The Jones Family Website

For anyone who is close to me you probably know that I have a dream to one day be a photographer. Just to know enough to take semi professional pictures of my family and close friends. When we moved into our house in July our Fuji camera was damaged somehow in the move and it was going to be too expensive to replace and since we can't afford a new camera right now I have to settle with my small digital backup camera. One day I will buy my dream camera and enroll in some photographer and photoshop classes.

You are probably asking yourself what this has to do with the blog? Well, at the end of October, I took the kids to one of our local parks and took some pictures of them. While they aren't professional quality, I think they turned out really well and I am pretty proud of what I can do with the little I know (plus I had some pretty cute subjects). So here you go-

My baby is five! I just cannot believe that the time has flown by so quickly. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in my arms and rocking her. She is still my little cuddle bug and not a day goes by where she doesn’t lie with me on the couch or bed and snuggles. This seems to be the year of the birthday party for Kennedi and her preschool classmates and we decided to have her birthday party at Monkey Joes which is a party place for inflatable’s (think big bouncy houses and slides) We invited about 15 kids and ended up with 9 attending. She had a wonderful time celebrating with her brother Connor and friends Rachel, Lexi, Yash, Youndel, Mercedes, Wren, Lauryn, and Lyli. We also had both sets of grandparents, set of great grandparents, Uncle Kevin and Aunt Ashley, and Aunt Beth attend as well. They spent about an hour and a half running around, jumping, and sliding. We had a party room for another hour and the kids drank root beer and ate cake and Kennedi opened her presents from everyone. She also insisted that her cake be Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Hot ticket items this year included a Figit, a Princess Jasmine costume complete with matching slippers and a crown, a Strawberry shortcake toy, My Little Pony puzzle book, various art supplies, and a pretend hair salon kit. We decided to wait until her actual birthday to give her our presents.








Unfortunately, her birthday fell on a Friday this year (she was born on Veteran’s Day) and both of us had to work, so we sent her off to preschool with treats for her class so they could celebrate with her and let her open presents when we got home. I knew that with all the things that she was getting from her party and other relatives and with Christmas coming up that we would scale down on how much we got for her this year. Our presents to her this year were a set of gowns for her Barbie dolls, a Melissa and Doug cookie set for her play kitchen, a Snow white dress with matching accessories (shoes, purse, and gloves), and a crayola story studio set where you can go online and download a photo of your child and they will insert it into a coloring book you can print out.





Here are a couple of pictures of her trying on her presents from her Aunt Beth and Uncle Kevin.






One of the other exciting things we did on her birthday was to go see the musical production of Annie. Annie is one of Kennedi’s favorite movies to watch and my grandmother (Nana) bought tickets for the three of us to see the production. We got all dressed up and went to the Peoria Players Theater the night of her birthday. She had such a good time! Of course we had to get a couple of pictures of her before we left for the theater since she was all dressed up!






Thanks to all our family members and friends for making our princess so happy on her special day! Till next time I blog. XOXO

Yes, I know there was a significant amount of time between the last blog and this one but with Kennedi's 5th birthday and the Thanksgiving holiday I am way behind!I promise I will have a shorter amount of time in between posts for the next month.The last full day of our vacation was on a Friday and we had to be up fairly early because since we had a breakfast reservation at another resort. It was at a resort called the Grand Floridian (we decided that if we go back we would like to try and stay there next time) and the place was 1900 Park Fare. It was a character buffett breakfast, so we got autographs and pictures from Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, and MARY POPPINS! Kennedi was beside herself since she had been singing Spoonful of Sugar the entire week!

After breakfast we took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom one last time. The only princess we hadn't seen at this point was Princess Tiana from Princess and the Frog so we went straight to Liberty Square to find her and lo and behold, we were the first people in line and got private time with her in her special garden. Again another squeal from Kennedi.




After autographs and pictures we went on Pirates of the Carribean, the Tiki Room, and then onto Frontierland. Ryan and Connor went on Splash Mountain (we couldn't get Connor to go on Big Thunder Mountail Railroad) while Kennedi and I did a little bit of shopping (2 more pins for Connor, a Minnie Mouse nightgown and earrings for Kennedi) and then we stood in line for more autographs from Jessie and Woody (Toy Story).




We still had some snack credits to use so we headed to the Dole Whip pineapple stand (one of our favorites from vacationing in Hawaii) and got four floats (Kennedi and I pineapple, Connor had orange, and Ryan had a pineapple, orange, vanilla twist). Right about this time it started to downpour which was the first time it had rained in Florida the entire time we had been there. We stood under the stand and ate our decilicious snack and then headed towards main street where we had planned on watching the Move it Shake it Street Party. While we were standing there we saw a couple get engaged! I can't believe we saw the entire thing. The girl was looking up around at the rooftops of main street and then next thing you now the guy had gotten down on his knee and opened up a black velvet box! It started raining again and the street party was canceled so we decided to head back to the resort for lunch and rest because we had planned on spending the rest of our day at Hollywood Studios. Ryan and Connor stopped off at Old Port Royale and brought lunch back to our room so Kennedi could take a little nap. We also used that time to start packing up because we had to check into our bus back to the airport the next day by 6:45.

We got to Hollywood Studios around 3:30 and the first thing we did was The Great Movie Ride which was a ride through time of some of the greatest movie sets (Wizard of Oz was one of them), afterwards we went to the Lights Motor and Action stunt show where they showed us how they created car chases and gun scenes on a movie set. Lots of fast cars, motorcycles, fire, jet skis, people falling off the top of buildings along with a surprise visit from Lightning McQueen. Ryan got some video footage of it so you will have to ask to see how cool it is.





Ryan went and got fast passes for the Tower of Terror while I let the kids play in the Honey I shrunk the kids playground. We saw the show Voyage of the Little Mermaid for Kennedi before we had dinner at another buffett called Hollywood and Vine. After dinner it had started raining again but we headed over to the Tower of Terror so Ryan could go on it (again couldn't talk Connor into going on it) and then the ride I had been waiting for the entire trip which was Aerosmith's Rockin Rollar Coaster. Since it was about 7:40 and the park closed at 8:00 we did a rider switch and I got on the ride right away. It was in the dark, and you go from 0 to 60 in 20 seconds with Aerosmith music playing in the background and lots of glow in the dark signs etc. Completely awesome! For some reason I thought of how much dad would have enjoyed this ride. We headed back to our resort and our last Disney memory of the night was watching the fireworks from Epcot from the balcony of our resort.




The kids were great traveling home, in fact Kennedi pretty much slept the entire flight home and they are seasoned at going through checkpoints and security. Our next plan is to go back in a couple of years around the time they have decorated for the Christmas holidays and attend the Christmas party at the Magic Kingdom since we had soo much fun at the Halloween party. Next blog up, Kennedi's 5th birthday! XOXO

Happy 10th anniversary to myself and my beloved! What a great way to celebrate our love for one another and our love for our kids by getting to be in the most magical place on earth! We had decided on this day because it was our anniversary that we weren't going to rush around all day..we slept in again and then headed down to downtown Disney for some shopping. I got a Cinderella shirt and a mickey scarf at a cute boutique called Trende..the biggest Disney store in the world is in Downtown Disney and both kids had asked for a stuffed Mickey (Connor) and Minnie (Kennedi) so we headed over to that store. Kennedi picked out a Minnie that had a pink princess dress and a cone shaped hat with the material hanging down from it. Connor picked out a sorcerer's Mickey and they also both picked out a bag for trick or treating. Ryan found a champion golf shirt that he liked.

Once shopping was done, we had let them wear their bathing suits to play in one of the splash parks. They had alot of fun doing that (I told Ryan that we paid all this money to come down here and they were having a ball in something that was completely free!).





Afterwards we got back on the bus and headed back to the resort for lunch and pool time. Both kids got pizza again (you would think they would be sick of pizza by now) and I had a chilli cheese dog while Ryan had a deli sandwich on ciabetta bread. Pool time is so much fun! If I had the money and time I would do this vacation again for 10 days just to spend a couple of more relaxing days at the pool.

After pool time we headed back to Epcot to partake in the food and wine fesival. Originally, we had planned on getting a sitter for the kids and decided against that and to take them with us. I am glad we did because Connor got a lesson in different cultures as we ate ourselves around the world.





Since this was such a relaxing and unplanned day we don't have many stories or pictures to share. However, Day #7 was jam packed with all sorts of Disney fun as we tried to do anything and everything on our last day of our magical vacation. Till next time I blog, XOXO!

This was the point in the vacation where as much fun as we were having the Jones family was starting to get tired and a little cranky with one another from sharing such close living spaces! We did still manage to have some fun on Day #5.
We decided to go back to Epcot center to finish off the things we didn't get to do the night of Day #4. We went on the Space Odessy which takes you through the different evolution phases of the world and ends going through the giant Epcot ball.




After that we got Fastpasses for Test Track (another adventure seeking ride) and then went to lunch at a place called the Sunshine Seasons which was kind of like a food court. The kids both selected macaroni and cheese and Ryan and I got Chinese with our desserts of key lime pie and strawberry shortcake. We went back to test track where we got through the line in less than 15 minutes. The ride is based on all the tests they do to make sure that a car is up to all standards before it goes to a lot and they put you in a car and take you through all these simulations. The last part of the ride is going around a track at a speed of about 600 mph. It was totally awesome, however it completely scared the crap out of Kennedi and she was bawling by the time we got out of the ride. I honestly thought she would be fine with it since it wasn't really a roller coaster or anything that went up and down large hills. I guess we won't be getting the parents of the year after that ride!




oh yeah, another thing about Kennedi I forgot to mention..we had accident #2 on day #4, while we were waiting in line for Soarin, she was messing around on the metal dividers that separate the lines and hit her face on it, end result is pretty much a black eye!

After test track we did some things called Innovations where the kids learned about storms and storm kits and then we took Connor to a Disney thing called Kim Possible where he went around for clues like a secret agent. On the way out of Epcot we ran into two characters lines for Stitch and Daisy and got pictures and autographs.






We came back to the resort and Kennedi took a long needed nap and then we got ready for dinner. Our dining reservation was at another resort called The Beach Club and the restaurant was called Cape May Cafe. It was a New England Style seafood buffett with steamed crab legs, mussels, clams, red potatoes, steak, cornbread, rolls, a kids bar with pizza, macaroni, chicken nuggest, cold and hot seafood salads, corn on the cob, clam chowder, and then desserts like cheesecake, key lime tarts, caramel flan, brownies, cookies, mini cupcakes, etc.. The only downside to this was that it took an hour and 15 minutes to do two bus exchanges because you take a bus to downtown disney and then got on another bus to go to the other resort. After dinner we headed back to the Magic Kingdom to catch the Electrical Parade (think festival of lights Disney style) and the fireworks show. We also managed to squeeze in the jungle cruise and an autograph session with Tinkerbell and one of her fairies.






Day #6 blog will be about spending the day at the pool, trying to squeeze in another shopping trip to Downtown Disney and then a little time at Epcot to sample some of the food and wine festival tastings! That was the day we also celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary! Till next time I blog, XOXO.