April 2013

Matt & I celebrated another wonderful anniversary.  We went to a dinner/comedy show combo for the evening.  Sammy turned 14 this month and is still doing well in health.  She likes to snuggle up with the kids and lay on our papers when we are working.










We went to Feed My Starving Children - for the first time as a family.  It was during their "24 hours, 1 million meals, 5,000 volunteers" campaign to build a new facility in the Phoenix area.

New lessons:  Micah got to learn how to mow the grass.  He feels, and looks, all grown up getting to do this.  It's a big help.  Lilly learned how to make potholders with the Weaving Loom.  She likes  to use them as blankets for her small stuffed animals.

March 2013

This month we celebrated Easter, the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus.  We attended service at Scottsdale Bible Church's chapel, where Matt & I were married just about 13 years ago.  We hosted our annual Passover and spent Good Friday on a traditional 'remembrance walk".  The Good Friday evening service at church was incredible.

Micah got his braces OFF.  It was just about 1 year to the day.  His teeth look great - hopefully, his adult teeth come in and use the space that was just made.  His request for the evening - gum & popcorn.

Lilly was promoted, by 'invitation only', to the next level in her gymnastics.  She is officially a "Flyer".  In this class they will jump/fly from the lower uneven bar to the higher bar.  Here she is doing a cartwheel on the balance beam.

 

The kids and I celebrated our 100th day of school this month.  They get so excited about it and it was Lilly's 1st one as a 'student'.  They thought it was great - they brought 100 of their stuffed animals to school that day (yes, they had to pick and choose because they have more than 100).

We've been spending a lot of time with our neighbor, Dave.  This month he took us over to the Deer Valley airport to see the insides of the B-17 & B-29.

February 2013

Now that Lilly's 5 years old, she's old enough to participate in the Feed My Starving Children packing process.  So, the kids and I joined some other Eastside Explorer families on February 15th in Tempe, for our first packing experience.  Our food that day went to children in the Phillipines.



We went to a friend's farm one morning.  The Moore's showed us how to (and allowed us to do it) collect chicken eggs, milk the cow, and cuddle the chicks.

Matt's mission trip to Tanzania (to hike Kilimanjaro and visit the villages of Mairowa & Kondoa) was postponed to September, so his parents were able to come out at that time and visit with us for a week.  They took the kids to the CYT production of "Willy Wonka", attended Eastside's annual Science Fair (saw Micah present on 'gears'), attended Lilly's gymnastics "Handstand Party", watched Micah's first debut as pitcher for his baseball team 'Colorado Rockies', and more.
Micah began his first season of kid-pitch baseball through the Cal Ripkin Dynamite League.  He's on a team with the same boys and coach as last spring.  He was the first pitcher of the first game, and he struck out his first batter.  It was very exciting!
Lilly was invited to the North Valley Gymnastics "Handstand Party".  She has been improving with her cartwheels and front-pull overs too.

January 2013

The year began with another week in Indiana winding down our Christmas vacation.  We spent New Year's Eve day at Perfect North Ski Slopes tubing down the snow covered hills.  On January 4th we spent the day at the Creation Museum.
Back home in Arizona we had several field trips with our homeschool co-op, Micah's P.E. class, and the annual Art Fair.  This year Micah entered the photography & acrylic categories.  Lilly also participated and entered some painting projects and clothes she sewed for 'Nibbles' (her Build A' Bear rabbit).
Micah continued to play for the Golden Scorpions basketball team through YMCA, with Matt coaching.  Lilly really picked up on her sewing this month.
We spent a week in Flagstaff, Arizona with Aunt Alice & Uncle Charlie.  Unfortunately, on our last full day, Uncle Charlie fell during a hike and broke his hip.  We were able to arrange our schedules so Jodie could stay longer and assist he and Alice.

December 2012

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

The Scottsdale Bible Church Christmas 'Winter Wonder' program was held December 7-10.  Micah and Matt were both involved.  Matt was a shepherd in the Nativity scene.  Micah was ... in the large group kids choir, was one of the Hot Chocolate dancers on 'day 11', was in a small group of the choir that did hand motions up front, and was one of the robe-holders for a Wise Man in the nativity scene.  Many of our family members were able to watch it 'live' online thanks to our tech crew.

During one of the performance nights, Jodie & Lilly went to the Eastside Explorers' Christmas Party.  We spent part of the evening riding Ollie The Trolley through town to see Christmas lights.  It was super fun!

We are relaxing this month with puzzles, baking, celebrating Jesus' upcoming birthday with our Advent Jesse Tree devotions, Christmas parties with friends, and a fun field trip to Cerreta's Chocolate Factory (Can you see Lilly's tongue hanging out?  It was!).  This week we are spending time with our neighbors as Lilly delivers cupcakes and Christmas cards and Micah practices his piano and gives a "Christmas Concert" to them.  Matt is hiking quite a bit, getting ready for Kilimanjaro in February.  He is taking December 19 - January 6 OFF for Christmas vacation (Hooray!!).  We are traveling to Indiana this year for a Neihardt Christmas.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Cousins:  Christopher, Mackenzie, Micah, Sarah, & Lilly

November 2012

Both Matt & Lilly celebrated their birthdays this month.  Lilly turned 5 with a 'Ponyville Carnival'.  Nine of her friends joined her in the backyard with games, trampoline jumping, and yummy birthday snacks.  Matt turned 41 and we celebrated throughout the weekend with picnics and hikes.

Thanksgiving was a 15 hour drive to Denver, Colorado to spend a few days with Matt's parents (drove from Chicago) and Matt's brother, Andy, & his family.  The weather was wonderful and we had some fun bike riding, going to the park, playing mini golf in the Christmas lights, and going to Valmont Bike Park and mountain biking in their designated levels of difficulty.  Carrie had the house decorated beautifully with Christmas decorations (Matt & I got to sleep by the tree!) and Andy deep-fried a yummy turkey for our Thanksgiving meal.

October 2012

Jodie celebrated her 42nd birthday!  It was a wonderful Saturday with my family and spending time in the garden.  In the evening we went to Desert Ridge shopping center for supper and Cold Stone ice cream.  By the big firepit was a man playing the accordian.  It was a serenade to always remember.

Matt continues to expand his missions for the schools in Tanzania with his participation in the Tour De New River (planning committee, training and riding).  His new adventure is leading a team to hike Mount Kilimanjaro and raise funds for the next grade levels in the schools of Kondoa and Mairowa.  His teammates are:  Chris & Stacey Seikman and Jim Haberstock.

The weather is becoming nice to be outside at any time of the day.  The neighborhood kids are coming out again - riding bikes, jumping on trampolines, playing flag football and wrestling around.  Yeah!  Micah, Lilly and I went on our annual field trip with Eastside Explorers to Schnepf Farms.  The kids had a blast on the bumblebee!

September 2012

School begins - Micah is officially a 3rd grader and Lilly is a pre-schooler.  We are continuing to homeschool and you can visit our website at:  www.richhomeeducationgrade3.blogspot.com.  Other activities got underway as well - gymnastics (Lilly), basketball (Micah), piano (Micah), P.E. class (Micah), Mystery of History (family), and Barton House (Jodie & kids).

Labor Day was a 'date morning' for Matt & I. We went on our first (for each of us) hot air balloon ride.  It wasn't a very windy day so we traveled a distance of 3 miles, but were up as high as 1 mile.  It was graceful and fun!

Matt and I also began another adventure as we accepted the lead position of our Sunday School class 'Strong Families'.  We have been on the leadership team, but are now more officially 'in charge'.  It is an honor to work so closely with Dr. John Trent and his wife, Cindy.  Our first social of the year was a bowling night.  It was a fun kick-off event with 7 families represented.

August 2012

We celebrated Micah's 9th birthday throughout the entire month!  First ... his official birthday on August 6th; second ... his camping weekend - Whitehorse Lake with the Gravel family; third ... friend party on August 25th.  Whew!
Another devastating blow of the summer, occurred during the second week of August.  I decided to spend some time in the garden - catching up on weeding, pruning, etc.  Our fruits & vegetables were looking great before traveling to Mexico.  When I walked through the middle of the garden and then lifted some leaves (to see the cucumbers) ... there were white flies.  The garden was infested.  It was to the point where EVERYTHING had to be pulled and we needed to start over.  It reminded me of the lice (in June) - little white bugs invading our family.  Uhg!

To ease the pain (it was painful pulling up the garden) we headed to Whitehorse Lake on August 10th for the weekend.  We were having our annual summer (birthday celebration) camping trip with the Gravel family.  It was a beautiful location with wonderful weather.  The lake was down about 4' and we were awed by the thousands of frogs that surrounded the edge all around the water.
The week of the 20th was our annual summer 'vacation' week with Alice & Charlie Rice in Flagstaff, AZ.  For the past 3 years we have joined them at the Wyndham Resort to enjoy the free amenities of: swimming pools, pool tables, ping pong tables, a movie theatre (with very large beanbags), putt-putt and cheap delicious ice cream.  The kids chose to not have any 'field trips' this year and only spend time at the resort's campus.  For the first weekend (17-19th) Ty & Dawn Rice, and Matt joined us.
The kids and I were having such a nice time in Flagstaff that we stayed until Friday morning to leave.  We hit the ground running when we arrived home ... preparing for Micah's birthday party (including 22 friends) that was scheduled for Saturday morning at 9am.  You can see more details about the amazing day on our school blog:  www.richhomeeducationgrade3.blogspot.com   

July 2012

This month turned into a whirlwind as we participated in play dates (mostly swimming), a weekend retreat in Pine Top, and preparations for Jodie to return to LaPaz, Mexico on the 28th.  Matt's parents (Julie & Dave Rich) were available and excited to travel to Phoenix and spend a week with Micah & Lilly.  God gave Jodie a travel-buddy (her very own sister - Tonya Porter), great airline flights & costs, fundraisers, curriculum organization, and health for the trip.

Our weekend retreat was our 'summer get-away' with our Mystery Of History small group.  The Skotnick family has a cabin in Pine Top and this was our 2nd year to spend a weekend there.  The dad's did an amazing job at having Family Devotion times, and pulling in some History from our state.
Jodie's 2nd trip to LaPaz, with Tonya, was incredible! For one week she was able to: *attend the Sunday service at El Faro (and see first-hand some of the fruits of June's labor); *Be the pre-school teacher for 5 amazing children Monday-Friday, while their parents (TEAM Missionaries) shared experiences, got encouragement, and relaxed a little. We arrived home on August 4, 2012 (just in time for Micah's birthday.)

June 2012

This was a 'roller-coaster' month, with extreme highs and lows.  The month started by putting Sydney, a foundational member of our family, into her forever sleep.  It was heart-wrenching (still is).  LOW.  (See previous blog entry.)
The next week Micah and Lilly attended VBS at North Bible Church.  It was Lilly's first time as a VBS participant. HIGH.
June 10-17 we were in Bethel, Maine - enjoying time with Nana &  Papa Joe, our friends - the Scholz-Lagues, and some cool weather.  HIGH

While at home preparing for our first family mission trip, the kids started their summer swimming lessons with Mrs. Stacey (NORMAL), and ...we noticed live lice on Micah's head, Lilly's head, and my head.  We scurried to get it under control on ourselves and in our home before flying to Mexico.  LOW.  (See new hair-do photos!)

The last week of June we spent in LaPaz, Mexico with 2 other 'Strong Families' families and missionaries Martin & Susie Gonzales.  We visited the surrounding neighborhoods and put on a VBS for their church, El Faro.  HIGH

Click here to see Mexico pictures (1,750 narrowed down to 77).

Click here to see our June favorite photos.