CHRISTMAS HAS BEGUN

Tonight we had our “Family Christmas” at theJones household. LOTS of goodies are already here — I won’t spoil the post-Christmas post, but I had to share the following gift because I have been obsessed with it since I was in Chicago and first saw it.

An absolutely amazing dark green military trench from Topman! (paired with some great tan driving gloves I picked up not long ago)

Also in the picture – my sister’s new Brahmin purse that she cannot seem to put down lol.

Thought it was ironic I was wearing a Peace T-Shirt under the military jacket lol.

To think – this isn’t even the end!  feel so blessed, can’t even imagine what is next to come!

Merry Christmas – and as we said at the end of tonight “God Bless Us, Every One!”

-Andrew J.

THE DARKEST DAY OF THE YEAR

In case you haven’t heard – today is the darkest day of the year - December 21st. So I thought a quick post was in order to mark the occasion… and naturally, I thought all black was in order lol.

I just got back from LA last night after a FANTASTIC week trip. A lot happened, much of which wasn’t planned lol, but I cannot wait to go back in January

I’ll be posting pictures from the trip soon – though actually I only took a couple … bad blogger I know. Hope you have a VERY Merry Christmas!!!

-Andrew J

NEW BEDSTU BOOTS

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done an actual FASHION post — so I figured it was about time (and yes, I know I still haven’t posted all of the clothes I got from Chicago, but I feel that ship may have sailed for now lol).

I just got these new Bed|Stu lace up boots and I’m completely loving them! Not only do they (in my humble opinion) look freaking awesome, they actually improve my posture too!!! Not kidding – from the instant I put them on, I stand up straighter. Haven’t worn them tucked into jeans yet to show off the boot-tongue (which honestly was the feature that talked me into buying them) but as the weather continues to get colder, I assume it is only a matter of time!

Pictures will come when it happens . Hope you’re having a great weekend!

-Andrew J

THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

The Art Institute of Chicago was absolutely AMAZING! I’ve been to museums before, but perhaps it’s because I’m a little older now – whatever the reason, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of the works that I have only seen in pictures and on TV before and I have to say, contrary to when you meet a celebrity in person; I was not let down in the least!

Here are some photos of my favorite works at the museum.

Hope you had a great weekend!

-Andrew J

Claude Monet, Lily Pond
American GothicA Sunday on La Grande Jatte, George SeuratI don’t know the name, but I liked it!And this guy was MASSIVE! This was taken from a very high second story – I got a photo with my mom standing next to him… she didn’t even come up to this knee.No idea who the designer of these furniture pieces – but I LOVED them! And this – again, no idea on the artist, but this was one of my favorite works in the whole museumVan Gogh Self-PortraitVan Gogh BedroomThe Picture of Dorian Gray, Ivan AlbrightThe Old Guitarist, Pablo PicassoSalvado Dali, Vision of EternitySalvador Dali, Inventions of MonstersAnd perhaps the painting I was the most looking forward to Nighthawks

CHICAGO

Recently I embarked on a little trip to Chicago as the final leg of a big Bank of America speaking tour my mom has been doing this summer. She flew me in for a long weekend, and after a little bit of business – we enjoyed playing tourist for the remainder of the trip!

Including walking away from Michigan Avenue with 4 bags of clothes… but that’s another post for another time…

Here is the first part of the photos, the second involve a LOT of art from the Chicago Museum of Art.  Hope your week is going well!

-Andrew J

Arriving at Chicago O’Hare and already riding in style with mamma having a private car ready to pick us up!

For the first two nights we stayed at the Marriott Oakbrook – a very pretty hotel with gorgeous grounds!

Yeah, she’s kinda a big deal
Our second home – Cobbler Square! A really great apartment complex in Old Town Chicago SUCH a convenient location. I highly recommend it!

To me this picture epitomizes Old Town Chicago – you have your mix of the old with the brand new. Pretty cool I have to admit!

I felt almost a duty to have my picture taken at The Chicago Bean considering almost everyone I know has one here.

Chicago Public Library – Tiffany Ceiling

CARLOS SANTANA | BOK CENTER CONCERT

So okay I did a pretty bad job of updating during those extremely busy weeks lol. But HERE I AM!

I’ll start as close to the beginning as possible — I’m skipping my mom’s birthday weekend in Branson just because I really don’t have any pics from that trip that I took. My sister and mom have a lot, but the likelihood that I’ll ever see them is… well… slim.

So! That said, moving right along to what happened right after we came back from that trip – Back in May I bought tickets for my Dad’s birthday to go to Carlos Santana at the BOK Center in Tulsa. I had honestly all but forgotten about them until like a month before — probably why I never go to many concerts, I never have the foresight or knowledge about them before everyone is already talking about them coming to town, and all of the tickets are at that point gone.

So any who, we made it a family affair and all went and had a great night of music and a whole lot of… for lack of a better word… seat shimmying.

Michael Franti was his opening act and while I really enjoyed him, it wasn’t until his final song that I realized he was the guy who did the “Say Hey” song lol.

Santana himself was amazing! I got a few videos on my phone, which I will post… someday, and then took a ton of pics on my iPhone as well — only as for usual, all concert pictures come out looking exactly the same lol. In any case, some are posted below.  The concert ran just shy of 4 hours, and after a few “jam sessions” encroaching on 11:00 pm I was feeling my inner old-timer come out and was ready to jet. All in all though, great concert!

Up next: Chicago! and after that, NASHVILLE! So stay tuned and I’ll do my darndest to keep the blogs a little closer to each other — I saw our blog traffic dip below 100 hits/day for the first time since we started basically… not cool… gotta increase the postings !

-Andrew J

The Jones Kids trying to style up the concert going experience a little. Funny story though – notice the brown cords I’m wearing? Well I had planned to wear some new jeans to this concert… but of course I forgot to pack them. In fact I forgot to pack anything OTHER than shorts — luckily my Dad had just gone through his closet to give me some pants to see if I wanted them. Basically I’ve now ended up with probably 8-10 pairs of AWESOME vintage pants that happen to all reflect trends going on this year!
Michael Franti kept interacting with the audience a LOT – it was awesome, he even pulled a few people out of their chairs and had them come dance down on the floor with him. Great energy!

Okay so I’m a little proud of these two pics of Carlos Santana onstage… especially considering I was using my iPhone 3GS camera zoom lol.
This guy did the vocals for almost all of his songs, and he was REALLY, REALLY GOOD!

TEXAS TENNIS OPEN & THE HEARTLINE FESTIVAL OF HOPE

This weekend was pretty packed to put it mildly!

Friday night, I got to don my tuxedo once again and go out to a fantastic annual charity event for Heartline: Festival of Hope. It was a gorgeous event, and honestly the food was absolutely delicious!  There was a silent auction, and I bid on a couple of items… however, unless I’ve missed their calls, I didn’t win lol. Which I’m really bummed about because there was a painting there I was pretty much in love with.

Saturday – bright and early, I got up to go to breakfast with a couple friends at a little local “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant – Ozzie’s – here in Norman… at 7 AM!!!  Because after that I had to hit the road and head to the first ever final for the Texas Tennis Open!

There were two finals – doubles and singles. The doubles involved: Alberta Brianti and Sorana Cirstea (Italy and Romania respectively) against Alize Cornet and Pauline Parmentier (from France… of course). It was a VERY entertaining match and lasted for quite a bit… but I have to say, the 106 degree weather without sunscreen made it a little less than pleasurable ha.

Sorana Cristea is really beautiful! Texas Tennis Open

After the doubles, I went in a mad dash in search of food before the singles final between Sabine Lisicki (about 20th in the world from Germany) and Aravane Rezai (from France… naturally). Ironically, both Frenchies lost lol. Sabine was absolutely AMAZING and totally blew her away. Rezai just ended up giving up towards the end.

The evening I was pretty much exhausted so called it an early night and woke up bright and early the next morning to go meet by better half (and new Dallas resident) Dominique for brunch at Breadwinners. I had banana bread french toast — my life is now complete.

All in all, a very good weekend! Hope yours was equally amazing!

It’s going to be a whirlwind next 6 weeks and I won’t be home ANY of the weekends – so I’ll try to do posts more regularly to keep you up to date!

Have a great night.

-Andrew

Oh and I ended the weekend with painting my bathroom a color (not done justice here) I now affectionately have dubbed “Expectant Baby Boy Blue”

WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO | MICHAEL ANTHONY PHOTOGRAPHY

Well I see it’s been like 60+ days since my last post… or something ridiculous like that.

Epic fail.

Business has been SO good I’m extremely grateful, and I’ve finally brought on help to the point I feel I’m beginning to be able to actually enjoy what I’ve been working for and reclaim my life some.

Anywho – in the meantime, I’m starting to regain a little bit of a love for clothes again (now that I have time to dress in more than a t-shirt and shorts), and thus I’ve been shooting with Michael Anthony Photography some more. Here are a few pics from our recent shoots.

I have to admit, the shoot I did with the other model, I was pretty intimidated about and went on a workout and weight gain binge as he had 30 lbs on me easy and is only 18! Oh yeah — since I last wrote, I’ve turned 23 haha.

Hope you’ve all been well readers!

-Andrew J

Not sure I’m super crazy about this one, but I like something about it.

RANDOM Thought About Lady GaGa and Jesus Part 2

I know this probably belongs on “It Was Fate… Or Too Many Cocktails” since it’s technically “Music” but I wanted to post it here anyhow

Interesting thought for the day – while listening to Lady Gaga’s new album (yes I bought it… I know…) I couldn’t help but think; wouldn’t it be kinda hilarious if she was the second coming of Jesus? Okay, now pick yourself up off the floor and just hear my random thought;

-She went to the fringe groups (just like Jesus) and became accepted by all of them for the things she says and does. Back then it was the slaves, paupers and whores – today it’s the minority groups, gays, and whores (they stuck around haha).

-She sings/preaches about love, acceptance, freedom and being true to yourself.

-What if “Judas” isn’t being metaphoric haha.

-She has her own following of disciples (Her monsters) who work to spread her music and message.

Not trying to step on any toes here or offend anyone- I don’t think she’s Jesus, but it would be ironic considering everyone has made her out to be demonic at times yet when you break it down – she’s kinda doing the same stuff J-Christ did… Just a thought

-Andrew J

EVERYONE COME TO EUROPE!

Alright so, I actually forgot that we already have a YouTube page (that I set up almost exactly a year ago ha) – so by all means, feel free to check it out from time to time at; http://www.youtube.com/meandmarisablog

Also, I will be updating @MeAndMarisa on Twitter when I can while in Europe, so be sure to follow there as well!

Off to breakfast and then to go to the airport – see you all in Europe!

-Andrew J