Merry Christmas!

Best Wishes to you and yours!

Love from:

Jarod, Sara, Jakob, Annna & Emma

Bees and Apples

Okay, so what do NINJA and NEWTON have in common?

The answer is they are both words that Jakob spelled correctly in the Houston Elementary Spelling Bee, making him the only 3rd Grader to get to round 3. Pretty good for a rookie, eh! We were really pleased with how well he took it all in his stride.
Then last week the 3rd Grade had their famous "Apple Valley School" week where the kids experience a one room school house environment (think Little House on the Prairie) and do fun little things at home to earn extra credit so they can graduate at the end of the week. They are even given new names and arranged into families - Jakob was "Theodore Harris" and his friend Brigham was his twin brother Thadeus!

Jakob got to dress up, take his lunch in a metal pail, wrote a story about a pioneer family settling in Apple Valley, made a quill (with Jarod's help) and wrote with it (apparently much harder than you would expect)!


He also watched episodes of Little House on the Prairie (thanks to TiVo since it airs on TV at 4am!) and built stuff with Lincoln Logs. With Jarod's photoshop magic he created this little Apple Valley scene (worth 100 points, we were told!)

METRO Light Rail Video

METRO Light Rail

On Saturday we took the kids for an "employee only" test ride on the new light rail system that will soon be running from downtown Mesa, through Tempe , to downtown Phoenix.

We consider ourselves somewhat connoisseurs of public transport, since I grew up in England where public transport is the glue that holds the country together, and Jarod has been riding the bus to work everyday for the last 4 years (and rode the bus to ASU before that.)

Anyways it was a beautiful day, and a lot of fun. We took the train as far as Mill Ave/ASU (so we could go over the Tempe Town Lake bridge) and back again. Jarod took some video which may get posted a little later. (Below is one of the cool art projects at a station in Tempe)

The official grand opening is December 28th & 29th and you can ride for free through 2008, so give it a try - especially if you (or the kids) have never been on a train before! You can go HERE to find out more about the Valley Metro Light Rail.

Above is a view of the train from the park & ride station at Sycamore & Main in Mesa (near EVIT), which is the end of the line right now. Maybe one day the system will expand down to the temple or even Gilbert road (Jarod is already drooling over the prospect of one day being able to ride the nice new train to work everyday instead of the stinky old bus!)

Anna's Bubble party

We'd been wanting to invite our sunbeams over for a class party so we took the plunge when it was Anna's birthday. We invited 17 and had an awesome turnout of 12 (plus Anna).

There was plenty to do for everyone and we all had a blast. (Plus the weather was perfect - where else can kids play outdoors with shoes and socks off and the sun beating down on them on December 6th?)

There was Bubble blowing,

Geting ready for the obstacle course (through the castle of course)

Chocolate milk bubbles

Playing in the sandbox (At one point I noticed all the girls were around the bubble table, blowing bubbles, and all the boys were in the sandbox burying Kimball. Too funny.)

Freeze dance on bubble wrap

Presents and birthday cupcakes

And of course playing on the castle

Boys will be boys...

...and girls will be girls!

Happy Birthday Anna! (9 days ago)

Last week Anna finally turned 4. She has been so patient waiting for her birthday to arrive and dutifully listened to every attempt at trying to explain exactly when her birthday would be (after Dad's birthday and Emma's birthday and Thanksgiving day and putting up the Christmas tree...etc) only to answer every explanation with a hopeful "Today?!!"

When her birthday finally arrived, the first thing she said after leaping out of bed at the joyous news, was "Is everybody here?!!!". Ummm...er...no.... Then she ran out of the room to "see that everybody is not here" and came back letting me know that Dad was gone. Anyways, apparently this state of affairs was OK and so we got ready and spent the morning at the zoo, the afternoon at preschool and then when Jarod got home from work she had her pink butterfly cake and her presents.


We got Anna a castle for her birthday (again we wanted to make the most of this perfect Arizona outdoors time of year) which has been a big hit with Jakob too. We also got Cinderella II ($2 from DI) just to satisfy Anna's birthday request for a "princess movie".

bikes and swings

For Emma's birthday she got a bike trailer so now the whole family can go riding together. Pretty timely, since this is definitely the season to make the most of the outdoors.

We weren't sure how she would like it, but thankfully having a big sister at your side makes up for a scratchy harness and unfamiliar headgear.

For our inaugural journey we went to the park and as we started putting Emma into a swing we suddenly realised that in the first 12 months of her time here on the earth, Emma had not yet been in an outdoor swing!!! Luckily we had gotten her one for her birthday, so once we got home from the park we installed it and Emma quickly made up for lost swinging time (thanks once again to a helpful big sister).