irielife.net

It’s 3:30 in the morning.  I’m up late in my office, working furiously in an effort to finish my dissertation in the next 5 days.  All of the sudden I hear the patter of little feet and Rachel pokes her head into my office and asks me something I don’t understand.  She’s getting over the flu, so I assume she’s either delirious or in pain and needs some comfort.  I pull her into my lap, and after about the 5th request to repeat her question, I finally understand it.

 “Daddy, what’s outside the earth?”

I’m stumped…I finally say “Heaven”.  She’s not convinced and asks “well then, how do we get there”.  I tell her that death is usually the primary route.

 She says, “Oh, I didn’t know that”. 

Hops off my lap and heads back to bed.  I asked her if she was going to go get in my bed, since I assumed that she was up asking questions for some other reason, i.e. she was sick, feverish, or had a bad dream.

She says, “No, I’m going to get back in my bed” as if I’m stupid for even asking.

On the way out, I mention that there’s also outer space – just outside the earth – where spaceships and rockets go, but she appears to be more interested now in going back to bed.

 I have no idea what woke her up, or why her little brain was churning this over with sufficient intensity that she felt the need to get out of bed and ask about it.  But it was a precious moment.  Kids are amazing, and it’s a sobering thing to realize what an important role parents play in shaping these amazing little minds.

Dear Family,

I tried to send my recording of Clint’s funeral,but it clogged up my e-mail all week, until I realized my ISP (sonic) was blocking because the recording was 80 MB (it was 1 hr 30 minutes,even after editing out a lot of the gaps andpauses).  I have changed my out-going ISP to irielife, which has no limits, and will tryagain tonight, to send the MP3.

It includes talks (stories) by Bryan, Wayne andRonnie, and it is a treasure, in my opinion.

After the burial, I was able to visit a little with Ronnie and his wife.  I had to leave, butdid get a chance to say hello to Vicki and Gary.

You would have been proud of your Sudweeks cousins: they are admirable and accomplished people with strong testimonies and a great love for their dad… and their step-mother, Mary.  Wayne, in his talk and stories, told frankly how he resentedMary, at first, but how her  skill as a homemaker and her love for their dad, brought him around.  I think she was married to Clint longer (30 yrs) than Dad’s sister, LaVive.  In any case, Ronnie leaned over to me at the dinner and said that, yes, they had all come to really love Mary, that she had a tender and open heart, now.

Obviously, she was made of better stuff than our Louise, but it was very encouraging, for me, to see my cousins step-mother struggles openly discussed. It was also a triumph of gospel living, because Ronnie credited (in the quiet aside to me at lunch) the changes in Mary to the influence of living the gospel and to Clint’s love and committment.  He said Mary changed, [softened, became more open and loving], in response to Clint … and probably to the acceptance and kindness of our cousins.

It is interesting that most of Clint’s kids live nearby, with, I think, only Bryan and his familyliving “far away” in Utah.

Please let me know if you have an e-mail providerthat will allow an 81 MB MP3 attachment, and, if not, if you want me to snail-mail a CD.

Love,

James

[note from J.B.: you can download the file here ]

I took a day off from dissertation-writing to make a snowman with the kids. Allie was pretty good at rolling huge snowballs, so we made a 6’4″ snowman.

Between soccer practices, violin lessons, piano lessons and homework, Caleb is lucky to get in a good nap let alone a bath in the bathtub. But, tonight I decided that it had been long enough. So he got his first real bath and he was okay with it at first. At least he waited until the camera was off before he cried.

Seth had his very first soccer game today. His sisters, who have been playing for a couple of years, have done a great job teaching him how to play. Seth scored almost every goal his team made. We’ll have some video up soon.

I’m experimenting with a new way to post video. Click “play” in the window below for a preliminary video of Seth’s game; it should load and begin playing automatically in your web browser without requiring you to download anything.

[coolplayer width=”480″ height=”380″ autoplay=”0″ loop=”0″ charset=”utf-8″ download=”1″ mediatype=””]
Seth Scores
[/coolplayer]

Caleb Michael Jones arrived on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 2:54 am. He weighs in at 8lbs 12oz and he’s 22″ in length.

Some photos taken at Geisinger Medical Center are located here.

More photos are available in our family photo album here, or click the “Photo Album” link at the top/side of this page.

She’s here and she has a name. I won’t go through the details because
I think Rusty did that in his email. But, here are the essentials.
Olivia was born on May 30, 2005 at 4:22p.m. She weighed 6 pounds, 5
ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. Sally’s labor was much better this
time, due mostly to a wonderful nurse. We’re all grateful for that!
Take a look at her photo album for more pictures. She’s a cutie and
already seems to have her daddy wrapped around her finger!

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When I married JB I had no idea I was marrying into a family of bathroom readers.

Before I married him, I was perfectly content to take care of business without ever reading a single word. But, in marriage, people change, and let’s just say that I’ve done most of the changing in this realm. I had no idea how much the 3rd generation of Jones readers would be affected by this until yesterday.
. .

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Over the past couple of weeks Rachel has started to stand,
and just yesterday and today she has started to take her first,
tentative steps.

We’ve videoed most of the process — the first clip, of Rachel learning to stand, can be viewed here.

Video size: 5 MB
Format: Windows Media (.wmv)

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{mosimage}Dear Family,

Mary called and spoke to Jackee on Thursday,
announcing that she and David were going to elope on Saturday…with a
wedding Saturday evening after Mary’s work. David called his
parents, and they drove up from Arizona, and Jackee and I (and Steve
and Lana Lewis…Mary’s surrogate/work parents..along with Katherine
and Corey (proxy for all the rest of Mary’s siblings) witnessed an
emotional David and a very happy Mary exchange vows on the stone bridge
over the creek in Julliard Park. {mosimage} Yes, the very
park where JB did his Eagle project service. Thanks JB, it was
beautiful. Please enjoy the following pictures of the wedding,
and the dinner at Mixx’s that followed.

Mary and David then
walked around the block to La Rosa, after which their travel plans were
kept secret. I am sure they will bring back some pictures and
maybe their own news entry when they return.

Love,

Dad

Note: Pictures are available here — sorry for the delay. – J.B.

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