Eight Years Down, 80 to go.

Dan and I celebrated 8 years of marriage earlier this week. It's funny how fast time goes, and I know that the next 8 (and probably the next 15, for that matter) will also fly by. We went on a date tonight, shooting guns, eating yummy food and even yummier frozen yogurt (we are officially hooked on Sweet Frog, but don't tell the kids we went without them!). It was nice to be out and about. This is the first anniversary in a while that we haven't watched our wedding video (because our DVD player is a dork, and annoying to set up), so instead I'm just going over some memories of the day, funny ones that I sort of expected to forget.

For those of you who don't know, we were married in California with just one friend there, Joan, who lives in Cali. Joan and I stayed together in a hotel the night before (it was a dump, because I was apparently either too broke or too cheap to spring for a decent place) while Dan stayed at the Naval Base in San Diego. Checkout at the hotel was really early, so I was going to have no place to get ready because Dan and I were going to stay at a different hotel the night of the wedding. Neither place wanted to let me use a room, so Joan and I called Dan Alan (I have no idea how we knew how to get in touch with him). He was the director of the San Diego Summer Project when Joan and I met in the summer of 2000, and he was still the director that year. He and some of the other Campus Crusade for Christ staff arranged for us to use their condo to get ready before the wedding. It was so sweet!

Anyway, after using their room, Joan and I headed out, only to get lost on the way to the beach. It was a mess. Dan and I were fighting on the phone as we each drove separately, each trying to figure out where the other was. We were both late, but I was later. Not that it really mattered. The only guest was with me!

Before I arrived, and without my knowledge, Dan and the pastor had asked a bunch of beach-goers to vacate the area so that we could get married! They were all very kind and left, but I would have just let them stay, had they asked me. The beach area (Shell Beach in La Jolla, for those of you who know the area) was at the bottom of a cliff. It was truly beautiful. I had to walk down a really tall staircase to get down to where Dan waited with the pastor. By the end of the ceremony we had a huge audience looking down on us, and they all applauded when Pastor Lauer said we could kiss.

The rest of our wedding trip was lovely (except one unfortunate round of food poisoning, but no honeymoon would be complete without that, would it?), and we can't wait to get our toes back in the San Diego sand some day. For now, we're grateful for God's grace in the 8 years since we made that covenant with each other and with God, and we are content to be right where he has us: in each other's arms.

Reading

I just have to say, I feel so overwhelmingly blessed to have the privilege of teaching Vincent to read. Maybe it's the book-lover in me. Maybe it's the mommy. Whatever it is, I am so grateful for the chance to see Vincent's eyes light up when he realizes he has just read a word. I was terrified of this process at first, until a sweet friend told me about this book. It takes all the work out of it. I don't have to do any planning. It's even scripted (and you're supposed to follow the script exactly). It may sound daunting, but it truly is the best thing we've done for homeschool. Anthony even wants to participate, but I can't figure out a good way to teach them both at the same time, so I'm going to start with Anthony at the beginning of the school year.

Sweet Frog Birthday Party

Vincent wanted to have his party at our new favorite frozen yogurt place: Sweet Frog. They've only been open a few weeks or so, and the staff was so wonderful! It was really affordable and very fun. The frogs were really adorable and spent lots of time with the kiddos.

Brent and Brody were the first to arrive and collect their pirate hats.

The whole group minus one. Ryder was not a fan of the ginormous frogs.

Josie stole the show in her party attire!!

There's Ryder! With his lovely mama, Angel.

Preston and Vincent

Thank you to our very sweet friends for making Vincent's day extra special!

Vincent's Fifth Birthday

Wow. Wow. Wow. I can't believe that Vincent is FIVE!! I know every year that goes by in a child's life is painfully short for a parent, and agonizingly long for the child. Somehow, this is the first birthday where I've really begun to be surprised by his age. Some things I've been ruminating on the past week:

• Vince is already well past the age to be able to hold life-long memories. As an imperfect parent, I find this both exciting and frightening.
• Vince is a kid, not a "preschooler", and certainly not a toddler!
• It took less than five years for Vincent to become a kind, compassionate, thoughtful, respectful, (generally) obedient, and surprisingly clever young boy. It has taken me over thirty years to attempt to develop some of those traits, and most of them I still don't possess!
• All the wondering we did about the teeny tiny beautiful baby we brought home from the hospital -- the sweet little prince we were instantly in love with -- "What will his voice be like?" "What will be his favorite food?" "Is he going to like cars, or sports; fishing or hiking?" "What will make him laugh?" "What will make him sad?" ... All those questions (and more) have been answered and have now led to even more questions and speculations!
• Most of the plans we had about discipline, training, schooling, developing, character-building, etc. have been reevaluated, abandoned, reimplemented, forgotten, improved, and some times regretted.

On Vincent's actual birthday we had a family celebration. Dan came home early from work and we went to a nearby Wild Animal Safari. It was so much fun! We ALL loved it. Well, it took Silas a while to love it, but he got there. Some friends warned us that we should take one of the rental vans, and boy, were we glad we did! The animals would have dented up our van. I will let the photos speak for themselves for the most part.

 

 
Silas is not a fan of four-legged friends.
He was pretty freaked out when a giant
buffalo came and stuck his tongue in his
window. Eventually he got into throwing
the food out to them, though.

 

Below is the "mean donkey." He "bit" Anthony. I'm pretty sure it was more Anthony's fault than the donkey's. Anthony liked to let his hand sort of linger in their mouths, but the donkey chomped with his teeth, whereas most of the others just sort of put their lips around your hand. It was pretty gross; and for Anthony, pretty traumatic, but he did finally recover toward the end of the drive.

There were DOZENS of turtles. We thought of our sweet cousin Jacob the whole time we passed these big fellas. He loved turtles!

Stay tuned for our next post with pictures from Vincent's Super-Fun Birthday party at Sweet Frog!!

New Blog

I've created a new blog for my photos. This will stay a family blog, and the other one will feature photos as well as other creative stuff I come up with (don't get too excited about the "other creative stuff", because that will be scarce, and probably limited to a short memoir or other commentary here and there).

Jones Family Photo Session

Okay, are you ready for some serious cuteness? I absolutely love this family. We had such a fun time during their photo shoot. They were all really good sports and tried whatever I asked. Stormy even made a few really great suggestions of her own! I am so lucky to have FIVE flawless subjects!

 

Oh my word. The rest of the family is lucky they're in any of the pictures, because I could snap pictures of this little princess all day long. Love her!

I hijacked this sweet little moment from Ben and Stormy.

This is what I would say their faces look like most of the time. These two little fellas are on the go from morning till night. They have such fun imaginations.

It's not long before someone notices Daddy's got Mommy's attention!

All this beauty in one place.

Thank you, Ben and Stormy, for a wonderful session. I hope you like the rest of the pictures too. I think I may have taken too many, but I was able to narrow it down from 1001 to 226. The rest is up to you.