Back from Sunny Arizona!

So we just returned from Arizona, where, by the way, is so warm! I don't have my pictures downloaded yet but I wanted to write just a little bit about the Ironman Ryan and I went to. We went down to Arizona to support Ryan's sister, Andi, his brother, Greg, and our friend Natalie, who were all participating in the Ironman in Tempe, AZ. The family was all there ready to support. We all had on lime green t-shirts so they could spot us out in the crowd while we yelled and cheered for them. They first started the day off at 7 a.m. with their 2.4 mile swim in Tempe Town Lake which took them all about 1 1/2 hours to complete. Then they were off to ride 112 miles on their bikes, which took them all 6 hours or more. Then they transitioned from their bikes straight into their 26.2 mile run. Andi finished her Ironman at 7:30 p.m. Greg finished at 10:20 p.m. and Natalie finished at 8:30 p.m. The cutoff time was midnight. It was such an AMAZING thing to witness. It takes so much endurance and persistence and training to do one of these. We found ourselves, towards the end of the run, cheering for just about everyone that passed us. You could see the hurt in their faces, in their run, in their limps, just trying to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. It was quite emotional at one point, Greg's little girl, Cassie, has Prader-Wili Syndrome. (on the back of our t-shirts it says "Race for an angel". Well Cassie is the angel Greg was racing for. He stopped to talk to her and still had probably 3 more laps to go, and told her to stay awake, he was going to finish this dumb race for her and they were going to finish together. As he was running away he got emotional, which of course made me emotional. Needless to say, Cassie was waiting for Greg at the end and they ran down the finish line together. It was a very memorable experience that I will never forget! So "Way to go to our 3 Ironman's!!!!" You guys were incredible and I still can't believe that a person's body can endure that much pain and suffering in one day! Thanks for letting us be a part of it! WOW!!!!!

A Motherless Child?

What do you get when you leave "Dad" in charge of his kids before they are dressed and ready for the day? You got it, a motherless child. I had to run some errands on Ryan's day off and this is what I came home to. Ryan also had to run some errands and took my child out looking like he had no mother. Oh well. Such is life right? You gotta love it.

Halloween Fun!

We had a great Halloween this year. Trick or Treating with the kids, spook alley at our house, scaring little children to death......ahhhh what fun! Can't ask for any better. As you can see the kids were very frightening in their costumes and got tons of candy! My Uncle Shadd and his wife and boys came out to help with our 3rd annual spook alley. It was not quite as elaborate as the past 2 years, but good enough to scare people into NOT wanting to risk walking past a "dummy" for candy. Needless to say, we had lots of candy leftover. David and Gabe did a great job acting as dummies.

Hailey is starting a blog?

I know, can you believe it? I have been wanting to do this for a while now and have finally bit the bullet! So bear with me, I am challenged when it comes to technology and computers. But it will be fun to inform everyone about the life and times of the Jones family.