Christmas

Well I have been a slacker and haven't gotten these pictures posted from Christmas. So here they are. The kids had a great Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve at Joe and Venus ( Tiff's parents for those of you who don't know them) house. It is tradition to have Christmas Eve there and then we celebrate Christmas at home. I had both days off this year, first time since I started working for Southwest Ambulance. Everyone came over to our house for an early Christmas dinner. It was a little cold but a nice day. We BBQ'd hot dogs and hamburgers since the weather was nice and none of us wanted to cook all day. So without further rambling here are the pictures:


These pictures above are of us decorating the tree. The pictures below are of Christmas morning.


I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year. I will post some new pictures after Isis' birthday. I am off on her birthday but work on mine, so the pictures will be posted after Sunday.

City of Surprise Fair

Last weekend the city of Surprise had a Christmas Fair that we went to. Here is some pictures from our day at the fair. This first picture is of Isis and me before we went to the fair. I had got home from work and was resting when Isis wanted to take this picture.

Here is a picture of Mike and Tiff. As you can see Mike was so very happy to be taking a picture with his Mom.

Isis wanted to ride some elephants but they closed the live elephant ride early so she settled for a ride on the carousel.

The had a small petting zoo and Isis really enjoys going inside and saying hello to the animals.

She was brushing this goat. Every time I tried to get her to pose with the goat, she was too busy brushing him.

We watched a pig race, chased bubbles, walked on stilts, and some junk food. We had a great time.

Last Sunday

Well last Sunday we went to the Arizona Cardinals vs Dallas Cowboys game. We had a good time. It was a good game with the Cardinals winning in over time. Tough loss for us Cowboy fans. The kids had a good time eating cotton candy, hot dogs, and peanuts. The stadium is beautiful and the good thing is that it has a retractable roof, so when it is 100 degrees outside, they close the roof and turn on the air. Here are some pictures during the game.





Amazingly Isis feel asleep during probably the loudest point during the game. As you can see the noise did not phase her one bit.

Michael

Michael had has second game this weekend. They got beat pretty bad. The team they played seemed to be very experienced and may have played together before. Mike's team is made up of a lot of first time players and the coaches have never coached before. They play 8 games and after the first 4 games the schedules are adjusted so that the games can be more even. The top teams will play each other and the bottom teams will play each other.
Mike got his braces off so here are a before and after picture.


As of right now he will be wearing a retainer for 6 months. We have an appointment coming up in a few weeks and they will have a better idea on how long he will actual have to wear the retainers. He got see through retainers so you can't tell he has them on unless you really look close.

Isis

Here is a couple of pictures of Isis. She has been doing cheer leading for the last couple of weeks. We tried to get her to play soccer but she wanted to do cheer. She has been learning several little cheers at the indoor facility here in surprise. As far as school goes, she has been working on here letters and numbers. We have parent teacher conferences coming up, so we will get a better idea of where she is at after that.


Here is a picture of Tiff and Isis. Isis is Mommie's shadow when Tiff is home. Where Tiff is you will find Isis.


Here is a picture of Isis' first ever stick man. She drew it all by here self. On the left hand she even got the number of fingers right.

Quick Hello

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I am currently at work so there is no pictures on today's post. I will post some new pictures this weekend.
Things are going good. Michael got his braces off last Thursday. He is also playing football now. He had his first game last Saturday. They lost 12 - 6 but Michael did well. He is considered the all star on the team and that is not me just talking. He is starting Defensive End and was named Defensive Captain so he calls all the plays for the Defense. He also plays on every special teams. This week he was named as starting fullback on offense so he will get to run the ball on Saturday. He has improved leaps and bounds over the last time he played football.
Isis is having fun learning cheerleading. She has a cute little uniform and pom-poms. She has been doing pretty good in learning her cheers. She has this little princes walk that she does and the coaches found it so cute that all the girls are now doing as part of the routine. Isis drew her first stick figure the other day all by herself. I will post a picture of it this weekend as well. I was amazed at how well she did because up until recently all her people seemed to resemble blobs and now she actually is using stick figures.
I will post again this weekend and will try to post more often so that there isn't a month between posts.

Isis' First Day of School

Well today is Isis' first day of school. She is very excited and a little impatient to get started this morning. She starts at 9:45 and goes until 12:15. She keeps asking me about every ten minutes if it is time to go. Here are some pictures of her new Tinkerbell shirt and short set and her new light up white tennies:
Here is a picture of her new "packpack" as she calls it. As you can see we need to work on her smile, she just tries to hard to smile big and pretty:

Mike's First Day of School

Well today is Michael's first day of 8th grade. He goes to school from 8:15 until 3:00. It is an hour earlier then last year but I think he will like having an extra hour in the afternoon versus in the morning.
Here is how he spent some of his last day of summer:














Here are a couple of pictures of him this morning before heading out:














Some might say this is the same picture, but look closely his clothes have changed. Doesn't he look so excited to be going to school.
I got a little smile out of him and here are his new shoes. He got them because he is a Philadelphia Eagles fan so he wanted some green shoes.

He is finally getting interested in Football, so this season we are going to have fun because he is an Eagles fan and I am a Cowboys fan, so we keep giving each other a hard time. Our two teams play in the same division and will play each other twice this year.

I will have another update for you tomorrow because Isis starts tomorrow,

Museums

Dino Museum


Patton Museum

Beach Pics

Steven's Kids

California Trip

Well we just got back from California this afternoon. We had a great time. Saturday, we went to the beach. Michael did really well with his first time body surfing. The water was really cold but we got used to it. Of course it was overcast. Isis got her feet wet but mainly played in the sand. Sunday was a lazy day, went to breakfast, went and saw the new Mummy movie (very disappointed in the movie), and had a BBQ. We left about 6 am this morning. We made a stop at the Dino Museum in Cabazon, but we were to early and didn't want to wait for 90 mins for it to open. We will try and make it when it's open next time. We made another stop at the Patton Museum in Chiriaco Summit. I will be posting slide shows for all to see. This picture sums up the weekend.

Big Bear

Well I had time to make one quick slide show before we head off to California to see Steven & Christina and play on the beach. These pictures are from when we went to California for our last Disneyland trip. Before we headed home we spent a day and a half in Big Bear with Dad and Mo. The kids had a great time riding Tank. Michael did really well for a first timer. He went for a nice gallop a couple of times.

I will post some beach pictures when we get back. We are leaving this afternoon and will be back on Monday. Have a great weekend everyone.

Next Update

Well Michael had a dentist appointment today for his braces and it looks like he is getting close to getting them off. We have to make an appointment in about 4 weeks for a consult and if everything goes as planned the following appointment, I am assuming 4-6 weeks after the consult, he will be getting his braces off.

The next photo update will be sometime after this coming weekend. We are going to see Steven and Christina. We are going to go play on the beach. I will be taking some pictures and will post them after we get home.

Last Disneyland Trip

We last visited Disneyland about a year ago. Here is a slide show from that trip. Some of the pictures were taken at Goofy's Kitchen. Isis was so excited to get some one on one time with the characters. Goofy's Kitchen was a little expensive but was well worth it. Breakfast was really good, it was kind of like a buffet but everything was fresh. Different characters walked around the restaurant. We went before the park opened and it was really not that crowded. They had some little shows with Goofy and the kids were allowed to participate in the little shows.

Email Notification for John's blog

I made some changes, hopefully the email notification system is working now. I also moved the slide show and made it a little bigger and hopefully easier to see. You can click one of the pictures in the slide show and it will take you to a seperate website so you can see the pictures a little better.

Paramedic Graduation Slide Show

Slide Show & Email Notices

Well I have been tinkering with this a little, hopefully it is working right. I set up a slide show at the bottom of the page. The first slide show is pictures from my graduation. I have, fingers crossed, set up an email alert that will send an email out when I post an update. Got to gather a few more email addresses to complete this process. If these two things are working, then I will post some more slide shows and you all will know when I have posted something new.

All of Us

Well here is a picture of all of us. This picture is a little old. We took it the last time we went to California. It has been about a year. We went to Disneyland and this picture was taken at Goofy's Kitchen. We had breakfast there and several of the characters came to our table, posed for pictures, and signed the kids autograph books.

The second picture is of the kids cooling off in the water area of California Adventures. We had a great time, we spent two days at the park.


I will take some more updated pictures of us when I can and update soon.

Isis Jade

Isis has also been enjoying her summer break. We had her in a half day, three day a week preschool through a local Christian church. She really enjoys learning and is already wanting to go back to school. She will be attending Dysart preschool this year. We had to wait until she was 4 to get her in. The school actually serves two purposes, its main focus is helping developmentally challenged preschoolers. They also have students who serve as mentors to the others. Isis will be a mentor. Not only will she continue to learn but she will also be helping others. Isis has also tried tap and ballet dancing, ice skating, and gymnastics. She was to busy looking at herself in the mirror during dance lessons, so she really didn't take to dance. She tried ice skating once and it was just toooo cold for her. She has been having fun with gymnastics. We currently have her in a gymnastics class through our local gym. We are going to wait until she gets a little older before we put her into more organized activities since she still gets bored easily. Here is a couple of pictures of Isis at her end of school play.

Michael On Summer Break

Well Michael is enjoying what's left of his summer break. He will be turning 14 this Sept and will be entering the 8th grade. It will be his second and last year at Western Peaks. He has certainly grown since some of you have seen him last. He is taller than his mother and it will not be much longer before he passes me, I might have maybe an inch on him. He is talking about trying out for the school's soccer team this year. Just before summer, he was participating in some introduction to track and field through the city of Surprise. He has not found his calling yet but we will keep encouraging him to try different sports and activities until he finds the one. We have been dragging him to the gym and he has started working out with us, so hopefully that will give him a boost when it comes to school tryouts should he decide to give them a shot. He has a couple of months left, fingers crossed, until he has his braces taken off. He actually looks really good with them on but he will not show them to you unless he doesn't realize that he is smiling.

First Attempt at Blogging

Well I was trying to figure out a way to post pictures so that family could see the kids without having to download them via email. I thought about doing a blog for awhile and so here we are. I received a request the other day for some pictures, so I decided try this. Not sure how often I will update this but I will try to update it so that those of you who are afraid of melting in the "dry heat" of Arizona can keep tabs on the kids.