The Land of Valentines

We have officially entered the pre-teen years with all its accompanying dilemmas. The sixth grade at our kids' school rotates through different classes throughout the day. Therefore, they did not do mandatory valentines, as each one would have had to prepare over a hundred. Instead, they had a little party altogether at the end of the day. Well, apparently, some of the kids took the opportunity to single out their "favorites" and give valentines to a select few.

When my kids got off the bus and came inside, the boys were excited while Elaine had a disgusted look on her face. "Mom, I got a valentine . . . from Philip," she said with a resigned tone of voice. Philip had obviously spent time shopping with his mom and found a really cute heart shaped snowglobe with Mickey Mouse inside looking bashful and holding flowers. It was in a cute little gift bag with some candy. He had left the bag by her lunchbox in the morning.

Elaine has no feelings for Philip, ("he's annoying," she says), but decided to give him a thank-you card so his feelings wouldn't be hurt. Sigh.

The boys then started admitting their fancies for girls in their classes. Love is in the air.

Elaine, Uberpilot

This last Saturday morning, Elaine got to fly an airplane. She got to lift off and control the plane in the air. It was part of a program called "Wright Flight" where they studied aviation history, and took a test on history, navigating, and course plotting. She and another girl were in the air for about 45 minutes. They landed once so the other girl could take off and have her turn. Pretty exciting. Alex and Jeremy played awesome basketball games. William and Benjamin ran around the gym.

Jer's Filming Debut

I will now attempt to upload a video. Caution: Jeremy was the cinematographer and he favors the "Cloverfield" style. There is no audio, just video.

When C grows up . . .

Benjamin put an alphabet puzzle together yesterday. It is a cute puzzle that has each upper-case letter occupying a room in a house. Each room is full of animals and objects that start with that letter. The puzzle also has cut outs of kids wearing t-shirts with the lower-case letters on them. So the letters can be matched.

Anyway, after he put it together, I started asking him questions about the letters. For example, "how are E and F different?" He studied them for a second, then said, "well, when F grows up it will turn into E because it has more lines." He also decided that K will grow into X, C will become G, O will become Q, and P will become B. I thought the cutest was: "When W grows up, it will turn into M because it is upside down." And of course V will become W. He also had some creative ideas for the lower-case letters.

Sigh. Babies all grow up, don't they.

Now That's Lasagne!

Some of Dave's old charges from when he was in Med School came over during the holidays. One of them served a mission in Italy where he learned how to make authentic lasagne. Another one mastered the noodle itself. Check it out.

Casa de Parry closed for renovation

We've had an amazing Holiday Season with nonstop visitors. It all started with the Wright White Elephant Party and guests for a Wright family wedding, and just ended with my parents and sister. Inbetween we had friends (the Pattees, for those who may know them) come from Wisconsin. So we've been to Tombstone and Old Tucson Studios and the Desert Museum and the Tucson Trail . . . all in about a week. Unfortunately my camera batteries are not holding a charge, so I don't have many pictures. What pictures I do have are on the camera . . . somewhere . . . I'm sure I'll find it soon . . .

Christmastime is here . . .

So here we have our Christmas morning. Actually, the picture of us all in coats is on Christmas Eve caroling at the Tumacacori mission about 30 miles south of Tucson. They open the mission on Christmas Eve for free and they light luminarios along all the walkways and walls and cornices, etc. It is gorgeous. So Christmas morning we had to wake William up because he was still asleep at 8:00 am! He was not impressed with the idea until he noticed the candy in his stocking. Then he opened some presents and decided it was an okay event. Ben chose a cheapo dart set as his favorite gift. Alex and Jeremy like their BB guns, and Elaine's favorite is her iPod. Dave was the cinematographer. It was a grand Christmas.