Finally...an update! Week of August 17-24

Sunday 24 Aug

Troy
Wed the 13th was Troy’s birthday. We try to string out birthday celebrations as long as possible around here. On the day of, Rachel and the Girls made some crafts and a cake. They sang Happy Birthday and we had cake and ice cream for dessert. On Friday night Rachel and Troy went up to Mesa. We ate at Mango’s Mexican café and then went over to a new city theater in Mesa for a concert by David Sandborn. He has been around for a long time and has a large repertoire. He probably doesn’t have to play the same songs two nights in a row. It was good music.
Sunday the celebration continued with the Zachresons coming over for dinner and dessert. We also celebrated Ann’s birthday and exchanged gifts and sang Happy Birthday for her too.

Rachel
Rachel caught a cold from the kids and didn’t feel well for a few days. It’s hard to avoid passing colds around – even in the summer time.
Rachel was the guest story teller for Emma’s 2nd grade class this week. Emma’s class is studying the human body, so her teacher requested a story with that theme. Rachel decided to split the groups of students into a couple different groups and give them different super powers. She said the students were very well behaved, and everyone liked the story. They caught the bad guy with their super powers. She also told a story to Claire's Kindergarten class about a hungry dragon. Claire was "Star of the Week" and requested the presentation. The Kinders loved it. Mrs. Tegtmeyer, the Kinder teacher, then requested that Rachel come back and tell another story based on the different themes the kids will be doing. Katie has requested Rachel to come tell a story as well, but Rachel is a bit leary of entertaining 5th graders. She doesn't want to ruin Katie's rep.
For the last two Saturdays Rachel was helping to put on a swimming merit badge day for the 11-year-old scouts that are under her purview in the Primary. The stake rented Chandler High School Pool. The first weekend they helped the boys get the prerequisite swim tests out of the way. The second week they covered most of the requirements for the merit badge. She has a nice tan now, but she is still recovering from the sun and heat today.
The boundaries of the wards in the stake changed, so Rachel had to spend some time training new Ward Primary presidencies. Our ward also lost our Primary president, but we gained 15 new kids – nearly doubling the size of the primary.

Katie
Katie is getting a lot more homework in 5th grade. She has also had to bring some home with her because she didn’t finish during class. She also has a report on Amerigo Vespucci that she is working on. For her report on the explorer she gets to dress up like him, and for extra credit she chose to make up a song about him and sing it for the class. Rachel is excited to make up some silly lyrics to the tune of Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America.” ("His name was Amerigo!")
Katie rode her bike to and from school a few days. She rides with a friend and seems to like it even though it is 110 degrees on the way home.

Emma
Emma has a hard time waking up in the morning for school – but eventually she makes it. She’s more of a night owl. Emma and Claire also have a hard time leaving mommy in the morning as the go to school, but they are able to walk to the playground together before school starts and console each other. I guess sisters can be a good thing sometimes.
Emma took a standard 2nd grader reading placement test last week and was able to read just over 200 words per minute. One of our friends from church also works at the school. After seeing Emma’s scores she had to find Rachel to say that she was amazed. Emma escpecially enjoys reading before going to bed. It’s hard to get her to turn off the light most nights (which in turn contributes to the “hard to wake up in the morning” problem mentioned earlier).

Claire
Claire is one of only two in her class that gets out of jail (a.k.a. Kindergarten) at the half-day mark. All of the other 5 yr olds are there for the full day now. Claire also did very well on her reading comprehension test. Much to our amazement she is the 2nd best reader in the class. She has been practicing lately with One Fish, Two Fish and the Bearenstain Bears’ B Book.

Zach
Zach made it by himself through part of nursery today. Troy tried a new technique to get Zach accustomed to being left for a few minutes, and then eventually Troy was able to leave him for the last 45! After church Zach wandered around singing “I Happy and I Know It” – clap, clap. I think they sang that in nursery for a couple weeks in a row.
Zach has a fetish for salt shakers lately. Over the course last few days, he found all of the salt shakers on the tables and counters and had fun emptying them onto said tables and counters. This morning as Rachel was trying to get breakfast ready for everyone, he grabbed the garlic salt that Emma used last night for her garlic toast and emptied it onto the counter. Then he found some water to mix with it. Even after Rachel got it wiped up, none of his sisters would sit by him because it stunk.

Thanks again for tuning in to our crazy life. We sure do enjoy it....most of the time.