with the US District Court Judge who presided over the ceremony. The paper we're holding is the official naturalization document - my proof that I'm an American.

Only the four youngest were with us. That's Andrew, Peter, David, and Daniel.

Boys

Even with 9 sons, I still sometimes find myself amazed at what boys will do.

It's windy, snowing, 23 degrees, the windchill is 9 degress and Philip, Sam, Andrew and David are outside playing football!

I'm glad that energy is being spent outdoors!

By the way, I took these pictures from INSIDE the house!!

Time to go make some hot chocolate....

We're on the map!

The Jones home has now made the big time: Google Maps Street View. Naturally, there's no way to take a snapshot of our home without catching two of our boys in the yard. Amazing, but creepy technology. Go ahead and do a 360-degree spin.


View Larger Map