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!!