Jones' Rule

It was a PARTAY!

2009-01-13T07:11:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe but Savannah hit double digits yesterday! The little one of the bunch has hit the big 1-0 and is growing up! The PARTAY! of course was complete Savannah style with a disco-ball / black light dance party in the garage all night long with 8 of her friends. The next day was a trip to the mall with mom to get her ears pierced. I guess it'll just be a short time till AJ's tenth!

Happy Birthday Savannah!

Winter Wonderland

2009-01-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

We're just back from a week up in Lake Tahoe. It was a great way to spend the time between Christmas and New Years. We were lucky since a bunch of snow dropped the day before we went up and it was sunny and cold the rest of the time. That made for great conditions for skiing, sledding, snow mobiling and just hanging around the cabin at the edge of the lake!

Annabelle Has Arrived

2008-03-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

OK, so we've neglegted the website for a while, so we thought we'd come up with a really big and important topic for restarting our blog. So, here it is, or should I say, here she is.

The latest addition to the family is Annabelle Jones, born March 5, 2008 at 12:05pm in San Francisco. She came to us at 5 lb. 15 oz. and 18 1/2 inches long.

Bre and Annabelle are now at home an recovering nicely and getting aquainted with each other.

Mikayla and Savannah have been great big sisters so far and are looking forward to the extra girl in the house.

Update on the Brady House

2007-06-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

Slowly but surely we're kicking the spirit of Mike, Carol, Alice and the gang out of our new home. Not that I didn't like the Brady Bunch (I mean Mike was an architect and Marsha was a doll!), but we don't want to live like them.

So, starting Memorial day weekend we've been on a blitz to remove more of the 1960's decor and bring the house into the new century. The goal over the three weeks was to get rid of the green paint and paneling in the living room and dining room.

We encountered some small problems, like no drywall under the paneling in the living room and moldy drywall under the paneling in the dining room, but we seemed to have overcome most of these issues.

There are of course plenty of good stories to go along with the progress. Be sure to ask us about them!

Spring Update

2007-06-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

OK, so its been a while since I posted. In that time plenty has happened. Here's a quick rundown:

1) The San Rafael All Stars won the Marin Fast Pitch Series (see my last post)

2) The Smackers three-peated (this time with Savannah) as the Marin County Minor League champs...this year going undefeated the whole season!

3) Mikayla officially graduated from elementary school;

4) The Marin Tremors are in full swing, having played tournaments in Vallejo and San Jose

These are the everyday updates. There is plenty more happening that I'll comment on shortly.

San Rafael All Stars Also Rule!

2007-04-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

Softball season is well underway. For most of you, you haven't heard from us, so that's the clue!

Well Mikayla was selected for the San Rafael All-Star team and the All-Star tournament started this weekend. Basically that means we spent all day Sunday at the ball park.

Despite the fact that the girls have only been playing together for a few weeks, they looked like a seasoned team thanks to the great coaching of Jim, Moose and JR. They want 3-0 this weekend, with the last game being a 3-2 nail biter with the Novato team.

Mikayla played great at right field, 3rd base and short stop and provided the game winning hit against the tough Novato team and a really tough pitcher.

The bottom line is all the girls played great! If the coaches had to award a game ball or MVP, I can't imagine who would have received it because all the girls played so well and so hard.

Oh' and Brent, yes Mikayla can hit better than you!

For those interested, I've got additional photos on our fliker account.

John

The Magic Kingdom

2007-02-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

We spent the past week in Florida visiting Bre's family and Mickey Mouse's crew. It was a great time although I was a bit skeptical about the weather. On Friday afternoon when I left my office in San Francisco it was 77 degrees! At the same time, the forecast for the Orlando area was a high of 62 degrees. Obviously I was second guessing our decision to take a February vacation to Florida! Well, after a couple of days, it was in 75 degrees in Florida and snowing on the peaks around the Bay Area, so all was back to normal.

As for the events of the vacation, we did a fair amount in a short period of time. We flew most of the day Saturday, went to a rodeo on Sunday, went to MGM and Epcot Center on Monday and then went to the Magic Kingdom on Tuesday. Each day we were up by 7am and to bed at 10 or 11pm!

Funny thing about our trip to see Walt's World. Even though it was the middle of February, evidently this was the busiest week of the year at Disney World! Who would have thought that! Well we paid the price, the popular rides such as Splash Mountain had lines of over 2 hours! Can you believe people waited that long! Luckily our tour guides were Bre and Angie, so we looked for such rides as the "Carousel of Progress", "Spaceship Earth" and " the Energy Ride" (don't ask me what the real name was!). These rides had no line and we got right onto them!

Check tomorrow for our adventure to the moon!

The Brady Bunch Live!

2007-02-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

Funny thing happened while talking to our financial planner.

While we were starting to get ourselves organized for buying a larger house in June, we stumbled upon a house around the corner that was on the market for $675k. A veritable bargin in this area. So, as of 10:00pm last night an offer went in and at 10:00am this morning it was accepted! Looks like we're moving.

It's a cute little 3 bedroom, 2 bath house around the corner from us on Miller Creek Road. The home has been owned by the same folks since it was built and from all indications they haven't remodeled since 1968. To picture the place, think Christopher Walken sipping a manhattan in the movie Blast from the Past!

It will be a fun project to say the least!

More photos are on our flikr page.

Old Friends in Cold Places

2007-01-29T19:47:00.000-08:00

Funny how you can be away from some friends for a few years and when you finally get back together its like you saw each other just last weekend?! Well, other than Eric and Carly getting tall and little Levi coming into existence, that's the way it was the past weekend as we ventured up to Sonora to visit the Uslanders (Bob and Sandy). Brent, Inna, Kaitlyn and Kai joined the fun as well and made it a complete weekend. We traded Hash stories (complete with Sandy scouring the house for an old "John Jones the Normal Guy" t-shirt) and updated our lives since last time we got together.

For those who don't know them, Bob and Sandy are good friends from back on Guam. They were some of our first and closest friends on-island and it was a great pleasure getting back together with them. Life seems to be good up in the hills for the Uslanders, Bob is still working emergency medicine (and any female that will talk to him)while Sandy has a chain of Curves gyms and four-month old Levi to keep her busy. Eric and Carly continue on as two of the best young people you can meet.

For the weekend we went to the Ulsander's place in downtown (is that right? downtown or old town?) Sonora. The plan was to ski while there, but the conditions didn't cooperate so we went sledding / tubing on Saturday instead. That was followed by one of the best mexican, oops, southwest restaurants we've been to (Camacho's in the Sonora Inn for those keeping score), followed by a late night poker game. True to form, Bob, didn't win a hand all night, so since we were playing with his money, we let him win the last hand for it all. Like I said, sometimes a few years can seem like a few weeks!

Thanks to the Uslanders for having our little crews up for the weekend and we can't wait to see them again!

A warms Thanksgiving

2007-01-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving this year took us to sunny (well sort of) Florida. Strange as it may seem, this was my first trip to Bre's other home state. I take that back, we did a quick run to the grocery store in Florida when we were at the Mullet Toss a couple of years ago, but this was my first real trip to Florida. We went to Angie and Glenn's for the holiday and enjoyed Bre's family and friends for the weekend. It was warm and reminded me of a nice Guam winter holiday!

38 hours in California

2006-11-30T06:32:00.000-08:00

36 hours, two meetings, three airplanes, two trains and a rented Toyota 4 Runner.

If anyone has preconcieved notions about California being a crowded over-built state, then you should have been with me for a few days in November. A meeting in Yosemite Park and a site visit to San Clemente Island were on the agenda and there are only so many ways to get this accomplished, namely driving from one end of the state to the other.

My journey started at 4:00 am as I drove out of San Rafael for a 10:00 am meeting with the Park Service in Yosemite to kick off a couple of projects. From there it was an all afternoon drive to San Diego so I could fly out to San Clemente Island to look at a new project for the Navy. After returning from San Clemente, it was off to San Diego airport to fly home and grab Bart back to the City and my car. Whew, what an adventure, but also what a great State we live in!

Soccer Season Already?

2006-11-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

It's obviously been a crazy few months around here has I haven't updated the blog in a while, so I'm trying to catch up in the next few days as best as I can.

One activity that seems to have come and gone too quick was the fall soccer season. Mikayla was a Cosmo and Savannah was a Ruby. Both girls did great, though the Cosmos were greatly outnumbered at most of their games this year. It was a year of learning for both girls and they are excited about the next season.

Mikayla was a solid player for her team, but her lack of previous playing really showed at this level. However, she worked hard and improved greatly as the season wore on.

Savannah's games were a bit less structured, but she got the knack of the game pretty quick and knew how to make her mark. A typical Ruby game (all of 30 minutes long) consisted of Savannah scoring three to four quick goals and then deciding she wanted to play defence or goalie the rest of the time.

I have to admit the only knock on the season was the rainouts. I spend the entire first two months trying to explain the great thing about playing soccer in the rain, but then as soon as the rain hit, all games were off because they didn't want to tear up the fields. What's that all about!!!! Well guess grass is more expensive or harder to grow these days. Must be something to do with gloabal warming.

The Girls from Snowy Rafael

2006-11-12T17:42:00.000-08:00

OK, so it didn't snow in San Rafael, but today we went horseback riding for the first time and coincidenly enough "The Man from Snowy River" was on this afternoon so I thought I'd steal the title. For those who haven't seen the movie its one of the better horse riding movies I've ever seen.

As for the Jones cowgirls, they both did great their first time out. We went for an hour long ride out in Olema (Western Marin) on Aerial, Snip and Spider. The girls quickly got the feel for riding and were soon trying to trot the whole time. Driving through the farms of West Marin and then off to a ride in the hills quickly had me thinking of dropping the whole engineering thing and being a horse hand, but maybe not. Of course the girls were instantly asking when the next ride was....oh boy, what have I gotten us into?!?!

Sara you ROCK!

2006-08-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Sara, if you don't know, is Sara Evans. She of country music fame and the singer of Savannah's favorite song "Suds in the Bucket." This was the girls second real concert. I'm told that Hillary Duff counts as a real concert, so that was number one. The girls got ready for the concert as expected.....Mikayla in jeans and a Texas t-shirt, Savannah in jeans, pink cowgirl boots and a boudreaux hat. (Boudreaux by the way, is the same one from the Florbama three years ago!)

So, the concert was spectacular! Sara was awesome and in the words of Savannah and Mikayla she ROCKED!

Feel free to check her out! It was a great concert.
http://www.saraevans.com/

School Starts Again

2006-08-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

Well school is underway again. The girls were so excited to get back to school that they were up at 5:00 am to get ready. Funny, I don't seem to remember looking forward to school that much?

Both girls were excited about their teachers, Savannah finally landing a spot in Ms. Coulter's class and Mikayla getting Ms. O'Donnell for a second year in a row. Just to clarify, Mikayla wasn't kept back a year, Ms. O'Donnell moved up a grade!

May I introduce Me & Mrs. Jones

2006-08-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, so a bit of a tacky intro, but wasn't sure what else to put there. Seemed reasonable given the situation! Well the wedding is past, the cake is eaten, the wine drunken and the food all eaten. First Bre, Mikayla, Savannah and I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who joined us. It was a great day, heck it was a great two weeks!, and we were honored to have so many join us.

As for the day itself, well normal wedding day craziness. It all started at 7:00 am when Vic and I went to be sure the pavillion was cleared of the tables. Vic smartly pointed out that the grounds needed a good washing before they would be wedding ready, so we found ourselves a hose and washed the bird poop off the ground. It was a brilliant idea and really helped make the day special. Once that was over, it was back to the house to be sure the girls got off to their hair appointments. After that, more work as Brent, Inna, Dad, Doug, Cliff and Cheukwa all chipped in to help get the pavillion decorated. It all came together great.

Finally we had to get washed and changed and pictured for the rest of the afternoon while we waited for the big moment! The wedding was wonderful, Bre was beautiful, the reception was great fun and everyone slept like a log that night!!!

Oh, did I mention the lighting and thunder? No, well more on that in another post!

Smackers do it Again!

2006-06-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

Well the girls pulled off the championship game. Everyone played great and the San Rafael Smackers are now the Marin Girls Softball Champs! The game was an intense and close one with the Smackers pulling off the 4-2 win against the Mill Valley Phillies. The game was close with the Smackers relying on small ball, several singles and agressive baserunning leading to their runs, while the Philles went with the long ball and smacked a home run and a couple of key doubles!

In the end, Mikayla went 2-3 and drove in 2 of the runs, including our first run of the game.

Smackers are off to the Championships!

2006-05-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest from the Smackers. We won a close game with the Giants by a final of 6-2. It was a great game with every run something we had to work for! Mikayla pitched two strong innings and got one of the first hits off the Giant's toughest pitcher.

Championship game is Thursday at 5:30 at Hall Park in Larkspur.

an LA Wedding

2006-05-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

We spend the past couple of days in LA for the wedding of Cheuk Wa and Cliff. Cliff is my movie maker cousin, and so we had a mini Jones reunion. Sherri and Doug came up from New Mexico, Kris and Vic were down from Santa Clara, Mom and Dad made a breif appearance in their Chevy Airbag, and of course Chuck, Wendy and Susan flew in from North Carolina.

13-1 and Counting!

2006-05-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Smackers continue to dominate the Marin Girl's Softball league these days. We went 11-1 in the regular season, our one loss being a close 4-2 game with the Ross Valley Giants. We're now 2 games deep in the playoffs with a showdown with the Giant's looming on Tuesday night! It should be a nail biter, as the Giants are the one team that can match the Smackers dominat pitching by Mikayla and Dominique Gold!

Check back Tuesday night and we'll have an update! Also, for information on the league check out www.maringirlsoftball.org.

San Miquel Vacation

2006-05-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so vacation might be a bit of a stretch, but we did take a couple of days to cruise into the heart of the Central Coast. Mikayla's class (and evidently every 4th grader in California) is studying the California Missions and they each have to write a report about one of them. Mikayla was given the Mission San Miguel Arcangel. So, off we went Saturday afternoon after all the softball games to San Miguel. Now those of you who have driven past or through San Miguel know it's not the best place to stay. So we were able to get the last room at the Parkfield Inn. Parkfield could be a story in itself. It's the earthquake capital of California, with lots of research happening there.

In Parkfield we got in just in time for the last rack of ribs off the BBQ and a late dinner. Mikayla and I were up early to walk the town and see some horeses getting fed. After breakfast it was off the the San Miguel mission to get some history. Turns out the mission needs a $15million upgrade and there's no access. So we walked the perimeter of the main church to get it's history.

The Jones' friends

2006-04-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

Mikayla's best friend is Keana. Mikayla & Keana have known each other when they were born. Keana was born in Guam just like Mikayla. Keana now lives in Hawaii.
Mikayla's other friend is Andrew. Andrew was born in Palo Alto. Andrew & Mikayla know each other because their mothers went to college together. Andrew now lives in Lake Tahoe.
Another friend is April. April was born in Greenbrea. April lives in San Rafael with her dad & Mill Valley with her mom. April & Mikayla know each other because they went to kindergarten together. April do not like people to make fun of her name.
Also Francesca, Macaulay, Gianna, Maria, Shaloain, Nicole, Djuninha, Alexis, Novi, Perla, Pammy & Tammy, Cassidy, Kelly, Sara, Natalie,& Naomi.

Savannah's friends are Alex, Emily, Xenya, Anika, Nikki, Will, & Nick, & April.

Let the Game's Begin

2006-04-14T05:29:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, Marin Girls Softball is underway. Both girls have returned to their glorious past, Savannah returns as a Rookie Sunray, Mikalya as a Minor league Smacker. Despite all the rain, we've gotten some practice and a few games, but we are definetly praying for drier weather in the coming months so we can get a real groove going.

To follow the season check out the league's web page.

http://eteamz.active.com/maringirls/index.cfm

Climbing Everest

2006-02-21T07:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was one of those great Northern California days. Not a cloud in the bright blue sky and nice brisk air. Given that, the girls and I took off with one of Mikayla's friends, Francesca and her dad Albert and headed to the hills. We had conceived the idea the day before and as I tend to do, I may have not been truly honest with Albert on the length and height of our planned hike. The trail we took on was Cataract Trail above Alpine Lake in Marin. Alpine Lake is fed by a stream with an abundance of waterfalls and this time of the year, the water is flowing freely. The girls were all troopers as we took off on the journey. We all started a bit cold, but by the end of the first flight of steps, we were all warm. There was plenty of support for the girlson the way up as many folks cheered their spunk for taking on the climb. Of course Albert and I pulled out the ultimate motivation and promised milkshakes and ice cream at the end of the hike. As for Albert and I, the prospect of a nice tall margarita and a warm shower got us through!

About the Jones

2006-02-18T22:17:00.000-08:00

This is about the Jones. The Jones are a family that lives in San Rafael, California. The Jones are a very funny and fun family.

One of the Jones is John Jones. John is a very extreme and passionate person. He loves to coach his daughter Mikayla, but hates cleaning. Mikayla is almost 10,also extreme and passionate person.

Mikayla loves softball and math, but she also hates cleaning. Savannah is 7 years old, and is also extreme and passionate.

Savannah is the seven year old. Her nickname is "Bananna" but by many she's known as "No Brakes!". Savannah is a fun and positive little girl who always makes every one around her smile.

And then there's Bre. She's a spirited southerner who has adopted California as her home. She's a big Auburn Football fan and can always be found in front of a TV on football Saturdays.