Christmas and New Year in Snapshots

After a long and tiring fall term, we were READY for some down time. Like REALLY ready.

Leading up to Christmas we had the usual festivities:

Decorating the tree - the girls got to have it in their room this year

Ellie as a star in her school program

Ellie as an angel in our church's carol service 

LTS Christmas Dinner

Baby socializing at the LTS Christmas Dinner 

And, of course, a proper Christmas sweater to don at all aforementioned events :)

And after enjoying the craziness and sweet moments that December can bring, we packed up everything...

... the only person with leg room was Robert...

...and retreated to Oxford. We stayed there for 2 FULL WEEKS.

People, if you can't be with your beloved extended family for Christmas, GO TO OXFORD!

Or some other nice place where you can spread out, relax, eat breakfast until lunch rolls around, take in some sights here and there, and just be refreshed with your sweet family (who has just been through an amazing but exhausting 4 months of seminary).

We had a back yard...

... and our own "rooms"! Samantha amazingly slept through the night several times while we were there - this girl wakes up if we even change positions in the night in London!

We worshipped at St. Ebbes while we stayed in Oxford

We ate and relaxed and played around this table a lot

We enjoyed the wonderful company of our friends, the Lyells, leading up to Christmas Eve (please excuse the crazy camera flash eyes)

There was lots of nice park time with all the kiddos

We opened our traditional ONE gift on Christmas Eve

 And then it was the Big Day...

We read about Jesus' birth and prayed...

...then walked down the steps in eager anticipation!

Let the frenzy begin...

Our lovely friend, Cassie, joined us Christmas Eve and spent Christmas with us!

Too much fun!

We made it through about half of our gifts before we got ready and went to church.

It was, actually, our first Christmas DAY at church since most American churches have services on Christmas Eve and most English churches has services on Christmas Day 

Robert and Samantha after church

And then we ate our big Christmas Breakfast.

Cassie said she liked the grits :) 

And on to more gift opening...

We're pretty good at reenacting our surprised faces :)

Whew! Lots of fun, lots of gifts, lots and lots to be grateful for. The girl's big gift this year was scooters, so I'm pretty sure we took a post dinner walk/scoot around the block. And we all slept well that night.

On Boxing Day we braved the crowds and headed into the city for a little shopping and lunch. That night Cassie graciously watched all our little ones while Robert and I snuck in a long overdue date.

And then somehow it was the END of 2014! We enjoyed a quiet New Year's Eve. Well, I actually cheated and napped off and on until midnight and then perked up for the fireworks :) Which, by the way, are really amazing in London!

On New Year's Day, we ventured out into the Oxfordshire countryside to visit one of Robert's LTS classmates. After lunch we enjoyed a beautiful walk through their village.

Taking turns walking the (very sweet & obliging) dog was the highlight for Ellie & Meg.

We ended our time enjoying a nearby park.

The next day we packed up all of our treasures and headed back to the big city. We had been gone so long that there were some fun cards and gifts waiting for us on our return!

Picture from a sweet summer wedding we would have LOVED to attend

It might go down as one of the most unique and unconventional Christmas seasons we'll ever celebrate, which in many ways made it all the more special.

Robert

Since I took a bit of a blog hiatus there, I'm thinking maybe I should get everything back up to speed one family member at a time.

We'll start with our ever loved patriarch, Robert Jones.

Well, he started back to class the last week of September, and he has been pretty much in the library since then. The man studies all the time. He's down there now as I type. He comes up for dinner, helps me get the girls in bed, and then usually goes back down for more study. I'm usually the Jezebel that says, "Well, hurry UP so you can come watch Downton Abbey with ME in an hour!!"

Yes, her legs look crooked because it's on completely backward... BUT she was happy!

I just couldn't be more proud of him. He's overwhelmed but learning lots. He frequently makes comments like "I'm just beginning to understand these things... Seminary hasn't given me all the answers, but given me lots of tools to study the never-ending depths of God's word..." It's like he's only peeked behind a little door leading to the Himalayans.

If there's one perk of being a pastor's wife, and there are many contrary to what my 20-year-old-self thought, it's that I get to watch this unfold. I get to be the one he comes home to and rehashes all the fascinating things he's been discussing. It's a privilege.

Putting up the Christmas tree with the big girls

He's also had preached several times, which has added to his academic burden, but has been encouraging to both the hearers and Robert. His sermon prep has been even more rigorous since starting seminary - maybe knowing more makes you more afraid of saying something heretical :)

Enjoying a muddy game of football with the LTS guys

And did I mention that in his spare time this man PASSED the UK driving test?! And ya'll, this thing is intense - there's a written examination and then a driving practical. We celebrated his passing with a trip to our favorite burger place. It's gooooood.

"D" for Driver!

The cruel irony is that we were car-less a week later when our car utterly failed the road worthy test. But, as I mentioned in our Thanksgiving post, God has been so gracious in providing the needed repairs and we are back up and running!

We've also been praying hard about the next step for our family, and we'd love for you to pray with us in this regard. We're praying for God to clearly guide us to the right position in the right place for next summer, and that we would wait well for God's direction with peace and thanksgiving.

He still has time for kisses

PS - He also turned 33. What a hunk. He really does get better looking with age (and I don't mean because I love him/know him more, I mean this in a totally surface way). I just don't think he's reached his peak yet!

Opening 8,000,000 birthday letters from his girls (they just have lots to say!)

We're so thankful for this man. What would we do without him??

Thanksgiving

We're into the Christmas season already, but I wanted to take a moment and reflect on our Thanksgiving.

So, though I know this will come as a shock, the fourth Thursday in November means nothing to anyone outside of North America :) This was honestly difficult for me to wrap my mind around last year.

Thankfully (hah!) for us, LTS had a Thanksgiving celebration last year and then another this year. Such good food, good friends and good fun - everything Thanksgiving should be.

I'm hungry again just thinking about it.

We also had planned for months to repeat our Bury St. Edmunds trip from last year. Then the Tuesday before we were to leave, Ellie Belle came down with a pretty high fever.... and it stayed for 6 days! So, we missed our big meal Friday night, but decided Ellie was well enough to salvage some of the weekend, and we drove down on Saturday. Somehow Kristen magically still managed to produce an AMAZING Thanksgiving lunch for us.

After lunch, Robert and I headed into town to enjoy some of the sights from the fair. It's just so very festive with lights and booths and food stalls blanketing the abbey grounds.

We enjoyed our time walking around while Kristen kept our big girls for us. We brought this little cutie along:

After Robert preached on Sunday morning we headed home to London, thankful for such a sweet time with good friends.

We've been memorizing a couple of Bible verses with the girls and we picked a passage for this month on - you guessed it - Thanksgiving. But, wouldn't you know it, it's amazing how these verses we're teaching our children come to bear so profoundly on our own hearts. Robert and I have struggled often this month to be thankful amidst the pressure of life compounded by car trouble. How quickly we can forget the Lord's mighty provision and turn our eyes inward and onto our circumstances! But God has been faithful to lead us into his courts with thanksgiving time and time again. And he mercifully answered our (and many of YOUR) prayers for us in providing the repairs needed through generous friends to get our car up and running again.

He IS good and his love DOES endure forever. Let us praise his name together!

Unca

My family is gathered today in Florida today to celebrate the life of a very special man, my Uncle James. There is so much to be said for the outstanding and influential life he led. To be sure, he was a great and gifted man.

But for me, even more than his community accolades, I knew him as the loving and generous uncle who made the best banana splits. The one who opened his heart and home to us and took a vested interest in each of our lives. The man who loved my aunt fiercely and joined her in spoiling us absolutely rotten when we came for visits.

He was a hard worker and he gave well. I have so many memories tied up with this caring, thoughtful, true gift of an uncle (or "Unca" as we called him) and I so wish I could have been there today to join in the crowds thanking God for him and celebrating his life.

 

I'm so thankful for those I know are praying for our family as we say good-bye.

Your Grace is Enough

It was emphasized in an LTS Wives Seminar last week...

It was sung with tears on Sunday morning...

It's come to mind OFTEN through car trouble, fevers & sick days, multiple night feeds (still), and waking up to dishes in the sink...

His Grace is enough.

Does that sound trite and dismissive? I don't mean for it to. It's just true. It's just exactly what I've needed to know and remember these last few weeks.

His Grace is enough. It reminds me that He hears me, He sees me, He knows my troubles, He cares and He is able. I remember He has brought me out of the depths, He has paid for and forgiven all the things I do wrong and He sees me in the goodness of Jesus. And it's good that I say in desperation "I CAN'T DO THIS! IT'S TOO HARD!" because He can, He's never tired, and He is carrying me.

His Grace is enough. And, as Mary Poppins says, "Enough is as good as a feast."

We studied Psalm 34 in our Life Group last night:

Psalm 34:8-10 & 15
Taste and see that the Lord is good;
    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
⁹ Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
    for those who fear him lack nothing.
¹⁰ The lions may grow weak and hungry,
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
    and his ears are attentive to their cry

His ears are attentive to my cry. How humbling -- God hears ME?! How comforting -- God HEARS me?! That's cause for real Thanksgiving.

We're still hanging in there - the blog silence hasn't all been due to the craziness around here :) A lot of it was letting it go a couple weeks and not knowing how to get back into it.

Updates on each member of the Jones clan coming soon. And I'll leave you with a giggle from the littlest Jones:

Conference & Oxford

It wasn't long after we came back from that preaching assignment out west that we were headed back west again - this time to attend a conference with our church.

We were challenged with lots of good teaching, were encouraged in worship and time with friends, and enjoyed lots of family fun in between.

The girls loved the bouncy castle...

...not to be confused with the Mickey Mouse bouncy slide.

There was face painting...

... and MORE face painting!

There were lots of nice chats with friends around meals.

And there was a movie... Frozen, of course!

We traveled with some of friends we've gained at LTS - Alex (Robert's classmate), Lucy and boys, Finn & Henry. They're just great people - the kind of people you'd want to brave a long journey of long days and little kids with. Lucy, wife and mother extraordinare, made lunch for ALL of us EVERY single day... and she has a 2 year old and a 4 month old... I'll rest my case right there.

So after leaving the conference, we went to our increasingly favorite UK destination: Oxford. We braved a rainy day (I'm sure no courage was needed for our companion family - see paragraph above!) and enjoyed a morning at the Natural History Museum.

Finn had a special connection with this stuffed pony - we kept finding him here!

Then Lucy and her sister-in-law watched all of their children plus my two big girls so that Robert and I could get an insider's tour of Christ College, Oxford from Alex who was a student there. It was beautiful and interesting and fancy and I felt smarter just being on the campus :)

Alex & Robert with the campus and cathedral in the background

The Harry Potter dining room! And also the Christ College dining facility apparently...

We had such a wonderful time at the conference and in Oxford... partially for the content of the trip, but mainly for the company!