Our Jones Family Experience: July 2014

The Week in Pictures

With school starting next week, we have been packing in the activities. Along with the princesses and safety fun day, we visited the Children's Discovery Center and the beach.

She loves the big chair at the Discovery Center

Giant lite brite

Mail carrier Hadley

Judge Hadley

Malia raising the flag (Navy people, I know its not called a flag, but I can't remember the correct term)

Hadley said it was a pirate ship, she was saying aarrgh

While we were waiting to see the princesses. She was so excited.

A friend of a friend was interviewing at a salon for a job position. She needed to demonstrate a bob cut, so I got a free haircut that I love. I probably wouldn't have even posted this pic, but I couldn't resist the photo bomb by Malia.

Beach day

Very proud of her hole

Safety Fun Day

Saturday I had a meeting in the afternoon, so I was looking for something the girls and I could do in the morning that wouldn't take too long. I found online the Safety Fun Day that one of the local malls was putting on. I happened upon it randomly. It wasn't advertised well and there wasn't much information on it, so I wasn't expecting much. I was very pleasantly surprised though.

There was a fire truck, ambulance, police car, emergency response truck, National Guard, and smoke house there. All of which the kids could get into and explore. Hadley's favorite was getting to drive the National Guard's bomb retrieval robot, while Malia declared that she "loved it all!"

I loved the fact that everyone was so friendly and patient with the kids and that they learned so much. The Safety Fun Days are done regularly around the island. I imagine we will go again if we find out about it, and I'll make sure to tell all of my friends.

Driving the lifeguards jet ski

Malia helped paramedic Gus put Hadley's arm in a sling

The National Guard's bomb retrieval robot that the girls got to drive

Driving the robot

They had to grab the cone and put it in the bucket

Firetruck

Using the heat sensor

Malia was picked as a volunteer to help demonstrate. They were roasting smores and the fire jumped up. Malia had fire in her hair.

Stop, drop, and roll

Getting her Assistant Firefight Hat for being a good helper. The hat ended up flying out the window while we were driving down the highway. It led to LOTS of screaming and crying, but that is a whole other story.

She insisted on wearing it this way

Staying low under the smoke to get out of the house

Before we left Malia wanted to go back to the ambulance to get her arm in a sling. Gus offered to do something different, so he and Hadley put a field dressing on Malia's arm.

She insisted on wearing the bandage the rest of the day.

Princess Chaos

At the beginning of summer we had family in town and did a LOT of stuff. As soon as they left though I went into hibernation mode. Last week I realized that the girls were going to be starting school in three short weeks. So we went back into crazy, busy, squeeze in activities mode.

When I heard that a local company that portrays different princesses was going to be at a mall on the island, I knew the girls would love it. I knew it would be busy, but it exceeded even my expectations of craziness.

A friend and her girls went with us and we arrived about 45 minutes early. There was already a lot of people there. We had a good spot at first until everyone started crowding and climbing over us to get better seats. It only got worse as the princesses were late to arrive, the sound system wasn't working, and Queen Elsa was the only one to sing a song that the kids knew.

Since it was so busy, they decided to skip any more sing-alongs and story time and go straight to picture taking. Without any direction, the crowd surged forward to get pictures. After Malia being nearly trampled, we decided to go see Snow White and Rapunzel, whose lines were much shorter, before getting in line for Queen Elsa and Princess Ana.

Once the lines were actually created, we ended up waiting 45 minutes to see Queen Elsa. Once we finally reached her, she was wonderful. She took time to talk to the girls, smile for pictures, and give hugs. We then headed over to see Princess Ana. Ana was also great. By the time we went to get a picture with Jasmine, she was already gone. I was definitely more bummed about that than the girls, since she is my favorite princess.

While the chaos and disorganization was overwhelming for me, the girls are still talking about it. Seeing their smiles and having the pictures makes it all worthwhile.

The Week in Pictures

Here is the first of I hope will be weekly posts of pictures throughout the week. Since this is the first post, it is actually more like two weeks of pictures.

Hadley's new glasses

They normally have dance class at the same time but not together. This week Hadley's teacher was absent, so they got to have class together. They loved it.

FRG Ice Cream Social

Haircut time for Malia

Final result

Decorating the links for the paper chain we made to mark the weeks Daddy is gone.

30+ weeks of chain. I thought it would be better to have extra than not enough.

Malia saw this place and decided she wanted her birthday party here. I thought we should check it out first since we had never been there. It was a huge success. I'm having fun planning for her glow in the dark party.

Enjoying Ben & Jerry's after our golf outing. She insisted on the cone with the sprinkles.

Hadley is much more practical and decided to go with the cup to avoid the mess of the cone.

Hadley climbed the rope at gymnastics. She has been climbing the poles at playgrounds for a while now, but this was her first chance to actually try to climb a rope. She was the only one to make it to the top.