2011 Recap

by Jean (pictures to come)

Ok, it has been a while since we posted anything… but we are going to make up for an entire year right here in one pass. It is the annual Christmas letter, where we provide a rundown of our entire year in nauseating detail. So if you have a cup of coffee or another stronger beverage and are prepared to read for a while, go ahead.

Ted, Adam and I are still living in northern Louisiana. We had no hurricanes again in 2011 – so we need to leave the state before the next season blows us off the map since we have now been here 2 years without a major storm! Mississippi River flooding aside, it was a very dry and hot year in Louisiana – it was strange to be in a drought for most of the year while in danger from the worst flooding since they started record keeping! But we still managed to get out and do some fun stuff this year.

January was filled with trips – Ted was going to go do the Phoenix ½ marathon, but had to watch from the sidelines due to a leg injury. So he enjoyed 3 days with his friend Travis exploring the Phoenix restaurants that have been featured on Man Vs Food (having the exact opposite effect that running a ½ marathon would!). Adam and I made our own trip west, meeting up with my parents in Las Vegas. Now that they are retired, they get in one (of their several) RVs and hit the road when the weather turns cold and wet in Washington, usually ending up somewhere in the southwest, chasing sun and warmth (and interesting hikes and locations). So we met them in Las Vegas and after spending a few hours showing a 3 year old the Vegas strip, we decided that was enough of the bright lights, volcanoes, and pirate ships, and spent the rest of our trip out hiking around red rocks, cacti and sand. We also celebrated Adam’s 3^rd birthday while there, so it was a great trip. Thanks to Uncle Duke and Auntie Sharon for letting us all stay at their house!

February was filled with Adam’s class at preschool, Ted’s trips to the doctor to try to figure out what was (still) wrong with his leg, and my work for John Deere, which is what keeps us here in Louisiana. I enjoy working with the local dealers and every day has a different challenge for us. The weather and climate are so different down here that there were farmers in the field doing bedding and starting to plant by the end of February – and this was a little earlier than normal. Once farmers get into the field and start work, it doesn’t slow down again until November!

March marked the first triathlon of our season. Ted got to do the Warhawk Triathlon last year, so this year was my turn. It is over on the ULM campus, and includes a pool swim (thank goodness – no way I am getting in a lake or bayou in March!!), bike and then run. Adam ran the last 50 yards of the run with me, crossing the finish line and then he had to have several cups of Gatorade to recover!

April and May were full of excitement as we watched the weather reports and listened to the locals talk about the Mississippi River and the possibility of flooding. If the levees had broken near Vicksburg, there could have been water almost to Monroe (70 miles away). That is how flat Northeastern Louisiana is. We were actually more worried about the drought conditions in our area and how that would affect the crops and the economy. Record high temperatures were recorded during this time also, just to put an extra twist on the weather concerns!

At the end of May we made the long journey (way too many hours on a plane with a small child) to Washington to visit family. Ted’s dad has some health problems, and Ted ended up flying out a few days early to be there and help support him and the rest of the family. By the time we got there everything was much better, and I am happy to report that he is now back home and doing well with Ted’s mom Mary. While in Washington we also got to spend lots of time with Adam’s grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and some of our school friends, which was great! And it didn’t even pour down rain the whole time – thank goodness!

After that trip west, it was a shock to come back to Louisiana and the heat and humidity, but we managed to cope.  I did the Cotton States Triathlon in August, and I lucked out – the weather was cool and almost rainy, perfect for a swim, bike and run.  And Ted did a triathlon a week later in El Dorado, AR.  Not often in the summer in Louisiana do I worry that I will be too cold getting out of the water! Adam did the Kid’s Fun Run, just like last year, so he is building a collection of event t-shirts already!

Other kid events took up many of the fall weekends – the Ouachita Parish Safety Day is a great opportunity to learn more about safety and all of the entities that are there to protect us (and for the kids to sit on fire engines, boats, atvs, etc). And they always give out hats, so Adam has a collection of fire, police and safety hats.

There was a great Kids Fitness day at Kiroli Park near our house, and Adam and I had a great time trying Zoomba (he is more coordinated), hula hoop, shooting baskets, climbing the rock wall (in harnesses and hard hats and everything), and all kinds of other events focused on getting kids outdoors and more active.

And as always we spent lots of time at our local zoo and the NorthEast Louisiana Children’s Museum.

In October I took some vacation time, and we headed over to Anderson, SC for a ½ ironman distance triathlon that Ted (still injured) was determined to finish. He had been planning this with our friend Kati for months, and was going to be great on everything but the run. So we camped and did some sightseeing on our way there, and then enjoyed a great race venue with lots of kids’ activities while Ted and Kati tore up the triathlon course. They both finished, and we are very proud of them!

After that big trip, we had a quiet November with Thanksgiving at home featuring pulled pork (this is Louisiana after all) and green beans and sweet potatoes. And a week later we left for Washington to do a “tweener” visit – catching up with everyone between Thanksgiving and Christmas, instead of trying to go on a major holiday. I also had another reason for the trip. My friend from college Jessica invited me to her wedding – in Hawaii! Don’t let Ted tell you that I didn’t offer to take them – I did! Somehow the idea of another 5 hours flying, either with or without Adam was too much for him, so they stayed in Washington and visited with many of our family and friends while I was off on Oahu helping Jessica get her wedding details together, visiting with my sister Shannon who lives there, and taking a little time to snorkel and sightsee. It was a great trip and a wonderful wedding so I am glad I went! When I got back we had a great “ThanksChristmas” dinner with all of our family at my parent’s house and had a chance to visit a little more, and then we had to fly back to Louisiana.

Adam has been VERY EXCITED about Christmas for a while now (since Thanksgiving day at approximately 3:45pm). It is about to drive him nuts that it still isn’t Christmas – every day he asks us if it is here yet. So tonight is going to be great! We have presents under the tree, bean soup for dinner, cookies made and ready to leave for Santa (and eat ourselves), lots of Christmas carols playing, and we are ready for the main event!

Hope you have a VERY Merry Christmas and that your New Year is full of all the best for you and your families!

Love,

Jean, Ted, and Adam Jones

It's Jon Stewart's World

And we're just livin' in it.

The Daily Show - Me Lover's Pizza With Crazy Broad
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Wait, It's Been HOW Long?

With Mother's Day in the rear-view mirror, naturally our thoughts turn to Christmas...

Okay, it's possible I've neglected the blog a little too long.

Anyway, Christmas was fun. To put your mind at ease, yes, Adam did receive the skid-steer he was hoping for. I know you've been on the edge of your seat for the last 5 months in anticipation. Sorry about that.

This was the first Christmas where Adam really got into the whole holiday thing. There were all sorts of pre-Christmas events that he enjoyed, like going to the Children's Museum and getting "snow" all through his hair and telling Santa (several times) that he wanted a skid-steer.

Or going to the zoo to look at the porcupine and other animals.

Or the Christmas party at the gym.

Or heading to downtown West Monroe for the light and music display.

He also noticed the big tree in the house.

And the stocking with candy and tiger slippers in it.

And the presents that appeared under the tree Christmas morning. Like a certain piece of equipment from Grandma Beth and Grandpa Ray:
And the service center from Grandma Mary and Grandpa Ted:

And after all the excitement of the presents, Adam helped Jean with dessert.

He was a huge help.

With a thank you to grandma and grandpa (both sets).

Pretty Much

Adam Describes Louisiana In Five Words

Adam, describing the garage sale he and his mom patronized this morning: "It had shotguns and trucks!"

More soon. Really.

Updates! Pictures! Video! Humorous Anecdotes!

All things you'd get from a competent blog author, but NOT ME! Guh. I've, uh, been busy. Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, I'll make a pathetic stab at getting caught up soon. Probably this weekend. Or something.

Come Read Our Lazy Christmas Letter

So here is our Christmas letter, which in years past would be sent to your mailbox. This year, in an innovation I'm calling "Putting The Darn Thing On The Internet Because Printing and Mailing It Is Too Much For A Slugabed Like Me," we're just gonna put it here and you get to use your precious internet time reading it instead of updating your Facetube or Mybook or Youspace or whatever you kewl kids are doing and we're not these days. You kids with your "tweeting" and "friending" and "poking" and "pinging" and other things that sound dirty... Humbug, I say!

The big news is that we seem to have survived our first year in Louisiana. It was a little touch-and-go in the summer, when the high temperatures were regularly reaching 3000 degrees, with 173% humidity... well, by my calculations anyway. But we made it. Adam, of course, loved the hot weather. We spent a lot of time in the air conditioning of the local children's museum, but when we were outside, water played an important role in Adam's summertime existence. We went to the pool a lot, and by the end of the summer, he was pretty darn close to swimming. Next year, he's going to be a swimming fool. He also found that running across the front lawn naked or nearly naked through the sprinkler was great fun. I don't know how our neighbors feel about it.

Adam turned 2 years old in January (which of course means he's fast approaching his third birthday already, but we don't want to think about that right now). And in February, he took his visiting Grandpa Ray and Grandma Beth to his first Louisiana Mardi Gras parade. He was completely exhausted by the end but refused to leave before it was over.

The visit from Ray and Beth coincided with the Saints big win in the Super Bowl. It was pretty exciting for the long-suffering locals, given the not-so-glorious past of the team formerly known as the 'Aints. And Ray and Beth got to see the Saints' victory parade, which was cold and windy but still fun.

Adam also got to experience his first camping weekend this March when we met Tori and Kevin, and Seth and Deb and Vicky at Caddo Lake State Park in East Texas. He was a natural when it came to s'mores and canoeing, but a two year old boy and tent camping are a lot of work for parents. It was a fun weekend, but that boy sure wore us out.

Beth had had such a good time in N'awlins in February that she came back in April. She flew directly to the Big Easy, and we met her there for a weekend of cable cars, the zoo, the aquarium, and gators.

And we had our first non-family guest in May when Colin extended his Southern work trip with a few days in our sleepy hamlet. We weren't able to show him much of the area because we still didn't know much about it ourselves, but at least he got to sample the end-of-the-season crawfish.

In June we trooped out to Washington for Sharon and Ben's wedding. It was as close to a family reunion as we're going to get, and it was fun to see everyone again (or for the first time).

After a couple of quiet - and hot - months, we flew up to Iowa for Rebecca and Bob's wedding. Again, fun to see everyone, and we had a good time exploring Pella and Knoxville, topped off by Evey's first-ever kayak experience, with a huge assist from Tori and Elizabeth.

In late October, we received a third visit from Beth (I wonder if she likes it down here?) and a second from Ray. They helped us through Halloween and had a good time collecting pecans at a local farm. Adam was a tiger (in LSU colors - don't blame me; if Jean does the work, she gets to choose the colors).

A couple of weeks later, I ran in the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 marathon. It was a fun weekend with Jennifer, Bryan, Stormy, and Blake. We did a little pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving while we were there, which allowed us to have a nice, quiet Thanksgiving here. It was our first Thanksgiving in a while that we didn't travel, and it was a nice change of pace.

We were going to do something similar for Christmas, but Jean got a hankering for the sea, so we're going to go to Gulf Shores, AL for a few days next week. But first, we've got to get Adam through the holiday without him exploding. The last few years were relatively easy because he didn't really grock the whole Christmas thing. He just didn't care one way or the other. This year is different. He is fully invested in Santa and presents and trees and lights and candy canes and stockings and snowmen... the whole nine-yards. We will soon find out if Adam received the skid-steer tractor he loudly and proudly announced to Santa that he wanted for Christmas, and the anticipation is killing the poor kid. I like to think of it as a tough but necessary lesson in patience that will be good for him in the long term. Adam is not so sanguine.

Aside from the Christmas excitement, the other big news lately is that Adam has started full-time pre-school. He's been going to school 3-4 days a week for the last few weeks, and he's enjoying it a lot. Combine that with his nearly complete potty training, and he's gone from toddler to boy in the blink of an eye.

We wanted to get him in pre-school so that I could start working again. I'll be teaching a class at University of Louisiana Monroe in the spring, and I'm looking to get certified as a group exercise instructor this year, with the long-term goal of becoming a personal trainer. We figure it's something I'll enjoy and can do wherever Jean's job with Deere takes us. For now, we're enjoying our respite from the crazy summer weather and looking forward to the crawfish season.

Now, you kids get off my lawn.

Mom, You're Embarrassing Me In Front of The Cool Kids

Adam arrives for his first day of pre-school.

Elmo backpack? Check. Sippy cup? Check. Okay, now mom and dad, go away; you're cramping my style.

... And I'm All Out of Bubble Gum

We needed a little more pain in our lives, so we packed up the brood (minus Sliver) and drove to San Antonio so that I could run in the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 Marathon last Sunday. I was originally going to run the race with my sister Jennifer, who lives there, but she hurt her knee in September and is out of action for a while. Lucky duck.

So we drove to Tyler, Texas, birthplace of Earl Christian Campbell, a.k.a., "The Tyler Rose," and stayed Wednesday night. Adam enjoyed the hotel room and the breakfast of oatmeal and sausage and yogurt and syrup and milk and a tiny bit of juice, and did I mention he likes breakfast? We covered the rest of the 488 miles Thursday.
Friday we checked out downtown San Antonio. We remembered the Alamo, took a boat tour of the river, had lunch along the riverwalk, and picked up my race packet at the Alamodome. No pictures; we forgot the camera that day.

By Saturday, Adam had discovered that Jenn and Bryan's neighborhood had a pretty sweet park around the corner. He and Blake practiced riding bikes and played while I got in a short run.

The race was to start at 7:15 Sunday morning, and I got there early, thanks to Bryan dropping me off at stupid o'clock. Jean and Jenn and the kids were going to come later and see me finish. If everything went well, I would be finished by 9. If my knees, which had been giving me problems for the previous couple of weeks, couldn't hold up, I would finish MUCH later. As bad as my knees had been, I did not seriously expect them to make it. Neither did Jean or Jenn.

O ye of little faith.

As I was training for the run, since this was my first half-marathon and I had no idea what to expect or how to pace it, I decided on 3 target times. I would be satisfied with anything under an hour and forty-five minutes; I thought 1:42 would be a good day and 1:40 would be my everything-goes-well, best-case-scenario time.

I ran the first mile with the crowd. It's hard to do much else when there are 27,000 people trying to cover the same ground. But it was too slow, so I picked up the pace and by mile 5 the crowds had thinned enough to settle into a really good rhythm. In fact, my mile 6 and 7 splits were only 22 hundredths of a second different. The lack of good training for the final two weeks before the race took their toll on my calves, but my knees were hanging in there, so I kept up the pace all the way to the finish line, crossing in 1:39:28 and beating my best-case target by half a minute. Hooray for me.

And, of course, as I was finishing, Jean, Adam, Jenn, Stormy, and Blake were on a shuttle bus. Aside from the herding cats nature of getting 3 kids organized and moving on a Sunday morning, they figured my knee(s) would blow, and they would see me hobble to the finish line. Well, they were wrong. WRONG, I say!

But they did bring a nice sign:

So, after all that, we met up, went home and Jennifer prepared a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner (that couldn't be beat), since neither of us are going back to Washington for the holidays. We got to meet some of Bryan's family and watched football and the "Man v. Food" marathon. We had to give up on MvF because you can only say "Oh gawd" so many times before you start having a sympathetic heart attack.

Finally, we drove the 488 miles back to Monroe on Monday. Adam did great in the car, but that's a long time for anyone to be couped up. Luckily his potty training has progressed to the point that he will tell us if he needs to go, and, being a boy, we can pull over to the side of the road, pick a target, and he lets it fly (not pictured).

So, we're home. Thanks to Bryan, Jenn, Stormy, and Blake for putting up with us for the weekend. We had a good time. I'm still a bit sore, Adam is getting pretty good at the whole potty thing, and none of us wants to drive that far ever again.

Halloween and Other Spooky Events

by Jean.

Happy Halloween from Spooky Louisiana! We were entertained this last week by a visit from my parents, and they were entertained by lots of small child Halloween activities, including a trip to the zoo, the state fair, 2 halloween parties, and trick or treating. AND we worked on potty training.... it was a busy week.

The zoo had lots of spooky decorations up, and this was Adam's favorite. He probably liked it better than any of the animals! The State Fair of Louisiana takes place in Shreveport, and it was a lovely event. Lots of music, activities, and animals - a small child paradise!

There was even a circus at the fair, with a great show, and their circus animals were available to feed. Adam was pretty impressed with feeding the giraffe - the long black tongue was great!

We went back to my favorite pumpkin patch with the whole family, and Adam got to do more hay rides, train rides, etc. Grandma and Grandpa entertained themselves by picking up pecans, which we then spent hours shelling at home!

Our gym had a kids party, which was fun, but mostly consisted of handing out candy and cookies to the kids. This gym amazes me with their "feed the kids lots of sugar and junk" attitude.

We don't have pictures from the library, but we headed over to the library after the gym, and they had a great bunch of games and sugar free prizes (toy snakes, witch fingers, etc) for the kids. It was great!

Adam went Trick or Treating with some other kids in the neighborhood, and then has forgotten all about the candy he collected - that is the best way to do Halloween!