The Past Couple of Months

Jarod had a swim meet two weeks ago. He swam the breast stroke, butterfly and freestyle as individual races and then swam freestyle and breast stroke in two relays. We were so proud of him. He swam very well and won several. In the relays his team came in second and third.

This last couple of months has been very busy for us all. Jarod is back in school and is at a new school this year. We moved him to Dry Creek Elementary. It it the collegiate prepatory school in our school district. Each grade only has three classes and they are all in one area of the school. There are no walls between the classrooms in each grade and the students move to whichever of the teachers is working at the level they need. Jarod goes to one teacher for math, one for reading andspelling and then he has his main teacher, Miss Lionetti for everything else. They have Spanish classes on Wednesday and Art on Thursdays. The programs are amazing. We are very impressed with the whole school and only regret that we did not know about it sooner so that he could have gone there for Kindergarten and first grade.

Juan is working hard as ususal. He has also been helping with a study at the university and part of it included letting them take a muscle biopsy from his thigh. It was very painful and took longer than he expected to heal. Juan told the people in charge of the study that he will not be letting them do that again.

Jennifer has been voluteering at Jarod's school a lot. She was the co-chair for the book fair and spent hours getting it all put together and they made a lot of money for the school media center. Jenn also got to go to a concert in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. Her friend, Amy, got two tickets for a concert that included Heart, Cheap Trick and Journey, for her birthday. She asked Jenn to come to see it with her. It was so fun! A little weird because the area they were sitting in was made up with people from 12 to 80 years old. They danced and had a great time great time but ended up half deaf the next day. Getting to the concert was a whole other story. The car over heated, they had a flat tire and the traffic was ridiculous but they made it! Thanks Amy!!!!! It was a great concert but the most fun was getting to spend time with Amy and her family, as well as other friends from the ward in Illinois. We miss our friends!!

Yes, I know we are kind of lax in blogging on a regular basis. Sorry to those who expect it more often. We get busy and forget about it.

Arroyo's summer vacation 2008

This summer we had the opportunity to visit our family in Puerto Rico. It has been 3 years since we been there. We had a lot of fun and we enjoy the beach a lot. Jarod did not remember going to the beach so it was a lot of fun for him too. He enjoyed the sand more than swimming in the water.

The flowers and trees were in full bloom specially the "flamboyan" a beautiful tree that blooms in red, yellow or purple. Jennifer enjoyed taking pictures of the trees and flowers there.



We enjoyed spending time with our family. Jarod loved going swimming with his cousins and playing with them specially with Diego which is his age.


Our neice got married while we were there. It was a beautiful wedding and it was the first time that all brothers were together. We really enjoyed the wedding. Jennifer went blonde for the wedding and she looked gorgeous.

We had a lot of fun we were glad to come back and sad to leave our family there.

Our year so far..............................

This has been an interesting year for us so far. Jarod was sick with the flu fom the middle of February to the end of March. And then, poor kid, he went to the dentist and they told us his mouth is severely over crowded and he needs 5 teeth pulled. So we are in the middle of that process now. 3 out and 2 to go. He has done so great with it though. We are so proud of him.
At school, Jarod is doing incredibly well. He is in the top reading and math groups in his class. Unfortunately he gets bored, so we have been looking at some alterenate schools for him. We found the Dry Creek School here in our district and think it will be the best match for him. It is an open classroom environment. There are only 3 classes per grade, with a maximum of 17 kids per class and the kids move around to work with whatever teacher is working at the level they need. They have an incredible science program as well as arts and languages. All students, from kidergarten to fifth grade have classes in Spanish. We got to go tour the school and talk to some of the students and teachers and we were very impressed. This school is very hard to get in to and we applied immediately. Jarod got accepted. So next fall he is moving to this new school. We are so excited. They call it a collegate preparatory school, that is exactly what Jarod needs.
Juan has been travelling for work quite a bit. He has been to Texas and California to present his research and will be going later in the month to Chicago. He is publishing a lot of his papers and working really hard.

Jenn is working really hard to keep it all moving smoothly. She volunteers several days a week at Jarods school. Jarod's teacher just had a baby so the substitute is really happy to have a mom in there that knows what is going on. Jenn lso has a new calling. She is still a ward missionary but has been called to teach a Sunbeams class in primary as well. She loves it and the kids love her.

As for the rest of the year...... we are going to Puerto Rico at the end of June and will be there until the middle of July. Juan's neice is getting married so it should be a fun trip. Juan is looking for other job opportunities and will be interviewing all over the place. ( we are really hoping for the interviews in Idaho to go well). We shall see what the future brings!!

This fall has been a very busy one. Jarod is on a basketball team and loving it. He does very well and the coaches are tickled with his progress. He is still taking swimming classes and the teacher is really working on his butterfly stroke with him. The coach he had over the summer, told us that if Jarod keeps going as he is, he will be able to get scholarships for college.

Last month our ward was split. We are now in a new ward and there are very few of the people we know in it. Juan and I were given callings. We are ward missionaries. It is interesting. 2 meetings a week. And we visit people one day a week too. It is fun to get to know new people.

Juan and I have joined a gym. We work out almost daily and are enjoying it. We have both lost quite a bit of weight. Still more to go though. We are working on it. We are doing the best we can.
Just not a lot going on really.

June 2007

Well here we are in June and we are so busy. Jarod is in Soccer and on a swim team. He has swim practice 1 1/2 hours four days a week and is getting really good! The coach is very impressed by his progress and asked Jarod to swim the 25m freestyle and the 50m backstroke and the 25m front crawl at the next meet on Saturday, July 7th. Jarod is so excited because it is his first meet. There has been one other meet but it was on Sunday and Jarod told the coach that we do not swim on Sunday or do other sports. We were very proud of him for standing up for his beliefs.

Two months ago we decided to go back to the English ward. It has been interesting. The ward in enormous and growing every week. They are building a new stake center and will split the ward next year but right now we have over 800 members that come almost every week. We have to meet at 8 am just because of the fire codes. Juan was just called to work with the scouting program again. He is the assistant wolf leader and Jenn was just called to be an activities committee member. I guess you could say we are having a very busy summer.

The past 6 months

Hi all!!

We have been very busy the past few months. Jarod was on a basketball team and they were undefeated in the league. He was very excited to get a trophy. He is still taking swimming lessons and was invited to be on the swim team at the rec center. (he is very good). The coach is very excited to get him. Jarod is doing very well in school. He loves to read and is really liking math. He has made a lot of friends and just really loves school.

Juan has been working on papers to publish and just working hard in general. He is involved in a weight loss study at the university hospital and is spending the week there. He gets to leave to go to work but has to spend the night at the hospital. Not fun but they are going to pay him almost 1000$ for doing it.

Jenn was the Primary president for the last year but has now been released because we have gone back to the english ward. She loved her calling but Jarod is more important. Jarod just was not getting much out of his classes and we feel that his understanding of the Gospel is more important that anything.

Jenn volunteers at the school 2 or 3 times a week. Sometimes in Jarod's class and sometimes in the library, she really enjoys it.

Keyla is doing well. She is a very active little dog and loves everyone a lot. She especially loves anyone that will play with her. My parents ahev offered to take her if we ever move anywhere that doesn't allow pets. Most everyone that has been around her has fallen in love with her.

In march we had to go to Illinois for a funeral. Our friends son took his own life and we felt that we really needed to be there for them. He was only 18 and it was a real shock to everyone. We were able to reconnect with other friends there as well but it was too short of a trip to be able to make it to St.Louis. We would have loved to have been able to visit the Christley clan.

We went to Utah over Easter and ended up being there for a couple of weeks. Jenn's Great Grandma Rigby passed away. Fortunately we were able to go and say goodbye to her the day before she did. She was 98 years old and we were all grateful for her return home. We spent most of the time involved in getting things ready for the funeral and keeping everything going.

Well that is pretty much the past 6 months or so. Not much else going on. We will try to do better at updating our blog. Congrat to the Christensens on their new addition. He is beautiful!!!

The month of November

November has been a rough month for us. Juan has been sick for most of it and his doctor has been unable to figure out what it is. After all of the testing and office visits, we still have no answers but at least now he is feeling better. Still a few sinus issues and a sore throat but much better than he was. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving dinner for him consisted of mashed potatoes because it was the only thing out of all the food that he could swallow. We saved a piece of pie for him though. Hopefully he will be able to eat it soon.

Jarod has another tooth loose and can't wait for it to come out. He spends a lot of time wiggling it and trying to pull it out.
Jarod is doing very well in school. We had our first parent/teacher conference and his teacher is very impressed with him. He practices writing all of the time and tries to read by himself but asks "what is that word" a lot.He does read the words he recognizes though. Yesterday he told us that he is writing a book. He meant it very literally. He went into his room and was copying the words out of a book. He says it will help him be good writer. What a cutie!!

Keyla(kay-la) is doing well. She is pretty well potty trained and walks well on a leash. She loves us all but follows Jenn around everywhere. Her favorite thing to do right now is to jump onto our bed and get down under the covers. She will snuggle up to whoever is warmest and go to sleep. When we get her out of the bed she pouts a little.