Merry Christmas

For those of you who are avid blog followers, I apologize for being absent...life has just been busy.

I wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! For those of you who have not received our Christmas card, do not feel alone...I have not sent them out yet...Maybe Valentine's cards will be nice :-)

For Christmas Eve, Chef RJ invited my family over for Hot Chocolate and Cookies. In preparation, we had to make cookies

Daddy helped the little ones decorate.

RJ did a great job all on his own.

Sara had to make sure some of the frosting ended up on her so she could enjoy it later.

Then the guests started to arrive. RJ put on his Chef outfit and served hot chocolate and cookies.


After the goodies were eaten, Grandma Leister played games with the kids.

It was a great night!

Trick or Treat

Guess I am slacking a bit....

For Halloween this year we decided to go to Tucson and go Trick-or-Treating with some friends. RJ and Sara decided to be Japanese and wear their yukatas ( a summer style kimono).

RJ



Sara

The gang of kids we went with

It didn't take Sara very long to figure out how the night was going to work...walk to the door, yell "Trick or Treat" and receive a bunch of candy. It was great! She loaded up her bag then had mommy carry her back to the house.

We had a great night. Thanks Trina and crew for letting us go with you! We had a blast!!

Casa Grande Ruins National Park

For the Veteran's Day holiday (November 11) we met up with some friends in Coolidge Arizona to visit on of our National Parks. Apparently AZ has the most National parks out of all the states.

The Great House is believed to have been built hundreds of years ago by the Native American tribe called the Hohokams.

Another part of the compound near the Great House. Cheryl and i were collage roommates. RJ and Nathan are about 2 months apart in age and Sara and Jacob are about 5 months apart.

The kids trying to fit through a door way. The Hohokam people must have been very short.

Another room on the compound

This picture is a hard to see, but this is believed to be a Ball Court. Apparently a ball game was played here and the losers were offered up in a religious ritual.

a closer picture of the Casa Grande (in Spanish, casa means house and grande means big)

While we walked around the grounds, RJ and Nathan were answering some questions so they could become Junior

Answering questions

Getting ready to be sworn in as Junior Rangers

Our proud new Junior Rangers!!

It was a great day! We all learned a lot and had fun with our friends! Thanks Cheryl for meeting us!.

You can read more about this place at http://www.nps.gov/cagr/historyculture/index.htm

Triple Scoop of Fun

The other day after church, RJ managed to get Daddy to give him a ride on his shoulders. Sara was not too happy about that so she asked for a ride. Mitch thought it was best to give both of them a ride....

Smash...Crash...

We have officially started reconstruction on our new home. The kids got to help Daddy smash up the old tile he pulled up on the downstairs...
I think the hammer was heavier than Sara...

RJ loved smashing...

and crashing all the tile.

That room was finished last weekend. They have the other half of the down stairs to pull up and smash. Oh the joys of children....

My School

I finally remembered to take some pictures of my school. I teach 7th grade (1st grade Jr High for those of you in Japan) math at a Middle School (7th & 8th grade). Most of our school is single story, but we have a new library building that is 2 story.

This is the front office and staff parking lot.

This is the remodeled cafeteria.

Our small copy room

the one Riso machine that no one uses and it is put back in a corner. (in Japan we only used Riso machines and they worked great!)

The patio area just outside the cafeteria. The students can not eat out there, but they do play games there during their lunch time.

The inside of the cafeteria. These tables fold up and are put away during the day time. Sometimes they have school dances in here.

This is me out in front of the school on Halloween. We were able to dress up for Halloween so I thought it would be fun to wear my Yukata. The students loved it and asked all kinds of questions about life in Japan.

That is all for now. Maybe I will take more pictures later and post them.

Tolmachoff Farms

Here in Arizona (possible in other parts of America too), going to a pumpkin patch is a big thing to do with small children just in time for Halloween. We go to pick out our very own pumpkin to take home and carve into a jack-o-lantern. If it is a great pumpkin patch, they will have many other fun things to do for the kids. This year we went with some friends to a near by family farm and had a blast....

5 of the 6 kids we took posing behind some vegetables.

RJ and Jacqy hanging out in a tractor tire.

There was a large wooden bin that was filled with dried corn. the kids thought it would be fun to bury Sara in the corn.

A water duck race. The kids had to pump the old style water pump to get the water to race the ducks.

They were able to grind their own corn to feed to the chicken and roosters.

There were tricycles to ride

And go-cart peddle cars to ride too.

A fun small corn maze to wonder through...we almost lost Sara.

Look how tall the corn was.

Some hay to sit on and pose with a large jack-o-lantern

A small petting zoo...Sara wasn't too sure about the pig. It was almost as big as she was.

The big pumpkin patch...Sara was determined to pick up that pumpkin, and she did it all my herself.

The smaller pumpkin patch and a smaller pumpkin.

RJ and his pumpkin

RJ is very proud of his big pumpkin. For those of you back in Japan...we will carve a face into the front of the pumpkin, take out all the seeds, wash them and roast them and eat them. Then the jack-o-lantern will go by our front door step a few days before Halloween with a candle inside as decoration for the neighborhood kids that go trick-or-treating.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

Phoenix Children's Museum

Last month, while we were staying with some friends, we all went to the new Phoenix Children's museum. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I encourage you to go. The kids had a blast....

Sara liked weighing the peas...
RJ LOVED playing cashier...
He would have stayed all day at this part if I had let him.
I had to explain that we have to share and take turns. I am sure that when we go again, he will head right for this spot.

But the kitchen and pizza maker wasn't far behind on his favorite list.
Sara liked washing the dishes...
RJ and Kendra kept taking orders from the poor souls that sat down at the restaurant table in the kitchen area.
RJ's turn at the peas

There was a small play house area for kids 3 and younger. It was nice for Sara to not have to "fight" with the older kids to get to play.

She made friends real quick too.
"MOM! get this ball out of my way!"
Slides are always fun!

Then we found the bike area (yes this is still indoors). RJ rode Sara around...
And then he rode Kendra around...
Kendra tried it on her own...
Sara made a go of it....
She even tried to pull daddy...

Outside they had some cool stuff too...

This "Dragon" needed to be decorated with ribbons...
It was looking pretty cool by the time we finished.

And of course there is always a craft room at these types of museums...
paper mache lady bug
RJ made a cat's face...
Daddy helped Sara with hers...
The Hammes family having fun in the craft room

Some cool origami cranes...made me miss Japan even more...
These were CDs that were colored and hanged from the ceiling.
The outside

These bikes were hard to maneuver..we have to get the small wheels moving while you are walking on them...

Daddy did pretty good on it
The tunnel area for the little ones (can you see Sara's legs in the hole?)

That is Sara on the right.

It was a great day at the museum. Thanks Brenda and Kendra for taking us!