Not to be outdone

In the "lets keep up with the Lebarons...errr I mean Jones" world, here we are doing our family history work :)

Arts & Crafts

Kathryn loves to paint, so our trek to Michaels for some picture frames resulted in our picking up some paint and something to paint. You dont have to guess that pink was one of the colors selected and a house for her babies was also in the picture.

She came right home and took all the newspaper we had in the house and covered the kitchen table and then escorted us to the table to start painting.

Here we are all helping:

Matthew modeling his painting apron

Happy 13th Birthday Jacob

Our almost 11 pound baby, born 13 years ago celebrated his birthday. Jacob is a joy to have in our family. He is smart, funny, kind and handsome. We love you Jacob!

A 13 year old needs to look and smell good (thank you Aunt Karen)

"Yes...a cell phone"

(the elusive gift from the last 3 christmas and birthday

wish lists finally comes to fruition)

The friend party

(air soft war, pizza, and to a movie "Beverly Hills Chuaua")

Do you really want to feed this group more sugar?

Halloween

Halloween came and went too fast, but with many parties and opportunities to eat lots of candy. All the kids had school parties, church parties and then trick or treat night. We had the kids friends over for pizza and then we took them trick or treating. Jacob, Matthew and friends all took off on their own. We took Kathryn and a friend out. About 90 minutes into it, we got a text from Jacob telling us how thirsty they were so we had to go home, fill an icechest full of cold water bottles and take it to them. I can tell you I never got that kind of royal treatment when I was a kid.

The Toothpaste Kids

This kid will need toothpaste

Carving pumpkins

Jack was never the same after donating his organs!


Our princess

Fall Gardening

Amazingly, were still getting tomatoes from our Summer planting. We also planted a Fall garden of onions, brocolli, cauliflower, peas, celery, cilantro, dill and four different kinds of lettuce.

It is fun to go out in the garden and literally "pick a salad". The picture above is of our Halloween night salad that we had with our pizza. We made the kids (and their friends) all eat a helping of Smith Salad.

This is my lunch on Friday with all produce home grown....yum yum yum!

Fall Activities

Outdoor Ed 2008 - Occidental, CA

(redwoods and ocean within a short distance of camp)

The Jaguars - Matthew's Flag Football Team

The Scorpions - Jacob's Soccer Team
(Alan is the General Manager)





Jacob is in the yellow goalie jersey

(pre-game psyche out for the other team)

Jacob's Jr High Flag Football Team

Matthew & Dad went to Outdoor Ed for 1 week in the redwoods
(we were the Slug Squad....lots of bananna slugs
in the redwoods and the slug is the camp mascot)

Making our group shirts

The Official Slug Squad Shirt above

and the real deal below

Slug Flag and Slug Horn

5 days of camp food - were ready for a McDs

206 miles, 3 states, 1 day - LOTOJA 2008

September 6, 2008 brought what had been the culmination of 4 months of preparation for a long cycling race from Logan, UT to Jackson Hole, WY. One year ago two of my brother in laws rode in this race and got me interested. I had a few friends who had purchased bikes, so I started the search for a bike. The bike search ended in Scott Muir, my So Cal brother in law selling me his awesome bike that was too small.

I started seriously riding in May and the two months before LOTOJA I rode 600+ miles each month, including climbing around 45,000 feet each month.

This is a picture of me crossing the finish line in Jackson Hole, WY. I am relieved because the last 25 miles I was seriously wondering if I would make it. The song on this blog "Killing me Softly" is only fitting :)

Endless Summer....we wish....End of Summer at Lake Oroville

Matthew and Kathleen







The Upper Deck Crew - Kathleen, Matthew, Jacob, Mitchell and Andrew







Cards and fun with Karen

We spent Thursday - Saturday at Lake Oroville playing on the water with two of Lisa's sisters (Karen and Kristin) and family. It was a fun time spent on the water on Floating Campsite #7 which turned out to be a very nice two story floating dock with a nice big picnic table, very nice bathroom, storage closet, stainless steele BBQ, sink and kitchen area, big dock for the boat plus an area for all the water toys. It was in the North Fork of the lake secluded from others and made for a great place for our end of Summer fling.

Lisa and Kristin

Kids having fun in the water - floating campsite had a great dock for the boat and for storing all our water toys.

The manly Gatorade Guys...

Posing for a picture (little did they know the Dad's were about to dump two full buckets of water on them right as the picture was snapped)

The Gaterade Gangstas try to get revenge but overshot their target!

Fishing was good if your name is Karen :)

All you can eat BBQ chicken

Alan & Lisa about to sleep well! Sleeping arrangements are great when you have a double aerobed.

We spent lots of time swimming, having water fights, fishing, wakeboarding, tubing and surfing.

By the way, did I tell you "this potato salad from Costco is really good?" (inside joke)

Scout Camp - Camp Winton

Last week was Jacob's first scout camp. He did an exceptional job earning 5 merit badges, including First Aid, Environmental Science, Pioneering, Mammal Study and Photography. Dad was able to spend half the week with him and enjoy reminisching on time at Camp Winton 31 years ago when he was there as a 12 year old scout.

Camp Winton is in a beautiful setting on Bear River Reservoir. We were fortunate to have great staff that taught great merit badges, made camp meals fun and had awesome camp fire programs.

Whitewater Week

The last few days have been spectacular. The boys and dad went on a 2.5 day whitewater rafting excursion with the Venture and Varsity age boys in our troop. Dad was in charge so Jacob and Matthew got to join.

We rafted the South Fork of the American River on Thursday and the Middle Fork of the American River on Friday. Saturday we had a half day of climbing up in the sierras on some sheer granite cliffs.

Grandpa Smith went along as the camp host and the camp chef. Everyone was very appreciative of his spending Wed - Saturday in the camp to reserve and protect our gear and to chef up some awesome meals of dutch oven scalloped poatoes, steaks, ceasar salad, spahetti, etc.

What a great day to start Summer!