1 FULL weekend

This weekend Griff's middle brother, Andy, graduated from Cornell University with his PhD in Nutrition. The whole Jones family was traveling up to Ithaca to celebrate the momentous occasion. It officially started for us with Chris and Sarah's family driving here Friday and enjoying time together before we all made the 4+ hour trip up early Saturday morning. We arrived in Ithaca and met us with the rest of the family for an amazing lunch. Ellie had her first pickle and she loved it! I missed her initial sour face but this is better than nothing.
After that there was a little time for naps and then off to the graduation ceremony. He is officially a doctor everyone! All the long hours of traveling, gathering research, crunching data, writing, re-writing and defending has finally paid off! Way to go Andy...I mean, Dr. Andrew Jones. :-)
Then, with all the hard work out of the way, it was time to celebrate, not only Andy becoming Dr. Andy but Ellie becoming 1! I can't believe our little girl is now a one year old. She has gone from 6 pounds 4 ounces to over twenty pounds. She crawls, pulls herself up, plays patty cake and peek-a-boo and is starting to stand on her own. She is such a happy girl and has a smile for almost everyone, unless your a little suspicious. She "talks" a lot though we haven't been able to make out a clear word yet. She loves to crawl around in only a diaper and pat her tummy. And she is strong, the girl can not only crawl up the slide (as evidenced by a previous video) but she can pick things up that shock Griff and I and have us looking at each other in amazement. We are excited to see how her little (or big) personality continues to develop.


Finally, the party really picked up when Andy brought out Rock Band, a game for PlayStation 3. Riley was on cloud nine getting to play the drums (he calls them boom-booms) and the guitar (he calls a dee-dee). We had so much fun with the grand kids and Jones boys playing songs and all of us singing in the background. I know some people say video games are a waste of time but this was one of my personal highlights from our trip. We played until almost 9:30 at night, way past Riley's bedtime and the final picture shows how dazed and exhausted this little boy was. At one point he just turned is back to all of us and hugged the guitar. He was so tired but an amazing trooper through an incredibly fun but busy day.



Now, we sit at home, thankful for the trip and the memories made and also thankful tomorrow is a holiday and Griff gets to stay home all day! I am also thankful for those in the military past and present that serve this country and make Memorial day even possible.