When she's not playing doctor on TV (or a member of one of L.A.'s fashion dynasties) B&B's Ashley Jones (Bridget) proudly prefers to be a homebody. When she and her co-stars got a much deserved break recently, she and her husband, Noah Nelson, didn't jet off to exotic ports of call. Instead, the couple spent the time "working on the house and the yard," says Jones. "We bought this house a year and a half ago. It's funny, because when you buy a house, whatever you don't get done in like the first two months gets put off. You think, 'I can't believe we never painted the bathroom — it's like half done. How did we live like this for a year and a half?'" says Jones with a laugh. "So, we did a lot of that kind of stuff."

After they got enough "homework" done to satisfy their guilt, the couple traveled to Texas to visit family. "My family comes out [to L.A.] to see me quite a bit, but I haven't been home in such a long time. It was really, really nice to see my girlfriends. They're all starting to have babies and stuff like that. But that's a whole other interview!"

While Jones and her husband haven't started a family of their own yet, they get their maternal and paternal instincts satisfied by Jones' teenage sister. "My husband and I get a kick out of her. She's quite the quintessential teenager. She gives my parents all the appropriate trouble. She's living her world pretty perfectly," reports Jones, who confesses that she goes back and forth between two roles: the enabling big sister and the quasi-third parent. "When I'm with my husband, I play the third parent role. When I'm alone I tend to be like, 'Oh, geez. Should I turn the blind eye or should I tell her what I think?' She's pretty good at getting her way with things, but all in all she’s a great kid. She's like the joy of my parent's and mine and my brother's lives. I absolutely adore her."

Especially when she visits Jones in L.A. "She was out here for a little over a week last year by herself for spring break. So I'm hoping that I can talk her into doing that again. It's fun. She plays my little assistant. She writes stuff down and runs my little errands for me. It's so much fun for me. And she loves it — the people watching and running into movie stars. It's very fun."