Happy Birthday Abigail

My daughter Abigail turns 11 today. She blogs at gabigail95.bebo.com. Go to her bebo powered BLOG at Gabigail95.bebo.com [bebo rocks and totally blows off Myspace!] Leave a comment or even better, take the quiz “How Well Do You Know Abigail” and see if you do better than I did. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL!!!!! In case you…

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A Day at Alton Towers

Biggest treat of the year for my kids – we took them to Alton Towers on Saturday. Alton Towers, unlike its American counterparts, does not have a cool fake castle facade made of stucco so they have to put up with a real 17th Century castle instead. You can see it in the background. 8…

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Sam’s birthday

Samuel turned 15 on Saturday. He’s doing well. Getting taller by the minute. Thats a screenshot of Sam on the left enjoying his birthday inside the online Runescape world. You know you have a geek for a son when you have to take screenshots to get a good image of him. Happy birthday, dude!!

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Elizabeth Turns 13

We had a Chinese theme last night, since Elizabeth (my daughter) is so interested in all things Chinese. I managed to buy some things from Chinese store in Sheffield last week – calligraphy paper, brushes, lanterns, ink, slippers and cooking utensils for her Chinese dinners that will be happening every Saturday night in our house.…

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Hannah’s Birthday Today

Our daughter Hannah turns 7 today. She has 2 friends coming over for pizza and we are all going off to see Narnia at the movies. Hannah was born in Humbolt County, California, Jan 13, 1998. Cant remember if that was Friday the 13th or not.

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Family at the End of 2005

Half the family is sick right now so New Years Celebrations will be a dampened celebration compared to last years loud partying on the streets of Stromness. And no . . I am not going to compete in the local New Years Ba’ like I did last year. We are renting this apartment above a…

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25 Years Away from NZ

Our family left New Zealand on December 5, 1980. Mum and Dad were together then, and we kids were 4 teenagers. None of us had ever left NZ. We flew across to Perth, West Australia to settle in a place with more sun and a new life. VERY exciting. Everything was new. I still remember…

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Thanksgiving

We are celebrating the USA Thanksgiving on Thursday – I will be in the kitchen and I refuse to blog. Our kids, most of whom were born in USA, are really excited about it. Normally we throw a big party and invite the whole town, but since our apartment above a restaurant doesnt have the…

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Tonight – Abigail’s party

Abigail’s birthday party tonight – belated due to a traveling daddy – but on tonight with pizza and movies and 8 giggling girls. I am making the pizza and hosting some games. And when it is over, I leave at 11pm on a ferry to attend a strategic meeting tomorrow in Kinross with Mission Scotland.

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We survived 10 Years of Emerging Church!

Our family are working on a book that captures the moments of our last 10 years of trekking around the world, seeing what God is doing, and sometimes being involved with building foundations for new things. The book will be handmade and will have much of our poetry, stories, recipes (pizza) and our best images.…

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My Random Son Wins a T-Shirt

Sam just won a signed T-Shirt from HabboHotel for sending in the most random of random objects – a homemade loaf of blue liquid bread that dissolves metal. Sam, who is now 14, has been a regular on habbo hotel, and is responsible for setting up Suddenly Seminary each time we meet. His own rooms…

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Elizabeth Finishes Pilgrimage

We are very proud of Elizabeth, our 12 year old daughter. She has just walked across Spain – a 5 week prayer walk on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail. Much thanks to Cindy Blick her guardian and fellow pilgrim. Cindy walked it last year. They are in Santiago but will meet up with my…

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18 Years of Marriage

Anniversary! Debbie and I have been married 18 years. The big day was August 8, 1987, at First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton. And the Groom looked dazzling . . . I mean the Bride. This is our first anniversary away from each other – Debbie left yesterday to pick up our daughter Elizabeth from…

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Samuel scores an iPod Shuffle

Samuel’s birthday on the 28th. He was thrilled to death to be the first member of the Jones family to get an iPod – thanks to the release of iPod Shuffle and its affordable price. Samuel is a way cool son. He is now 14.

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Happy Birthday Elizabeth

She turns 12 today. And we found a very cool 1999 iMac on ebay for her present. She wants to be a writer, and publish books. We hope having her own computer (the first of our kids to have their own) will help in that. Happy birthday Liz!!!! Sorry i cant be there today. Enjoy…

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Our Christmases

Merry Christmas everyone. We are having 3 Christmas celebrations up here. We celebrated Christmas with Cindy and Julie Blick from our old church in Australia (when i was a youth pastor 12 years ago). they were here for 4 days and have left now. They hope to be back here in Orkney next summer. Christmas…

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Abigail fine after seizure

AAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhh yyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Very scary morning for us. Abigail had a diabetic seizure and is now recovering in hospital. She will be fine, but it was very scary for us.

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Just one nod

they took me dad the bastards took him slowly away descending mechanically into memory into fire i would have stopped them me dad always came to me now he goes from me without a signal to stop the evil kidnap i would have stopped them with a nod

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Funeral No. 2 – Dad

Dad’s funeral was on Wednesday. There were about 30 people, some of whom i hadn’t seen in 25 years. My dad looked awful, but that wasnt really him. We put a 1979 photo on the coffin of him in a suit and holding a smoke (as we remember him) and the photo was accompanied with…

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