tales from a far-land

Last Friday, Aiden graduated from Anderson Preparatory Academy preschool.  It was a pretty special graduation for our family.  It was our last preschool graduation.  We started attending APA as a family when Aiden was six months old, and now, he will be attending BASIS Phoenix Central in August. We have really enjoyed our time at APA.  These special teachers have become a part of our family. They have helped our children to grow into the little people they are today.  They educated them. They nurtured them.  They disciplined them.  They created special memories for them.  And most of all, they loved them.  And our kids loved them back.  We will miss our APA family, but excited for the next chapter of our kids' lives. The APA graduation ceremony was beautiful.  It was full of smiles and tears, singing and dancing, diplomas and scholarships, karate kicks and jumping jacks and most of all really proud parents and teachers.  Thank you, APA, for such amazing memories and supporting

We are truly blessed with amazing friends!  They keep our social calendar full and our hearts happy. Here are some of the ways in the past few months that we have had the opportunity to enjoy fun, quality moments with our amazing network of friends that we consider just part of our family... ~ JANUARY 2016 ~ Couples dinner date with Jason and Paige  Enjoying a hike with Christy and Brandon   Running the PF Chang's Rock 'n' Roll 10K with Julie ~ FEBRUARY 2016 ~ Watching the Broncos win the Super Bowl with Christy, Brandon, Mary Beth, Jason and Paige  Playing at McCormick Train Park with Jamie, Nate, Addison and Ben Eating ice cream with Anthony ~ MARCH ~ Family BBQ Night with the Goldstars Enjoying a wonderful spring evening with Kathleen Celebrating Brandon's birthday with a bike pub crawl Sunday morning brunch with Greg, Amy and Kathleen Spring Training Game with Stephanie Learning some Shortc

One of the  highlights of the year for the Kindergarten Religious School students was Temple Chai's Sefer Safari.  This was a program that gave the students an opportunity to express (with assistance from their parent) and talk about what they had learned in the form of a Judaic Story, which was formatted into a Journal.  It was sent home with Madi at the end of the school year.   During the Sefer Safari t he children using their wonderful imaginations and writing skills created their own beautiful Jewish story.  Rabbi Mari also joined the group later in the morning to read two amazing books, which the children thoroughly enjoyed, while highlighting the importance of reading. After story time, the  children were asked to read their stories and show some of their drawings to the entire group.  Madilyn did great!  She was a little nervous, but read the entire story very loudly and only had to ask for assistance from Josh a couple of times.  It was a fun exercise and a cute idea!