Phoenix Temple Cultural Celebration

 

This past Saturday the youth in our region had the opportunity to participate in the Phoenix Temple Cultural Celebration.  This performance celebrates the opening of our newest temple.  Each stake was given several song and dance numbers that the youth had to learn and perform.  (Our stake was actually given one more than everyone else.)  After 10 weeks of long practices, the youth were able to show off all they had learned.  The end result was fantastic.  Jeremy and I had been given two of the coveted performance tickets and were able to watch Noah and the rest of the kids perform.  

 

Dress Rehearsal.  The kids had a LONG day... over 15 hours on performance day!

 

Noah and his friend Justin B. before the performance.

The opening number, "Arise."  The front kids represent a firepit.

 

Another shot of the opening number.

Our stake's song and dance number.  Our first one was a tribute to the military.

The ending of our stake's first performance. 

Our stake's second song and dance performance was a swing dance.  The kids did awesome!  Most were even able to do the "pretzel" and the flip.

Very blurry, but the second boy back (middle) is Noah and his partner, Abby D.  She actually turned 13 this day.  Noah lucked out with such a great partner.

Another stake's song and dance performance.

Another stake's song and dance performance.

The ending song and dance performance with all 4300 youth ages 12-18 that performed.

 

A glimpse at what the 4300 kids all look like together.

Not the greatest picture either, but can you see the Prophet?  Yep, President Thomas S. Monson was in attendance along with Elder D. Uchdorf and Dallin H Oaks.  Pretty cool.

BE THE LIGHT!

Arizona State Fair

Today was the last day for the Arizona State Fair.  We had been meaning to take the kids, along with our friends, to see the fair much earlier, but we just never got around to it.  I, personally, think the fair is highly overpriced.  You pay a lot for entrance, the rides each cost 5+ tickets (tickets are $1 each) and the food is even more expensive than Disneyland.  However, the 4-H stuff is more of what we like anyhow, so that was still fun to see.

 

There were LOTS and LOTS of goats on display.

Huge roosters were displayed and many had already been sold.  Some of the them were so mean looking!

This spotted llama had a cute little baby nearby, but still let Alora brush her.

What's that Alora is petting you wonder? I believe it was a wallaby and after a while, he hopped out of his sling and jumped crazily around the arena.

A momma pig and her piglets.  Got to love the chicken on top of the pig.

This was one HUGE dairy cow!

If you thought the previous cow was large, Betty here was even bigger! 



Fried Oreos.

You can't visit the fair and not sample some of the fried food.  THEY FRY EVERYTHING!  Noah chose to try the red velvet cake, fried of course.




We didn't try it, but they sold giant turkey legs for a mere $13 bucks each.  So disgusting in my opinion.

Company Picnic

This past weekend Jeremy had his Regional Company Picnic for Pacific Dental Services.  The weather was perfect (compared to last year's chilly temps and wet weather) and the kids had a lot of fun.  Noah was unable to attend due to his dress rehearsal for the Phoenix Temple Cultural Celebration.  As a fun bonus, we won a Nikon L830 camera during the raffles! 

Alora on the Velcro wall.

Alora and Jack racing for the puck.

A balloon artist was on hand.  Alora chose a poodle and Max chose a sword (go figure).



A facepainter was also in attendance and she was quite talented.

I think our kids' favorite part was throwing pies in Jeremy's face.  All the money raised went to future PDS "We Serve" days.



The aftermath.  He easily had over 20 pies in the face.

Besides carnival games and inflatables, the kids also got to participate in several relay races.  It was pretty fun watching them.

 

After the kid races, PDS employees raced.  Jeremy and one of his OM's, Jeff, are seen here.

SCORE!  Jeremy's team won first place in the relays.

Alora FINALLY warmed up to the giant slide and LOVED it. 

Fun at the Farm

This morning Max's Joy School got to visit the Adams' farm in Buckeye.  The Adams go to church with us and have been farmers in Buckeye for many, many years.  They have chickens, goats, a horse, peacocks, geese, roosters, pigs, and sometimes even cows.  They also have fruit trees and a rather good garden for being in the desert.  The kids LOVED everything about it.  Jackie Adams was so nice in showing the kids around and explaining each and every piece of equipment and animal.  She let them find eggs, feed the horse, goat, and pigs and then surprised them with ice cream at the end.  Her husband even was nice enough to take the kids on a tractor ride.


This little chicken is only about 3 months old.  Another 3 months and she should start laying eggs.

When adopted as a baby, the Adams' were told it was a pot-bellied pig.  Now full-grown, it is obvious it is NOT a pot-bellied pig, but more of a javalina.

This horse, Shadow, has only been at the Adams' farm for about 2 months.  It was severely neglected before arriving.

The kids found about 6 eggs and got to take them home.

A 3-month old Americana chicken.  These are the types of chickens we raised before giving them to the Gable family.  One of ours now lays light blue eggs!

Kind of a strange way for a tractor ride, but the kids LOVED it!

Rocker 7

Today the kids and I, along with our friends, the Wrays, decided to visit a new pumpkin patch nearby called "Rocker 7."  Sounds just like a pumpkin patch name, right?  Rocker 7 is home to a 4- acre corn maze in the shape of the Statue of Liberty, a bouncy pillow, a tiny petting zoo, a pumpkin patch (actually pumpkins scattered throughout some hay bales), a sunflower field, a wagon hay ride, a wheat and corn seed jumping pit,  and a couple of random other climbing things like giant tires and more hay bales.  It wasn't super impressive for the price, but it was something to do, and this is its first year in operation, so maybe it will get better as the years go on.

The kids actually liked the corn maze probably the best.  They had a map with 6 different clues they had to find in order to make it out.  The little kids (Alora, Max & Dayley) found 3 and the big kids found all 6. 

The other activity the kids really seemed to like was perhaps the dirtiest.  Go figure.  They had this wheat seed and corn seed jumping pit type area.  The kids literally cannon-balled into these pits and at one point, our friend, Hone, was buried in the corn, much like burying someone in the sand.  Even the big kids seemed to have fun in the seeds. 

Alora and Dayley in the wheat seeds

The kids burying Hone in the corn seeds

Even the big kids got a train ride!

 

No idea who this giant cutout is... maybe the farm's owner???

Max would make a cute scarecrow

The sunflower fields.  Jackson is way in the distance exploring.

What about the pumpkins?  I personally did want to pay another $50 for pumpkins, so my kids still got to look, but in the end, we just bought our pumpkins at good ole' Wal-mart. 

Joy School: Letter G, Fall Theme

Besides regular preschool, Max participates in a Joy School preschool.  This preschool is run by several moms who take turns each week teaching.  This was my first week teaching and I felt pretty lucky because I had the theme of Fall.  Such a fun theme!  There's so many things associated with Fall that it was hard to narrow down what I should teach.  Luckily, I have 3 weeks of this theme, so I can space it out with my assigned letters as well.  This weeks letter was G.

I found this awesome tree that came with green leaves, colored leaves, acorns, and various animals.  I decorated the tree with the green leaves first and then as we talked about Fall, down came some green leaves and up went the colored leaves.  We also changed out the animals.  My favorite thing was teaching the kids the word "chlorophyll." 

Summer tree

Fall tree

Some of the other activities we did were "Ghosts on G."  The kids made ghost stamps out of potatoes, stamped them on black paper and then cut and glued them onto the letter G. 

We talked about scarecrows and used various shapes to make our own scarecrow.

 

 

Besides the Fall theme and the letter G, we also learned the sight word "the."  We then made these Fall trees using the word "the."  (Max, however, decided to write random things instead of the correct word.)

Lastly, we made a "Leaves on the Tree" booklet that talked about the various color of Fall leaves.  We even managed to squeeze in a few Fall-themed books during snack time (grapes and goldfish for the letter G).  It was a pretty jammed packed two hours, but overall I think it went pretty well. 

Coming up next week: more Fall fun, the letter H, and the sight word me!