Getting Political

You may recall that there was a video here with John McCain announcing Sarah Palin as his selection for VP. I had intended to write my first real post on this blog. Chantal suggested one on this very political topic, but by the time i got around to actually writing it, the clip seemed stale- So I have deleated it. I will write one with a political topic soon though.
Alas... I am "Still working on posting."

Sunday Morning

We hand an unusual Sunday morning. We actually had extra time! With church starting at 1:00 you would think we always have extra time, but no we do not. We are almost always on time or early but this week we were ready a hour and a half early! So we took family pictures.

Brian Jr. also practiced for his talk. This was the first one in a long time. He was very exited! We wrote his talk together. The kids are suppose to give a talk on a story from the friend. I found on the church website you can read and LISEN to the friend! So I played the story for him a few times and he told me what he remembered then we wrote the talk with pictures. Like we did for Katie.

He did such a great job! I was so nervous. I forgot to ask him if he wanted help before he went up so I decided to hang back until he asked for help. I was on the edge of my seat very nervously waiting for him to break-down and call "mommy, help me!" but he never did. He gave the whole talk all by himself and he did a great job!
I cant post the video right now..we are having technical difficulties!

Oh (family in Az, and Figgins) did that post make you miss us?! Guess you just have to come visit!

How to Camp Clean

Our little adventurous, family went camping again. While camping we had some adventures getting clean. We camped 3 days 2 nights this time, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday after we set up camp I did Katie's hair. With 13 "ponies" . This smart lady does it so much neater, but I don't think she has 13 ponies. I actually started doing Katie's hair this way as an idea from Lacy. I knew it would be the easy to keep it cleaner this way and it would probably stay in for until Wednesday, and it did!

Tuesday afternoon we went to find a near by creek, stream, lake, pond, anything fun to play in or throw rocks into. We drove to the closest creek on the map. There was nothing. We then drove to the closest Lake it was a meadow with a mud pit. We passed! Then we drove to the next closest like about 30 min. away. It was a nice, little sunny lake. Lake Cuyamaca The kids had fun walking out a short ways and throwing rocks. Check out Katie's poses! What a lady.
Our first adventure getting clean started with blowing bubbles at the lake. One of the kids poured too much soap into the bowl they were dipping there wands into. Then they started fighting over the better bubble wand. I took the chance to introduce Brian to the art of making bubbles with your hands. He was actually very good at it! I could not blow one bubble and he had a whole stream of bubbles coming from the little circle he made with his hands.

This got the kids and me really soapy. We did no think the Lake was a good place to clean off so we decided and try to find a bathroom sink but we found something better.

We got lots of funny looks. Brian and I thought oh man I bet we look like red-necks, but,
Do red-necks take pictures when they do something that looks trashy, or funny? Probably not so there fore we are still not red necks.

Susan is the master at getting dirty! On our last camping trip she loved falling down flat onto the dirty ground. This trip was no different. Except the camp ground was dusty! There was dust everywhere. She would take a drink, dribble down her shirt, then fall in the dirt and have muddy lines going down her round belly and on their face. She got very dirty! I let her play happily and get real dirty.

Then at bed time I did the cleaning routine that I love. Brian Sr. warms up a pot of soapy water. One at a time the kids undress to there undies and I wipe them down with warm soapy water and clean rags. I always remember my Mom teaching us how to wash your body, "face first, then work your way down to your feet. Top-to bottom." (not literally "the bottom" that special place gets wipes) I also wiped a rag over the kids hair to get some smoke and dust out. Then they run to the tent in there undies and I dress them in clean pj's in the tent.

Wednesday Morning Brian and I wanted to go home through Julian and Romona. Brian did not want to go into a restaurant or stores smelling like smoke and feeling all dirty from camping. So in the morning we took a family shower! I packed shower supplies just in case and bathing suits for everybody. The campground has pretty clean showers and they were big enough for everybody. It was quite an experience to all shower together, but the shower had 2 heads one regular height and one shorter for the kids.
We left the camp feeling cleaner then we have ever felt after camping!

and that is how you camp clean.

btw, while camping we did some camping crafts. More at my other blog. We also saw crazy trees from busy wood peckers. and probably 50 squirls!

AND this awsome tree stump we had to take pictures for my Mommy.

Katie's 4th

Here is Katie's birthday Video.

Katie's Birthday was full of fun! We had pink strawberry pancakes for breakfast. The cake and ice cream for Lunch and Nachos at Balboa park. Katie wanted to ride the "spinney thing" at the park so we rode the free trolley and walked through balboa park to the play ground. After the park we took her to the corvette diner. It was a full day of lots of fun.

KATIE IS 4

1Beautiful

2Crazy

3Giggly

4Sweet

YEARS OLD!

Here is another video of everybody.

Based on my calculations I am AWSOME.*

I have never though of myself as a nerd.(Check me out in the HS photos) not super nerdy anyway. If I was a nerd I had lots of good company! I was not popular either. I have always valued my individuality, and did not do things just to be popular. For example I was in NAHS, instead of choir or dance. I was in the Outdoor Science Club. I took art classes and science not because they were an easy elective but because I wanted to learn more about art and enjoy exercising my creative mind. Also we went on awesome field trips!

Starting now I am going to embrace my inner nerd even more with a new blog all about my nerd hobbies. Crafting. Thrifting. Decorating Gardening. Creating with my kids. This new blog, Chantal's Getting Crafty at susiepoosie.blogspot.com will be repetitive of some things here at "Team Jones" but I will go into more detail about my projects and less family fun stuff.

Brian once gave me good advice that "self deprecation does'nt looks good." I do not want you to think I am doing that now. Nerd is not a bad thing, Nerd to me is someone who values ummm whats the word...in..intelect! someone who values intellect. (I like #3), someone who wants to increase their knowledge of everything around them to make their lives fuller. Then second somebody who goes against what is popular, whatever! I am bringing nerdy back! *

*I stole these quotes from some cool Wal-Mart shirts...the nerdyness now!

Come check out the new blog!

Where does he come up with this stuff?

Ahhh the smell of Mexico.

Can you guess what the smell of Mexico was?....

We have been to the Border Field State Park before. Brian and I were very curious; What does the border look like at the beach? Does it go out into the water? Wouldn't that be an easy place for illegals to cross? Are there border patrol everywhere? Well Saturday we got out answers. The Last time we drove that way the park was closed because there had been a lot of rain, alto I don't see how that was a problem. Any way This time It was open so we drove right up. Brian drove while I read. We parked in the almost empty parking lot and walked to the monument then down to the beach.

This might seem like a strange family outing,. I have heard Tijuana described as the arm pit of Mexico...Sick! Brian and I however have a curious and spontanious personality as well as a strange love and interest for Mexico. So it was pretty fun! Here are the answers we found at the park.

It was swarming with boared patrol. They are not friendly and I got the impression they did not want us there. Also they drive their trucks everywhere off the road inbetween park benches and tables. We also saw one girl get cuffed. We left shortly after that!

On the beach the boarder is just tall steel columns that people could easily squeeze through. We saw Mexican kids playing going between boraders. We warned a lot not to go through. We also saw a couple adult Mexicans come through to hug and talk with their American visitors. The Border Patrol did not seem to care but watched them closely. The boarder goes out into the water a few yards but nobody was in the water, not even the Mexicans.

It was very interesting at the monument there is a fence with a big spire and plaque. At that part of the fence you can see through. The Mexicans would come and stare through to America and we went and stood looking into Mexico.

The kids had a good time. They have been interested with Mexico even sense our Cruise. They kept asking, Are we in Mexico? Why cant we go into Mexico? It that Mexico? Why are we here to look at Mexico? What is that sound in Mexico? What is in Mexico? What is that smell? Is it Mexico?

Finally what was the smell of Mexico?...Churros! They came right up the Boarder to sell us all their goodies, churros, peanuts, mango's, candy Chiclets. The only thing we samples was the churros, you could smell them from the car! and they were great.

Also from the car you could hear a Mariachi Band, I love that music!