Happy Holidays 2007!

So since I'm not sending out Christmas cards this year, I thought I'd just post this year in review. 2007 was a very interesting year. Cora, 6, began first grade, which she loves and Granger, 4, started preschool, which he too loves. Jonah, 2, is the only true "Jones" and his colorful personality constantly reminds us of this. They are all truly amazing.

In March we took our family, including our three kids to Spain. We flew into/out of Madrid but rented a car and spent most of the time in the southern part of the country. We saw the Alhambra, a sultan's palace from the 1400's (think Aladdin), visited the rock of Gibraltar where wild apes jumped on our car in a quest for food, visited the tomb of Christopher Columbus and got lost in the crazy streets of Granada while trying to squeeze our car through "roads" where we literally had to pull our rearview mirrors in as to not scrape the sides of the car on the buildings. We are very lucky that our children are such great travelers.

In May I swam/rode/ran my first mini triathlon. It was crazy hard as I am not in the best of shape but it was SO fun! I think I might become addicted. Although I haven't gone running for a few months...

In July we went on a Hawaiian cruise (thanks Dad) with the rest of my siblings and their spouses. We left the kiddos at home with Grandma. The highlight of the trip was definitley the island of Kauai, the kayaking, hiking and helicopter ride. We had a blast but were WAY ready to get home to our kids.

In early August, WAY too early, Cora started 1st Grade. We found out we were expecting a FOURTH kiddo and were way excited.

In October we were able to take our family, including grandpa this time to Guatemala. It is beautiful country and the people were so amazingly kind and humble. We all loved it. The kids especially enjoyed passing out school supplies and candy to the children in the villages where we went. I think we wore out my dad quite a bit but it was great to spend time with him and bum off of his Spanish skills. He served his mission in Guatemala years ago so it was nice to kind of have an "inside view" to our travels.

In November we lost our little baby boy. We named him Lauson which means "son of Laurence". (Laurence is Lynn's father who passed away when Lynn was 14.) It has been a hard but growing experience.

Real estate has turned upside down and Lynn is pursuing a new career, which will really affect our lifestyle. We have been so blessed to spend so much time together the last couple of years, without Lynn having to be gone much, so this change is going to be hard for all of us. The decision won't be final until next week so if you keep checking back on this blog I'm sure I'll have more information.

This year has been a lot of fun, pretty crazy and, like everyone, interspersed with a few thorns. We are blessed to be healthy and happy. We love all of you, our family and friends and hope you are doing well. I really mean that. Have a very Merry Christmas!

First snow in Snowflake!

Summary of the last 8 years

After Jamaica, we moved back to Flagstaff. We had been living in Mesa for about a year. Cora was born in February of 2001. We had started an art gallery in Williams, Arizona with the photos Lynn had taken. He is an excellent photographer. The gallery, however, was short-lived and in July, we closed down and moved back to Mesa. When Cora was a year old, Lynn and I went on a 10 day tour of eastern Europe, including Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Hungary. My mother-in-law watched Cora. We missed her like crazy and decided that if we ever did continue to travel, we would have to take our kids. We loved Europe! Lynn had been there before but this was my first time. I can't find any photos of our trip or those first couple of years (not that I've looked very hard, I'm just too lazy to upload them on the computer if they aren't already there.) After we got back from our trip, Lynn started to dabble in real estate. It was just the right timing and real estate took off. Lynn became an enterprenuer over the next eight years, investing in real estate both residential and commercial. He had found his nitch. After Cora was born, I quit at the insurance company and became a stay-at-home mom. In 2003 Grae was born and Jonah in 2005. We moved many times to various homes in Mesa and then to Gilbert, building up a real estate nest as we went. It wasn't that fun to continuously move, especially with little children but we hoped it would pay off. During those next few years travel continued to be a high priority (whether we had money or not). We drove cross country, from Arizona to New York twice to visit family in Pennsylvania. Our children are great travelers so in 2005 when Cora was 4, Granger almost 2 and I was 6 months pregnant, we took our family to France. In 2006 we took our children to New Zealand and Australia and in 2007 we went to Spain and later that year to Guatemala with our entire family. We continue to LOVE to travel and have been very blessed to be able to do so. Although we throw all reason out the window when we do go. In 2006 we moved to Snowflake, Arizona in an attempt to get out of the "rat race". We always wanted to raise our children in a small town and felt we were finally able to do so. Snowflake has been perfect from the moment we got here and we love have four seasons a year! It is also a perfect location for mountain biking, hiking and other outdoor activities, which our family loves. Hopefully we'll get to stay.

Jamaica!

After we'd been married for two years, we went to Jamaica. We have always been interested in traveling and as broke as we were, we seized the moment. I was pregnant with Cora and so we figured this would be our last chance. (Little did we know.) Here we are swimming in some falls in Jamaica.

Flagstaff

When we were first married, we lived in Flagstaff. I was working for an insurance company and Lynn worked for... a few different places... One day, in the middle of winter, he decided to climb Mount Humphreys all alone. He took this pic near the top.

Zions!

We took a month long honeymoon. We figured this would be our only one, so might as well make the most of it. We drove up the east coast from California to Canada, spent some time on Victoria Island and then drove along the southern coast of Canada back through Glacier National Park in Montana and back home to Mesa. We camped, yes camped most of the way. It was awesome! (This pic wasn't taken on our honeymoon but soon thereafter.)

Wedding Day!

Cleans up nicely!

Those chops just got me goin'!

Dating...

Are we dating? Craigo's akwardness...

More old-school friends...

So I found a few pic's of my old school friends. Hotties!

Craigos!

Old-school Friends

Here are some pics of friends in the pre-marriage days. I only have pics of mostly Lynn's friends as he was the one with the camera back in those days. For those of you who aren't in these pics, I still think you're awesome!
Juice couch at Breck Down.

The earlier days...

Because I am using this blog as a sort of "catch up journal", I'm going to start putting in entries of different trips or important events from the past. I'll start at "the younger years". Here is Lynn and I when we were first married, not that we look any different now.

Johnson Family Photo

This is our most recent family photo. It was taken in October on top of a pyramid about an hour and a half north of Guatemala City. Because I started having problems with my pregnancy the day after this photo was taken, I consider it our only "family photo". I started a blog to explain my experience with miscarriage. Hopefully it will help out any others who have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. The website is http://losingourbaby.blospot.com/ but if you aren't able to access it just click on "VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE" on the right hand side of the page and scroll down to blogs. Click on losing our baby.

Snow Day

I've been waiting to start posting when conditions are optimal, however I've been waiting for a couple of weeks and decided that would never happen. Jonah is screaming right now because he wants a toy that Granger has and both are gorging themselves on Christmas candy. Perfect. So, today was the first snow of the year. Granger and Jonah played in the snow most of the afternoon while Cora was at school. They finally came in with wet gloves and red hands about an hour ago and sat by the fire to warm up. I'll post a few pictures... maybe. The entire town is covered in a blanket of white. Gorgeous!