Another Year is Coming to an End (Where Did the Time Go?)

Wow!! Is it REALLY the end of another year?? 2010 just flew by...especially the past four months! I remember I was planning on having LOTS of down time in October after having knee surgery. The surgeon said, beforehand, to expect 6-8 weeks of no weight bearing following the surgery. I had that down time all planned...I was going to catch up on the blog, work on scrapbooks, read, watch lots of movies... I guess it's a good thing that the surgery went better than expected and that I had no weight bearing restrictions AT ALL! Basically, the surgery was just a blip on the screen and October came and went and I didn't get anything on my "to-do" list done. But, my knee is good, it feels better than it has in YEARS!!!

Again, I am going to try to blog more regularly because it does help me when it comes time to journal in my scrapbooks. And since I'm not good at doing the whole "Christmas letter" thing, I hope that some folks check in every once in a while to see that we're still alive and kickin'.

So, to catch up (AGAIN!), here are a few photos of the happenings/activities that have kept our family busy for the past four months.

Knee Surgery (Friday, October 8, 2010)

I had outpatient arthroscopic knee surgery in Colorado Springs. Bill & I drove up the night before and Jamie stayed home with grandma. Surgery started at 12:30pm and I was in the car, heading home, by 3:30. No weight bearing restrictions, didn't even send me home with crutches! We had a walker that a neighbor left after a garage sale so I used that to get around for a couple of days but was walking by Monday. Dr. Mahoney rocks!!

this pic is taken 4 days post-op...teeny, tiny incisions & no stitches!

Jamie colored this picture for me as a get well card! Isn't he sweet??

Tour of new elementary schools (Friday, October 15, 2010)

The new schools are almost finished! They were initially supposed to be ready for occupancy by December 2010 but the district decided to hold off on the move until summer break. Jamie and the other Boyd ambassadors got to tour the school and then made a presentation to the parent/teacher organization. He is excited to attend the new school and he had three favorite things: the hand dryers, the fact that the lunch room & gymnasium are separate, and the cool playground equipment.

lunch room/multi-purpose room

gymnasium/auditorium

library

common area

upstairs/hallway/teacher's lounge

classroom

boys restroom with power hand dryers...they also have sinks & hand dryers in the lunch room, which makes ALL kinds of sense!

outside

cool playground equipment

3rd Grade Field Trip to ASC Chemistry Magic Show (October 22, 2010)

Jamie's class walked to ASC from Boyd (almost 2 miles!) to attend the annual Chemistry Magic Show, put on by the ASC Chemistry department in celebration of National Chemistry Week. (Did you even know that there is such a thing as National Chemistry Week?) A parent of one of Jamie's classmates is a Chemistry professor, and the classmate was actually a part of the show. Professors & students perform many "magic" tricks and then open up the Chem Labs for kids to do some magic of their own. They made snow and also slime. I'm so impressed with all of the activities for kids that ASC provides!!

making slime

Church Bowling Night (October 30, 2010)

going for the spare...

...and he got it!

Market Day/Halloween

Jamie's class had Market Day on the morning of October 29. Jamie painted and decorated wooden pumpkins. Then, that afternoon, they changed into their Halloween costumes, walked over to the Food Bank with canned food donations and then came back to school for pizza, games & goodies. Jamie dressed up as a shark.

We have a yearly Halloween tradition of meeting at a friends house (who lives in town) for an easy & quick dinner and a group trick-or-treating adventure. Our numbers were lower this year than in past years but, it was still a good time!

AMAZING sunrise!! (November 19, 2010)

I don't remember WHY I was even awake at this time of the morning but, this sunrise was unbelievable!! Actually, I think the color coming in through my east facing bedroom window was so bright that it woke me up!

Crazy Hair Day (November 30, 2010)

Basketball (November & December 2010)

Jamie had a great basketball season. His coach was great and taught a lot of basic basketball skills. The entire team improved over the season and Jamie really learned & improved so much!

3rd Grade Winter/Christmas Program (December 7, 2010)

This years program was organized and well performed, quite different from the usual marching in and out of individual classes with lots of lag time. A few students acted out a play about searching for Christmas and everyone else (combined 3rd grade classes) sang songs in between scenes. Jamie's best friend, Parker, stole the show!!

Pre-Christmas Activities (December 2010)

Pre-Christmas activities included decorating gingerbread houses, caroling, performing in the Christmas program at church and visiting St. Nick and Santa.

he told Santa that he wanted a phone and a laptop...ha! ha!

Christmas in Arizona

We left Alamosa on December 21st and spent the night in Albuquerque. We visited Julie's Gram (who celebrated her 94th birthday on Dec. 22) and cousin (who was visiting from Los Angeles) and then headed to Mesa on the 22nd. Grandma Betty waited for us to get there so that Jamie could help her put up & decorate her outside tree. Since we knew that we were going to be gone, we decided to not decorate at home. I was going to go ahead and decorate because I thought that Jamie might feel bad if we didn't, but it was actually his idea to not decorate..."why should we do all of that work if we're not even going to be here for Christmas?" At least he realizes that it does require some time & effort to decorate! He had fun helping grandma and the tree really turned out looking great! On the 23rd, we went to the Mesa LDS Temple to see their spectacular light and nativity display. They also had live entertainment, which was fun. On Christmas Eve, we found a nice church service at First United Methodist Church of Gilbert and then meandered home looking at Christmas lights. It wasn't like driving through Old Town or Lee Acres (in Albuquerque) and seeing the fabulous luminarias, but it was still nice. If we do Christmas in Arizona again, we'll have to do more research and learn where to find the cool light displays.

It was easy to get Jamie to bed on Christmas Eve...he still believes in Santa and the magic of the season. It is so awesome to experience Christmas with a child!! We told him that he couldn't wake us up any earlier than 7:00 on Christmas morning and he was in our room at 7 o'clock on the dot! Grandma is usually an early riser but when she wasn't up and around by 7:30, we sent Jamie to knock on her door. She had woken up at 6:00 and then fallen back to sleep! There's nothing like the excitement of a kid at Christmas and Jamie had great fun. It was his idea, though, to do the gifts one at a time so we could see what everyone got. We started out going one gift per person but quickly realized that Jamie had waaaaay more gifts under tree so he got to open 2 or 3 for each one that everyone else opened. We all made quite a haul!

Jamie's pile of Christmas treasures all laid out on the table...I think he also had a pile on a nearby chair!

Our time in Arizona has been so relaxing! We've been lazy and have eaten ourselves stupid! The weather has been really nice until the past day or so. It rained all day yesterday so we went to IKEA, saw Yogi Bear in 3D and ate at Oregano's. There's a cold breeze today and it's supposedly snowing like crazy in northern Arizona, New Mexico & Colorado. AZDOT says that all roads in northern AZ are closed. We are leaving to drive back to Albuquerque tomorrow and still trying to figure out the best (safest) route.

And, so...another year winds down...I really still can't believe how fast 2010 went by! Life is good in the Brooks' household. We're looking forward to all that 2011 has in store!