The Parade

With Halloween just around the corner Aiden's pre-school put on a mini costume parade for the kids. As it turns out, there are few pleasures greater then seeing a gaggle of costumed toddlers ambling in circles around a parking lot, waving at anything that moves. It was pretty great.

There were some pretty creative costumes on display. One of my personal favorites is Aiden's little friend Leah who dressed as a "nurse in training." (I took some pictures) Aiden's costume was a Phillies player, which is something that we'd picked out before the Phillie's disappointing fizzle. Although the wounds from their loss are still fresh I think that seeing our two year old proudly strut his stuff in Phillies garb was the first step in the healing process.

Anyway, it may not have been the "Phillies parade" that we were expecting, but I'll take this one any day of the week! Enjoy the pictures...

Falling for fall

The weather has taken a turn for the cooler around here recently and I, for one, am loving it. The last few days Aiden and I have been taking advantage of the sunny, fall temperatures by hanging out in the backyard. I started a project a while back where I am using broken-up pieces of our old sidewalk as edging for some of our plant beds. Despite being far from completed, Aiden decided to claim the area as a new place for him to play and get dirty.

Post wall-walking we moved on to collecting leaves. Which, as you'll see, then transitioned nicely into collecting dirt.

A boy and his dog

This video pretty much sums up the current state of Aiden and Bailey's relationship. Aiden just wants to play, and Bailey barely tolerates it all because he knows that Aiden is his primary gateway to all food-crumb related morsels.

My favorite parts of this video are when Aidens declares definitively "Its my rope!" (its not) And also when he chases Bailey around the room imploring him to participate while Bailey desperately eyes his escape route.

Untitled from Robert Jones on Vimeo.

UFO!!!!!! (Unidentified Flying bOy)

...these pictures are classified as TOP SECRET as this quadrant of the living room is designated as a strict no-fly zone... you never saw this... it never happened...

Doctober Part 2

For those not fortunate enough to live within reach of the airwaves of the Philadelphia radio broadcast here is the final out of last night's no-hitter as called by Scott Franzke:

Doctober

Unlike the last two years there has been nary a blog post in the lead up to this season's baseball playoffs. What can I say? Maybe we've reached an era where making the postseason is just buisness as usual for our Fightin's.

I could hardly let tonight's game come and go, however, seeing as that it was (literally) one for the ages. I am excited to have game one in the bag, but beyond that, watching Doc deal the second postseason no-hitter in baseball history was just electrifying.

Thank goodness for Doc. And thank goodness for baseball.

Here we go again...

Pre-school begins

Aiden started pre-school 2 weeks ago, and we've been meaning to share some pictures. Aiden is now a proud student of 'Pre-school in the Valley' 2 mornings a week. The pre-school is in the church where Rob grew up, and coincidentally, both of Aiden's grandmother's work there!

Here's some pictures from the first day before heading out the door.

Not quite ready to let go of my baby!!

Being silly with daddy

Here we go!

Aiden was teary the first day, but is now loving school and doesn't look back when I drop him off in the morning.

Zoo again

We made another zoo trip last Friday. Mimi and Pop-Pop came along this time which was lots of fun! Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures. But, we got some great ones of the new baby giraffe that was so cute, I (Jen) could barely contain myself!

With mama

Rob and Aiden checking out the baby giraffe

We also saw the otters again, which is one of our favorite exhibits. It was lunch time for them and they were all eating fish- they eat the whole thing- bones and all!

And even though this is not a great picture of us, it's the only one we have from the trip.

And sorry there are no pictures of Mimi and Pop-Pop, but they were there, I promise!

Overloaded!

As another summer turns the corner into another fall there are some changes afoot at the Jones Abode. Nothing too crazy, of course, but significant enough to alter some of our daily activities for the foreseeable future. The first thing is that Aiden will start his first year of pre-school in just a few days! He will go two mornings a week, and he will be attending with some of the same kids that were in his "Mommy and Me" class last year. Jen and I went to the open house last week, where we met his teacher and saw his classroom. We've also been talking it up as much as possible and, let me tell you, the anticipation is building!

Another change is that I am actually getting in back to school-mode myself. Last week I started a program which will allow me to complete my bachelors degree and continue on to get my masters degree in nursing. The school that I am going to is called Excelsior College and it has a very unique, 100% online, (super flexible) curriculum. It's going to be a long, slow road, but after much prayer and consideration we decided that it is a worthwhile journey to take.

With the added time requirements for my school assignments the reality is that my posting here will probably continue to be quite infrequent. I used to try to get something up at least once a week, but I think now I may aim for twice monthly updates.

So thanks for checking in, and I hope that you continue to do so. If anything exciting happens, we'll let you know! (And if nothing much at all happens, we'll let you know that too...)

Ocean City 2010

We've been a little lackadaisical on the blog posting front recently. Oops.

Lets be honest though, it's August, the height of summer, who has time for blog reading/posting this time of year? Not us, that's all I know.

As hard as it's been to keep things up to date around here, I couldn't put off any longer sharing pictures of our trip down to Ocean City with Jen's family. Our time down there was great. The sun was shining, the kites were flying, and the boardwalk was humming with activity.

As per usual, our activities for the week centered around of the "big three" of shore vacation life. The "big three" (as we all know) are:

1) Relaxin' at the house

2) Cruisin' at the boardwalk

And of course, the most important of all...

3) Chillin' at the beach