California Christmas

After our lovely white Christmas morning in Boise, we hopped on a plane and flew to California to be with all the Joneses Christmas night. The children all had so much fun with their cousins, and it was just great to have all the family together again. We went to Santa Monica for a very warm beach day, we took family pictures in frigid SoCal temps (less than 50 degrees), we went to build-a-bear (after bribing the children to smile in the cold for the picture), we kayaked in the Jones pool, we visited a very cool Children's museum in Pasadena, the boys golfed, the girls shopped, and we all just had a great time together. Rich and I even went to a movie for the first time in forever!
We flew home New Year's Day, and almost missed our flight! We were delayed in security, and as we got to out gate, our plane was just pulling up, so the lady at the desk told us we had about 15 minutes for the turn-around. I decided it would be best to feed the family before we started the flight, so we grabbed some CPK and headed back to our gate, only to find it empty and to see the jetway pulled back from the plane! Rich made a mad dash for the jetway, and ran all the way down, only to have a lady sreaming at him that he was "breaching security". He made his way back up to the entrance, all the while, begging this lady to let us on the plane. Livi was in tears, certain this was the end of the world. Luckily, the plane had some trouble starting up the engine, and so they had to sit there anyway, and decided they could let us on, afterall. Whew! Despite the deaprting drama, this visit was such a wonderful way to finish off the holiday season. And, now that we're back to the cold, we can only start planning our next visit to sunny CA!All the Jones grandchildren in birth order: (Kate, Trenton, Ty, Zachary, Mia, Lola and Livi)