Getting to Know Our Neighbors

Aaron found this big guy hanging out in front of our garage the other day.

I hung a feeder on our front porch and the hummingbirds were at it right away. They drank down the feeder in just two days! I have filled it twice so far. It's empty right now and I need to get more in there. The syrup is easy to make, its just 1 part sugar 4 parts water, boiled for two minutes, then cooled. They love it. We love watching them. At some points in the day there wil be 5 or 6 on the feeder at a time!

There is no shortage of bugs or spiders out here either. We found this hive that paper wasps had made in our tree in the backyard. The exterminator came and took it away. I think he thought I was a little crazy for calling him, like I could have done it myself. No way...

But we have some great views out here. What does it mean? "double rainbow all the way"... (Warning: the crazy guy in this video link breaks the 3rd commandment quite a bit).

Kindergarten Claire

Our Claire started her first day of kindergarten. I think that I was more stressed than she was about it. She rides the bus to and from school. In the morning, all the kids from high school on down ride the bus. I was a little worried about her riding with such big kids, but it seems like she likes it and she did very well on her adventure.

She posed for a picture with her teacher, Mrs. Tanner. We hear that Mrs. Tanner is nice and strict so it will be great for Claire to have a teacher that will keep her focused.

In Arizona, half day kindergarten is still the norm. The state pulled funding a couple years ago because the majority of state legislators felt that full day kindergarten was too expensive for our state and a few actually called it "tax-payer funded all day babysitting". I did a research paper on the subject of full-day kindergarten recently. Before I did the paper I felt that half day was better because it allowed the children to ease into school and that it was more developmentally appropriate rather than to have the children working on academics at such an early age. I felt that the majority of people who wanted to have their children in full-day kindergarten, were parents who worked full-time who wanted to save on child care costs. Also with so much riding on standardized tests, schools wanted to get the children started early on academic excellence.

After my research, I feel quite differently. Did you know that historically the first kindergartens were full day? Kindergartens didn't go to half days until the 1940's when World War II took women teachers away from the classrooms to work with the war effort at home and the baby boom perpetuated the teacher shortage.

So, that is a little history lesson... Gradually, kindergarten has become increasingly academic as results of standardized testing have become more important in determining funding for public schools. These test results even determine whether or not a school will remain open and whether or not teachers will have jobs. So much is riding on them that preparation for the tests begins earlier and earlier. With only 2 hours and 45 minutes of classroom time, guess what kindergarten teachers are going to teach? Are they going to have music and art time? Are the kids going to be able to have adequate time for dramatic play which is so important for this age?

Full day kindergarten gives children time for play, for music and art, for outside play, time to be kids and time for instruction. The teachers can mix it up a bit more. Full day kindergarten doesn't mean more instruction necessarily, it usually means more time for developmentally appropriate activities, a more relaxed atmosphere, and more time for the arts and physical activity. So, that's why I think that it is better....

Claire is enjoying her time at school, however short the school day may be. She comes home singing songs and happy. And that makes me happy.

Petrified Forest National Park

Yesterday we took a trip to Petrified Forest National Park. We live only about 35 miles away. We learned that petrified wood was made from fallen trees that were covered in volcanic ash, water, and silt (dirt) and they soaked for millions of years.


All kinds of mineral deposits from the dirt soaked into the wood and made colorful crystals.

The landscape here is far from what you would expect of a forest, the trees are fallen and scattered. For miles you don't see any. For a while I was joking that the most petrified wood we were going to see on the trip was at a rock shop in Holbrook, AZ. There are a ridiculous amount of rock shops just outside of the park with a ridiculous amount of petrified logs just stockpiled everywhere. (It kind of made me wonder how they got it all, with a national protected area just miles away).

Then all of the sudden - there are pieces of it everywhere.




We also saw some ruins and some petroglyphs that have been carved into these rocks over time.

We think that even Alex enjoyed this park. Here he poses with a petrified log.

Walnut Canyon

Now that we live so close to some national parks, we decided to take a trip to Walnut Canyon National Monument just outside of Flagstaff.

Check out this little walnut...

It was a beautiful place. They have built stairs that take you down into the canyon. We made it about a third of the way down. There are pretty steep cliffs so it was a pretty strict rule to hold hands with mommy or daddy. Coming back up was kind of rough on me. My legs were sore the next day. I really need to get in shape. Noel kept pointing at prickly pear cacti and telling us proudly that he knows what they are.


Here are some of the cliff dwellings that we were able to see...

Alex rode with Daddy. A group of Asian ladies saw him and oohed and awed over him for quite a while. They commented on how blue his eyes were. We are fairly certain that the blue eyes are here to stay and that they won't change like Noel's did.

We bought an annual pass to the national parks. It won't expire until next September. So we will have all of next summer to use it too. We hope to be able to make some memorable trips in the coming year.

Alex Today

I took this picture of Alex this morning while I was getting him dressed. What a sweet smile he has. Noel is especially good at getting these out of him.