Saturday, December 30, 2023

Science Center and Zoolights

 We spent a nice day going to the Science Center and Zoolights.

Megan on the bed of nails.

Me

Matthew rolling the apparatus down the incline.

Playing with the Bernoulli effect.

Matthew getting the space station around the moon.

Our Azure witch continues to work her magic! Megan played here for quite awhile, getting lots of water on the map.



We enjoyed going to Zoolights.
Matthew, Megan, Me and U with the 200 foot long light tunnel.

Matthew riding the lion while gazing off into the distance.

Megan enjoying her ride.

KOALA!

How cute! Matthew holding the koala's hand.



Megan, Me and Matthew with some of the birds.

There was a cool light projection show on the lake.



Cheese!

Pretty flowers

Megan being a wizard.

Matthew atop the frog.

We enjoyed relaxing on the glowing swings.





Pretty trees!

Matthew, Me and U at the light tunnel after dark.

Friday, December 29, 2023

December Happenings

 December was quite a busy month!

Megan cutting strawberries for our delicious strawberry blondies.

We opened our ornaments while decorating the tree. Megan's in the leaf, ours is the Upper Pennisula of Michigan and Matthew's is the Mackinac Bridge.

Matthew had a lot of jazz band events. First was the concert at South Mountain Community College.

A couple group shots from after the concert.


Next up was the perfomance at the Nash, a jazz club in downtown Phoenix.


Group shot from the Nash.

The jazz band also played in the quarterly school concert, in a midday assembly at school and at a BBQ place on New Years Eve. Matthew is loving all the activity and sense of community!

U and Megan at the ward Christmas party. (Matthew and mom were at a robotics tournament.)

Sean and Megan decorating their gingerbread creation.

The part of the finished product that made it home....

Quarterly band concert with Cadet band.

Jazz band

Megan and Matthew at AZCEND for the Christmas distribution. They enjoyed helping out. 

Artemis and Matthew staying warm.

The Teacher's Quorum wore matching ties to church.

Megan and Artemis with Grandpa and Grandma Martin. It was nice to visit with them. Megan's cousin Leigh came as well.

Megan: Olives are like disgusting grapes!

Artemis found some chocolate in Matthew's room which she didn't hesitate to eat. When Megan questioned Artemis about this, Artemis looked away from Megan. Megan's take on this: Artemis is a terrible liar. And she apparently finds her death delicious. 

Thursday, December 28, 2023

Matthew's 13th Birthday

 Matthew is officially a teenager! That means we have three teens for the next bit....

Excited to open gifts.

Yeah for a new Minecraft Lego set.

With his balloon, Lego set and Crumbs, the bread dragon from Flamecraft (a game).

Since it was Thursday, we went to AZCEND to help with the food distribution. Matthew wasn't so sure about going on his birthday but Paula, the food bank manager, had a celebration for him including a cake and a gift of a Nintendo Switch and wireless headphones for both Matthew and Megan. They had been saving their money to buy a Switch together so they really appreciated getting two, and they were the OLED models which are the nicer versions. Happy birthday indeed!

Cake at AZCEND.

Wow!

Getting ready to blow out the candles.

Matthew, happy with his pumpkin pie.