The Stories of This Jones Family: A Look Back on 2008

It always amazes me when we get to this time of year and I sit down to look through the years pictures. It all went by so fast! We've had a year full of memories with birthday's, holidays, a Disney vacation, school, extra curricular activities, family outings and more...As the kids are getting older, we are finding ourselves emersed with so many things to do. It was a bit of a rough start this year trying to get into a routine with all of these new things, but now we're settled in and enjoying all the time we get to spend with each other watching the kids grow into their talents.

Since many of you have not visited our blog, we'll be taking you on a little tour of some previous posts. To see what each of us has been up to and a look at our recent family pictures you will want to go to our post labled "Our Family Photos" and "Get to Know Each of Us".

This year all of the kids started school. With Taylor in the third grade and the girls in Kindergarten, we are learning and growing each day. They attend a charter school called Banning Lewis Ranch Academy and we all love the school and all that it has to offer.

Mr. Taylor Michael turned 8 in August and enjoyed a Spongebob party at the pool with all of his friends and family.
He keeps himself busy with Baseball in the summer and football in the fall.

You can see his football post labled "Go Stallions". Throughout the year he is in Cub Scouts and loves participating at Day Camp, the pinewood derby and selling popcorn. For the past couple of years, his den has been in the Veteran's Day parade and you can see him in his post labled " Thank you to all of our Veteran's".

Little miss Kaylie and Alyssa turned 6 in December. Read all about their birthday in their post labled "They're 6" and take a look back on their first 5 years in their post labled "They're Growing so Fast". Both of them are little dancing girls and joined a competitive team in the summer. They have their first competition in February so wish them luck. They spend 3+ hours at the studio each week taking jazz, tap and ballet. You can see their Christmas dance pictures in their post labled " Dancing Girls". They both just started Daisy Girl Scouts and are looking forward to cookie sales, camp, and field trips.

This year Greg stayed close to home with only one business trip to California and a short weekend trip down to Arizona to help Chris move. We much prefer when he is at home with us!!

Shannon had the great priviledge of going to her 10 year high school reunion this year. Has it really been that long!! Not many people attended but it was fun to spend some time with some of her friends. She also had a ton of fun going to the Bon Jovi concert with childhood friends Candice and Jenny.

As many of you know, we're always together as a family. We love going on vacation and this year we took a short trip to Wyoming to visit Chris during one of his gaurd weekends.
Then we took a big trip to Florida to go to Disney World. You can see all of our fun at our Disney blog: http://thejonesfamilydisneyworldtrip.blogspot.com/

We celebrated many holidays. Last Christmas we had our usual traditions of Christmas with Greg's mom, then Christmas Eve at Greg's Dad's and then Christmas Day at our house with all of Shannon's family.

We had fun with New Years Eve at home, Easter in the snow, Mother's Day at the park, going to Territory Days for Memorial Day, seeing everyone on Father's Day at Greg's dad's, celebrating the 4th of July with our annual chili cookoff, celebrating Labor Day at the Balloon Classic, dressing up for Halloween (see pictures at the post labled "Happy Halloween 2008"), and last having Grandma and Grandpa Konchalski visit for Thanksgiving (see pictures at the post labled "A visit from Grandma and Grandpa Konchalski" and "Gobble Gobble".

As a family we went on many little outings including: Mr. Biggs, Skate City, March of Dimes walk, the Zoo, Pueblo Resovoir, camping, a Rockie's game, a movie in the park, Water World, the firefighter's chili cookoff downtown, BBQ's with cousins, the North Pole twice (see our last trip there in the post labled "A trip to the North Pole", bowling, the Nutcracker Ballet (see this post labled "The Nutcracker") any many many more. To see pictures of all of these things, look for our next post called "Picture highlights of 2008".

We welcomed three new cousins Logan, Madelyn and Arturo Junior.