My 15 year class reunion 7-31-10

My 15 year class reunion was last weekend. We had a cookout at Dan Daniel Park on Saturday July 31st. It had rained all day so the turn-out wasn't quite what we hoped, but it was still nice to catch up with former classmates and see each other's children. Here is a picture of some of my high school friends.

left to right: Andi, Miranda, me & Brooke

Jason had forgotten this, but his grandmother had purchased a memorial brick for him in the Veteran's Memorial, which was located right next to our cookout shelter. We found his brick and took a few photos:

Uncle Jake's 30th Birthday ... SURPRISE party! :-)

On Sunday May 16th, Ashley planned a surprise party for Jacob's 30th birthday. Jake had been at the beach all weekend playing golf, so when he arrived at my parents' house we all surprised him with a golf-themed party! He was shocked and obviously surprised because he showed up in his swimming trunks :-) Check out Jacob & Easton at the event:




And here is a video of Jacob arriving at the party:

Our weekend in Raleigh, NC

We spent the weekend at my brother & sister-in-law's house in Apex. Saturday began with a birthday get together for my Mom at Jacob and Ashley's place. Several family members attended and we enjoyed a delicious lunch of steaks, baked potatoes, salad & cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. Mama received several nice gifts & seemed to really enjoy her birthday celebration with the family.

Easton with his Gammy on her birthday

Mama opens her gifts - her kids & Easton gave her a GPS!

On Saturday evening, several of my NC friends came over for a visit, including Megan (aka Mayhan), Susan (aka Denny) & her boyfriend Ryan, and Lesley & Edward. I just realized I have a lot of nicknames for my friends! :-) It was great to have a chance to catch up with good friends and everyone was excited to meet Easton. Below are a few photos of my friends meeting Easton for the 1st time.

Easton meets my friend Denny....

....and Lesley & Edward drive in from the Roxboro area to visit Easton

On Sunday, we had lunch with April at Firehouse Subs, one of my favorite places in the Raleigh area. After lunch we loaded up the car and headed home ... we also made a quick stop in Smithfield at the outlet stores to pick up some cute clothes for Easton. We were so happy to arrive at our house & have no plans for traveling for at least 2 weeks. That will be a record for us since Easton was born!!! :-) We are looking forward to "staying put" for a while so people can actually come to visit us in our new home.

21 weeks & Jason's 33rd birthday!!!

The weeks keep passing by ... here is my 21 week picture. We took this around 7am before leaving for our flight to Raleigh, NC, so I am not 100% awake :-)

We arrived safely at RDU airport around noon today - after we grabbed our luggage and picked up the rental car, we met Jacob and April at Firehouse Subs for a quick lunch. After lunch we made the drive to Danville.

Jason's 33rd birthday was today, and I organized a surprise dinner for him at Lone Star Steakhouse. Jason thought that just my mom, Dad, he and I were going to dinner, but when we arrived he was greeted by about 20 other people! I've never been able to surprise Jason for his birthday before, and was so happy that he was able to celebrate with family and friends. Here's a pic of the "birthday boy"... he's looking pretty good for 33 yrs old, huh? :-) Happy birthday, JASON!!!!

We are looking forward to a fun and busy week of visiting friends & family, as well as having two baby showers this weekend. We're also hoping to do some relaxing, especially Jason, who has been working very long hours lately. But most of all we are thankful to be home!

Travel & Baby Shower Update

I can't remember who I've told already (apparently pregnancy brain IS a reality!).... so I figured I would post our plans on our blog :-)

Jason and I will be making a quick trip home in September ... we'll fly in on Tuesday Sept 15th (also Jason's 33rd birthday) and head out on Monday Sept 21st. Martha is hosting a baby shower for us at her house on Saturday Sept 19th for all of my friends to attend. My aunts Bettie & Lois will host a family baby shower at my Mom's house on Sunday Sept 20th. It's going to be an eventful and BUSY weekend, but we had to squeeze it all in since my doctor doesn't want me to fly or be far away from Michigan in my 3rd trimester. Hope to see you all while we're in town!

Jason's Family Reunion in Canton, Ohio

Jason & I attended his family reunion in Canton, OH on Saturday July 25th. We got up early on Saturday morning and made the 5 hour drive down to Ohio. We arrived at the reunion around 4pm .... we were able to catch up with several of Jason's family members from the Jones side of his family. They included his second cousins Gail, Midge Carol and Eilene, Gail's husband Klaus and their sons Jack & Ted, & a number of other folks. Gail & Klaus hosted a great cookout with hotdogs, hamburgers and all of the fixin's. We watched the kids play, looked at old family pictures and played several games, including corn hole.

We were exhausted after our long drive down, so we went back to the hotel around 9pm and relaxed in our room. The next morning we headed back over to the Kuttrus's house for a yummy breakfast of eggs, bacon, pancakes and fruit. After a couple more hours of visiting, we started the drive back to Michigan. It was great to have a chance to spend time with everyone and meet some new people.

Here are a few pictures from the reunion....

Jason's second cousins: Midge, Carol, Eilene and Gail

Jason and Keely (14 weeks preggers)

From left to right: Peyton, Ted, Midge, Gail, Klaus, Chasity, Katie, Jack, Keely and Jason..... and two babies on board for Chasity (5 1/2 months) and Keely (3 1/2 months).

Our trip home June 15-24

Jason & I returned from our trip home late Wednesday night .... as usual, we had a fun but BUSY time! We arrived at RDU on Monday afternoon and had lunch with Prul & Bryce at one of my local favorites, Firehouse Subs. We had a few hours to kill before meeting friends for dinner, so we went to see "The Hangover" at the theater. After the movie we met Jacob, Ashley & Carrie at Long Horn where Bryce took care of us. After a tasty meal we headed to Danville.

Our time in Danville was a bit of a blur. We spent a lot of time working at Jason's place in Cascade, and even recruited some friends and family members to help as well. We had to clean the house & sell furniture to get the place ready to rent. There was also a lot of outdoor work to be done, including bush-hogging, trimming and laying gravel on the driveway.

When we weren't working, we did A LOT of eating. Tuesday night we went to Ham's with my parents for the burger special. Friday night we met Martha, Roger, Jamie & Greg for dinner at Lone Star. Saturday afternoon my aunts Bettie & Lois hosted a cookout to celebrate my recent MBA graduation. And Saturday evening we met Martha, Amber, Miranda and her daughter for some delicious Mexican food at San Marcos.

Sunday was Father's Day, so we all piled up in the car and picked up my Popey and headed to the Homestead Restaurant in Roxboro. Sunday evening Jason's mom Kathy had a cookout at her place. Monday I spent the day with Martha & Anne Rylee, and that evening we met Stacy, Steph & Jessica for dinner at my old stomping grounds, the RED LOB :-) Tuesday was our last day in town and was spent taking care of some last minute tasks in Cascade, spent time with family and my Mom and I did a little shopping (or should I say browsing since I didn't buy anything) :-)

Wednesday morning we left Danville and headed back to the airport wondering how 9 days passed by so quickly!?!? Our flight was delayed by an hour and once we arrived back in Detroit we had to hang around the city because we had tickets to the Tigers game. I know, only Jason and I would try to cram in a baseball game after a day of traveling! :-)

We had a great trip and as usual are looking forward to the next time we can see our family & friends. We stayed so busy that I was slacking in the photo-taking department, but here are a few pics:

Check out the "Graduation Cupcakes" that my aunt Bettie made, how cute!

Jason & I at my graduation cookout

Jason (aka "Farmer Jones") spent A LOT of time on this tractor while we were home!

My Grandma Francis & Aunt Bettie

My Aunt Lois

My Dad & his Dad, (Popey) on Father's Day

I am officially a MBA graduate!!!

My Mom, Dad, brother Jacob and sister-in-law Ashley traveled up to Michigan to be present for my MBA graduation and luau party. They arrived on Thursday - we hung out at the house most of the day and played a lot of Wii Bowling & Rockband 2. We also had a great dinner of king crab legs, steamed shrimp and rice.

Friday started with a quick trip to Lexington, Michigan to have lunch and check out the sites and shops. We then went home to get ready to head out to my graduation, which was in Flint, MI. (we did A LOT of driving on Friday!!!) The graduation ceremony was Friday night at 7pm - after a nice event we stopped at Lucky's Steakhouse on the way home for a tasty celebration dinner.

Saturday Ashley, Mama and I did a little shopping for Michigan souvenirs, then we headed home to set up for my graduation luau party. The weather was a bit cold, but we still had a great time eating the Hawaiian food (provided by Chef Chell's Catering, it was delicious!), catching up with friends and of course playing some more Wii bowling. Even my Mom gave it a try - she was actually quite good!

Sunday we relaxed and packed up everyone's belongings - we stopped in Greektown on the way to the airport. We had a great dinner at Pegasus, then checked out the Greektown Casino and some other downtown Detroit sites. It was a fun and busy weekend and I am so happy my Mom, Dad, Jake and Ashley were here to share this special time with me. I will post some pictures soon!!!

St Patty's Day Pub Crawl 2009

Jason & I attended the annual St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl on Saturday, March 14th. The Pub Crawl consists of 12 or so bars in the Port Huron area .... bar goers travel from pub to pub on buses and the goal to to visit as many as you can. Of course, everyone wears green from head to toe - some people really go all out and wear leprechaun hats, glittery vests with shamrocks and green feather boas! Here are Jason & me in our green attire:

Me - decked out in green & in the St. Patty's spirit!

Check out my new GREEN purse!

Jason, not quite as excited about the green attire as I was :-)

Thankfully, we had good weather - it was sunny and in the 50s, which is a bit unusual for Michigan. (if you refer back to last year's Pub Crawl pictures, we still had mounds of snow on the ground!) We had a great time with friends - it was a fun, but LONG day! Here are a few more pictures from the Pub Crawl:

Andrea & Niki on the bus - headin' to the next stop on our tour!

Posing with our "pink poodle" shots

This girl was ready to party with her "drinking belt" - it held 2 shots & two beers!

Our crew at Rum Runners bar

The ladies & our GREEN pucker shots at Outpost Bar

Check out Jason's "strategically-placed" buttons .... can you tell this was the end of the night? :-)

Andrea, Carrie & me - we had a blast!

Our Holiday Party - Dec 6, 2008

Jason and I hosted a Holiday Party on Saturday, Dec 6th. We had a lot of good food, drinks and played a gift game called "Let's Make a Deal." Each guest drew a number and then unwrapped the gift under the tree that also had that number. They could then "make a deal" with other guests and trade for something they liked better. However, there was a catch. Periodically throughout the night we announced "grand prize" winners based on which gift they were currently holding (and usually the grand prizes went along with the "not so nice" gifts) :-) Grand prizes ranged from giftcards to Target, Meijer and Red Lobster or the option to draw another gift from underneath the tree.

The game seemed to be a great icebreaker and fun was had by all. We also entertained with some performances with Guitar Hero and RockBand. Even with the snow we had a great turn-out and look forward to the next get-together with our Michigan friends!

Here are some pictures of our decorations and party:

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USMC Ball 2008

Jason and I attended the 233rd annual Marine Corps Ball on Saturday Nov. 8th at the Crowne Plaza in Romulus, MI. The night included the traditional ceremony, dinner, awards and dancing. There were also door prizes, and we won a ticket to the Detroit Lions game. Here are a few pictures from the evening:

Jason & me - all dressed up


Jason was selected as one of the top ten recruiters - #9 out of 116!!!

What is Jason lookin' at??? :-)

Happy 32nd birthday, Jason!

We celebrated Jason's birthday this past weekend. On Saturday, we had dinner with Brian and Mary at the River Crab restaurant, then went to the VFW for some karaoke fun. Mary surprised Jason with a chocolate/brownie ice cream cake. On Sunday, we cooked steaks and scallops and hung out around the house.

Here are some pictures from the VFW:

Mary surprised Jason with a cake while he was singing karaoke

He's looking excited about having so much chocolate! :-)

Someone got a birthday shot (looks like a double)!

Jason and I at the bar

And a few pics from Sunday:

Something looks like it surprised him!

He got eBay giftcards (to buy autographed baseballs) and a lot of clothes, but I think the Hawaii swim shorts were his favorite! :-)

Oh wait ...... the "birthday baklava" was his favorite!!! :-)