D' Science Experiment

It is getting that time of year again when 5th graders are thinking about their science experiments. Elisabeth is trying a very yummy one on for size this time. She is going to see if different kinds of chocolate grow a better sugar bloom. Have you ever heard of sugar bloom? Neither had we. The answer is that it is the white film that develops on top of chocolate when it cures. The hypothesis is that this white film makes chocolate taste different. She will ask some "willing" participants to be taste testers of this chocolate. They will have to taste the chocolate and then rate it.

Should be an interesting experiment. Any volunteers for taste testers? She is using the best chocolate in the world - Swiss chocolate! Should be fun!

Christmas Vacation

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Make a Smileox scrapbook

This Christmas is one to be remembered. Tony was able to come home and stay with us for almost two weeks. It took us a few days to get used to having him around again but we are now used to having him back and his departure on New Year's Day will leave a big void again.

We open our presents on Christmas Eve and Uncle Ruthie was there with us. What a thrill! The people at our house have matured in their belief in Santa and now merely believe in the "spirit of santa". It was a nice Christmas and everyone received useful and wanted presents. We gave Ruthie a quilt that we had started a number of years ago but finally finished. Martin and his family sent us this huge package of German chocolate! We have been farming out chocolate to all of our relatives that have come by. Martin and family! Thanks so much! The chocolate spreaders are doing a good job of spreading around the calories. There was a mean game of scrabble that was played on Christmas Day as well followed by a Ham, Risotto and Salad Christmas Dinner. Yummy! Our camera had gone on the fritz over the summer and Santa brought us a new camera. So, we will be back in business now. We are excited.

Uncle Ruthie learned how to play Rock Band and Guitar Hero at house. Can you believe she has never played these games and she is a walking "whose who of music" almanac? In order to protect the inexperienced we will not be displaying any videos even if they would make for some great entertainment. We watched the batman movie "The Dark Knight". It was a pretty good movie and mom stayed awake through the whole show. WOW!

Aunt Priscilla and Uncle Dan stopped by at our house for a few hours. They live near Chicago and we were so happy to see them as well. Priscilla changed her hair color and it looks absolutely fab! We couldn't tell if Uncle Dan changed his hair color but he looked good too. Priscilla is a pretty good Rock Band member and we vote to add her as our permanent lead singer.

For New Year's we think Aunt Jan will be bringing everyone up from Yuma and Uncle Ray and Company is coming over from Tempe and who knows who else. We will be "d'place to be".

RIP

These were two of the many pumpkins the kids carved this year. Beautiful work with quite a bit of detail. Unfortunately the carved pumpkins mold fairly quickly and so they can't be kept around for too long.

Elisabeth's Birthday

The light may slowly be going on in my head on how to connect the technologies. This was Elisabeth's 11th Birthday party dinner...way back on October 25th. We allowed her to invite two of her friends to a dinner and a show. She wanted to go to the Olive Garden and then I dropped the trio off at Harkins where they watched a movie. They were all dressed up for the event. It was a lot of fun.

Photo Shoot

We went to Woodruff this weekend because Uncle Ray was taking Senior pictures. It was a great photo shoot and the kids had a very good time. This was a nice weekend because for the first time in a very long time we were able to actually "let our hair down" and enjoy our time there. There was no real hard work involved and it was almost relaxing. Enjoy the pictures of the kids.

Monique in San Fran with Ruthie

The golden gate bridge. This is on the last day of the trip. It looked so cool. you cant see the top!

LOOK!!! A SEAL!!!

down at the beach. it was cold.

Monique's first ocean sunset. Its so pretty. Its really fast too.

Monique at the Cliff house resturant. This is just outside. There is a huge hill and I was wearing stilletto heels... not a good match

Monique and Uncle Ruthie boefore going to the Cliff house.

Girls camp for Monique

doesnt mandy look like she is on crack? lol. love you mandy -mo

julie neilson. so i need to explain more? lol.

all my girls in a row.. lol.

me in my instructor sweat shirt. lol. this is after church on sunday.

dont you just love the view? its so pretty there

oh look at mandy. that was one of the props out of our skit bag.. lol. skits were so fun

family reunion

Mom found this bike at Bryce Canyon. Its was pretty cool.


















this is the us at Bryce canyon. The kids had lots of fun annoying eachother along the way

all the kids and cousins down at the pool.
the cousins and kids plus some new cousins we found. they were pretty awesome!

Alex's 13th Birthday

For Alex's 13th Birthday Party he wanted to go snowboarding! We gladly obliged him. The family met up with Ray and his gang from Fredonia for a fun day on the slopes. It had snowed the night before and many of the Phoenicians didn't go to Flagstaff. This made for very empty slopes and absolutely fantastic weather. At the end of the day we were all very hungry, of course. Alex wanted to eat at the Olive Garden but the line was terribly long so we ended up at Red Lobster and Alex is not a big seafood fan. Poor kiddo had to smell seafood on his birthday!

What a Concert!

This was the picture projected onto the curtain. Way cool!
Elisabeth and Brooklyn at dinner On The Border. We sat outside on the patio. It got pretty chilly without long sleeves but they were good scouts.

We tried to take a picture of ourselves but nobody had long enough arms! So we had to squeeze together and figure out how to balance the camera with one hand and push the tiny button on the camera.

Uncle Ruthie gave Elisabeth a ticket to see the High School Musical on Tour Concert at the Tucson Convention Center. For anyone that has not been on planet earth for a few years may not know that this musical is the modern version of Grease, which some of us older people may know. The parents pitched in and bought two additional tickets so that Elisabeth could take her best friend Brooklyn and a designated driver to the concert.

On concert day the girls left home around 3 p.m. and ate dinner in Tucson at a restaurant called ON THE BORDER. They giggled up a storm and had a ton of fun. After that we went downtown to find parking and the like. The doors to the concert hall didn't open fast enough for them to go shopping for souveniers. The got a stretchy cotton bag with red strings and a cd. During intermission they were told to hurry up and go to the bathroom. What a blessing that they listened because when we got there there were no lines and when we got out the line snaked around the corner. Lucky for us! Elisabeth caught her mom sleeping during part of the show. Does that surprise any one that really knows our mother! :) Mom had gotten up at 4 to be at work early so she could get off early and this show started at 7:30 p.m.

The concert was actually pretty good. Elisabeth is quoted as saying "this was pretty good and my favorite part was Gabriella in the play actually looked like the one on the movies". (from quite the distance) We sat at some decent seats at the back of the first floor. Mom is quoted as saying "the coolest part of the evening was the moment the curtain was opening and the little kids were just screaming- almost like a rock concert! One could feel the energy in the music hall. It was a lot of fun. " Brooklyn was interviewed as well and she said "no comment".

The 1.5 hour drive home went by fairly quickly and was uneventful. The way we like them.

Slide Show

new years eve 2007/8

On New Year's Eve we decided at about 4 p.m. that we would like to join the rest of the clan that had assembled in Woodruff for the party. So, we crammed ourselves into Tony's car and headed "north". We merely grabbed our Wii and the coveted guitar hero and dance dance revolution pads. Three hours later we arrived and were ready to party, which we did until about 2 a.m.

The mom's and kids seemed to enjoy the dancing game quite a bit while others played rook (video cannot be shown due to card content and sign language). Laurie and Mannie jammed out for quite some time on the guitar hero that Ray and Laura brought...that was when it was vacated by the strummin' teenagers whose fingers just fly across the colored guitar chord buttons. Felicia and Laura had prepared this amazingly healthy snack bar with fruit and veggie trays and a chocolate fountain. Way pretty and yummy to boot. At midnight everyone toasted in the new year with sparkling cider. The kids thought that was fun.

The morning after seemed to come much faster than anticipated with Felicia making french toast for breakfast. People slowly dragged in their tired and weary bodies because it is very difficult to sleep when good cookin' smells permeate the house. After lunch everyone left to travel their distances home and surely Felicia was glad that she had survived yet another holiday held at her house. Without Ronny and Felicia opening their home, as a central hub for family gatherings, we would all be crammed into our very little Woodruff house. We are thankful that Ronny and Felicia allow us to all congregate at their home and not become imitation sardines.

Martin's Goodbye

Alex accompanied his older brother Martin to the airport on December 29th in the afternoon. Elisabeth had been over at Brooklyn's house all day and so we stopped by so that Martin could say goodbye. Here's the pictures. Martin is like a big brother to all the kids.