pocket flags

Thanks to all of you that contributed to my Eagle project. I'm just about finished; just have to send out the flags when I get enough addresses. This picture has 1500 flags, each as big as the one in my hand.

Cast update

I am now sporting a new cast on my foot - in John Deere Green! I went to the doctor's today and they removed the bandages and took out the stitches - that did not feel good. There were about 20 stitches, with the longest incision being 6-7 inches long. The doctor said everything looked good. About the surgery, the surgeon said, "We kept finding new surprises everywhere we looked."
The cast will stay on for 3 weeks, then I go back for x-rays and possibly a removable cast. There's lots of pain right now from all the moving around they did to put on the cast, but the Vicodin is helping, keeping me in a nice fog. Sorry we can't send a picture of the foot, but right now it's not working from our camera to the computer. Hope everyone's having a good week.

To the Ohio Joneses...

Do you know if/when you will be in town this year for Christmas? (Erin, I know you said you will be unable to visit. :( ). Nick and I will be in North Carolina with his family for Christmas and returning to Maryland on Wed., 12/26 so I am curious whether or not I'll get to see you...

Ravens Jokes

This is really Robin writing on Bob's blog site. Please, Sean, send an invitation to me at rmj429@yahoo.com. Thanks! Now for some funny jokes about our fearless football team.

1. What do you call 53 people sitting around a TV watching the Super Bowl?
The Baltimore Ravens

2. How do you keep a Baltimore Raven out of your yard?
Put up goal posts

3. Where do you go in Baltimore in case of a tornado?
M&T Stadium - they never touchdown there

4. What do you call a Baltimore Raven with a Super Bowl ring?
An old thief

5. What's the difference between the Baltimore Ravens and a dollar bill?
You can still get four quarters out of a dollar bill

6. What do the Baltimore Ravens and possums have in common?
Both play dead at home and get killed on the road!

7. What do the Baltimore Ravens and Billy Graham have in common?
They both can make 70,000 people stand up and yell "Jesus Christ!"

Hope these give you a few chuckles. Have a good week!

A Christmas Tip

For whose who are shopping online, check out www.retailmenot.com for discount codes and coupons.

Christmas

Certain individuals have not yet posted Christmas ideas....

Black Friday

This morning I officially became a true cashier. My past seven months at Sears have been a mere training for this very day. All the transactions I've rung and all the items I have bagged all were all leading up to this one day. The day of all days. Black Friday. So for everyone who participated in the joys of Black Friday let me just say, I hope you were nice to your cashiers. I got myself out of bed at four o'clock this morning to be at work by 4:45. I didn't even know there was such a time. All in all I have to say the day was not too bad. The morning was busy for the electronics department but the rest of the store didn't get busy until around 7. From then, even with four cashiers, we still had a steady line all day long. The people who bought things bought a lot of stuff but, most of the people were very friendly. I have to say though my favorite part of the day was my last hour. I was sentenced to door greeting. It must have been my charming smile and glowing personality that got me that job.
When I got home from work at one, I turned around and went right back to the mall to do some shopping of my own with friends. I basically accomplished absolutely nothing only buying two dvd's for myself for the grand total of 8 dollars. For those who participated I want to hear all about your own Black Friday experience please!

Surgery update

Hello everyone,
So I've finally joined this blog thing - everyone say Hi to Momma Becker.
Thanks to everyone who has called to check up on me since the surgery. There is still a lot of pain,which the Vicodin doesn't always take care of, but I'm learning to live with it. And sleeping a lot too.
Carl and Julie fixed a great Thanksgiving dinner today, with all the trimmings - it was delicious. And Julie made her first apple pie, which was also delicious.

For the first time in 8 years, I will not be going to Walmart at 5 a.m. tomorrow for Black Friday shopping. I'm worried about what would happen to me and my foot among all those crazy shoppers. Linda thinks they would be nice to me in the wheelchair, but she's obviously never been Black Friday shopping. They would probably push me out of the way or jump over the wheelchair to get what they want. So I'll let Carl and Julie take my place while I sleep.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Hopefully I'll see you all soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

From all of us in Forest Hill.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Reflect's First Show

Me, Chuck, Matt Ackerman, and Chicago Rob (aka REFLECT) had our first show this past Saturday night. It was a blast. We played with Brainhandle from Pittsburg and Black Dove from Columbus/Cincinnati. Here's one quick photo of me and the other half of the rhythm section, Chuck, the bass player. Chuck is a total equipment genius and we ended up packing his mid-1980s Chevy Suburban with enough amplifiers to perform in stereo through 4 speaker cabinets. Yes mom, I always wear ear-drums at practice. I really do, you can ask Liz.

Beechwold Woodshop 101

So it all started with cookbooks. Two cookbooks in particular: New Art of Japanese Cooking and The French Laundry Cookbook. Trust me, if you're interested in serious books about current American Cuisine these books are a good place to start. Unforunately we didn't have any appropriate place to showcase such handsome tomes....What we needed was a coffee table!

So we went to our favorite antique store, Down Memory Lane, at the corner of High St. and Como Ave. While they didn't have any coffee tables, they did have a fantastic section of windows. As I have discovered is typical in the world of home ownership, when you go looking for something simple to add to the house you usually leave the store with a project. Between Liz, myself and the kind proprietor we settled on this bad boy:



Not bad for $35, eh? The above photo was taken after I had spent an afternoon in the outdoors stripping the paint off with my good friend KWIK:



Some really potent fumes there. Ok, so unless we could find some legs for this window, I might as well just put the French Laundry Cookbook on the floor. This would never do. So, off to Lowe's where we picked up these handy brackets on the cheap:



And once they were attached we just had to find the right size legs. We bought two lengths of the same leg-style. The ones on the left of the photo here were toooo big, but the ones on the right were just right:



Time to roll up the old sleeves for some manual labor:



and that's how the window became the table:



I should mention here that we attached the legs such that the "inside" of the window is the "top" of the table. That way the panes of glass are flush with the wood and not recessed as it would have been the other way around. Finally, we just needed to give it two coats of the Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut Satin (no photo available at press time), move it into the living room, and get Gus into position for the big picture:



¡VOILA! That is one handsom devil (and Gus looks pretty good too!) You guys can come over to see the table and take copious notes from Morimoto anytime, just keep your feet off the table.

Browns-Ravens

My, my.....that was interesting.........

Update from the First State

So the semester is almost over. After thanksgiving I have one full week of classes then finals start. I am looking forward to the two months off for winter break but I will be taking a sociology class at Essex. The building pictured is of Old College, it was constructed in 1834 (How old were you then Uncle Mike?). It is the oldest building at UD that still holds classes. Delaware is currently 9th in the country(D1-AA) and plays its last game against Villanova on Saturday. I can't wait to see you all soon.

my story

Well, since both of my siblings posted I figured I should update everyone on my life as well. As most of you guys know, I just got a car that is "mine". Its a '93 Jeep Cherokee, so its almost as old as me and the gas mileage isn't so great, but I still love it. I'm still working at my internship, Spears/Votta and Associates (www.spearsvotta.com for those of you interested), and even though I've decided I do not want to be an engineer the job is great for the time being. I've been working there almost five months and am now technically an "electrical draftsman". I also just had my five month anniversary for my license, which is a nice little milestone for me. High school is school, I'm sure Ali would agree that I just want it to be over. However, I am looking forward to whatever comes my way for next year, hopefully living away from home at college. This post wasn't as long as some of the others, so I'll add a photo for you guys to enjoy.

So an update by Kim Jones?

I figured I should give an update on how things are going... all the cool kids seem to be doing it.
First off, four more weeks of school! My classes are going well, I have three As and a really high C [in Anatomy, booooo] Anatomy is really kicking my butt. Who knew there was so much to memorize about the body? My massage class is really fun. I recommend everyone should take it. All you do it massage each other. :]
My goal for school right now is to get an AA in massage then work part time as a massage therapist while continuing classes for accouting. We'll see, we'll see. That would be another 2-3 years of school. :[
Work is good. I'm still at Ruby's serving people their minis. We're finally getting busy again because it's becoming the holiday season. Santa came to the mall this past Saturday. I thought Santa was busy making all those toys?
I'm still making bank babysitting, or as my family calls it, preschool. It can be fun, it can be horrible.
I'm still with Dave [or Fred, Uncle Mike]. It's been about 10 months now? I finally will have a boyfriend for Christmas!! Hah. I got him fabulous Ravens tickets for his birthday and now I need an even better Christmas present for him. Any ideas?
I got new ink on Friday. It was a birthday present I hadn't used yet. I actually got two tattoos, one on my inner ankle and a tiny one on my wrist. They're really awesome. Dad drew the larger one for me. :]
Anyway, that's about all of the exciting stuff. I've been busy busy busy. I can't wait to see everyone for Christmas!!

Let's not forget those Christmas ideas.

Ali Has Her License

That's right I've joined this cool little blogy thing and I finally passed my driver's test. It only took me three times. I believe that ties the record for the most times in the family. Any objections? I've already warned Aunt Donna to protect her mail box so now I thought I would extend that advice to all of you. And even if you're in a state other than Maryland don't think you're safe. You never know when I could come for a surprise visit.

Football

Congratulations, Randi, the Bengals have successfully shut us out of the post-season. That game was like a Comedy of Errors. And to think how excited Baltimore was about McNair last season....

Bob's birthday party at the Herbert home

The happy family....
(and me with massive red eye)
















(This is Ian dressed as a superhero- Linda's halloween costume.)

Where's Waldo (and the other Joneses?)

It's been great to see everyone's posts so far and to get funny comments and photos from you guys! I was just posting to get some help with the rest of the family!

I could still use e-mail addresses for Kimmie, Ian, Ali, Julie, and Kevin. Shall I send another e-mail to Aunt Donna and Uncle Bob? If you're out there reading this, drop us a comment or something! I just want to make sure everyone is included in their ability to author posts because we're having so much fun.

Coming soon from the Beechwold Joneses...carpentry!

The Christmas Gift Challenge

Well that time has rolled around again and the gift buying is about to begin. However there is a little problem. Someone has forgotten who he has (Steve). So with a little creative thinking from an older member of the family, here is the plan.

Mary & Norm have recieved a list with all of our names on it. If everyone would be so kind as to please call them and tell them who he or she has they will write it down. They will then call and tell me who to buy the Porsche for. Just kidding.

Please help ther number is 410-838-8235.

Happy Shopping

New Address

For those who need it- our new address is the following:

907 Courtney Road
Halethorpe, MD 21227

To all concerned:

I was thinking that it might be helpful to those of us that have names in the Christmas drawing (that should be everybody) that everyone could post suggestions for Christmas gifts.

Mike

Notes from the Catonsville Joneses/Herberts

Hi everyone! I figured I'd post a little bit to this blog. To the right you'll see a picture of Kaylee, taken during a rare still moment. :)

Nick, Tim, and I took a mini-day trip to Harper's Ferry today. The weather was nice, a bit chilly, and the view was amazing. I decided not to worry about schoolwork for a bit because, let's face it, there are more enjoyable things to do.

For those who we have not spoken to in a while- Nick is now employed at Breakaway Games, a computer gaming company in Hunt Valley. Nick's official title is "technical artist" which means he works for the art department but also gets to do some programming when needed. He's currently working on a government project that builds disaster simulations- so it's targeted at groups like the military and FEMA. If you want to check it out, the website is http://www.mosbe.com/

I'm currently taking 3 classes, working on research and my dissertation, and working at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital doing therapy with inpatients and outpatients. I love it. I can definitely tell that I've found my calling. My research is also going well. I've started developing a dissertation idea, which involves working in an allergy clinic at UMMC. After this semester I will only have 4 more classes- which I am ecstatic about. After taking my qualifying exams this August, I am tired of classes. I would much prefer to practice as a clinician than sit around reading articles and writing papers. Fortunately it's almost over! Oh, and in other exciting news- I am currently working on 4 publications, so I'll be a published author soon!

Thanks for setting up this blog, Sean and Liz! I think it's an excellent idea. Much love!

Harper's Ferry