First Day of School 2010

Summer is over. Another school year has arrived. Here we go again with the early morning rush, the always daunting lunch packing, and tighter schedules. This year we have a 3rd grader, a 2nd grader, and a kindergartner. It's a new adventure for all, including Mom who only has one little one left at home. Emmalin wandered around the house looking for the kids all day. They were definitely missed!

Here they are taking the obligatory "first day of school picture".

Carrigan excitedly waiting for kindergarten to start. She says school is awesome but won't eat her lunch or snacks because Mom isn't with her. She scarfed down her lunch in the car after school.

"How was your first day?"...

They were so worn out after a terrific first day of school. Here they are having a little snack and enjoying a few minutes of TV while Mom cooked dinner.

Gage's 9th Birthday

Gage turned 9! That is crazy to me. He is growing up right before my eyes, and way tooooo fast. He is a wonderful part of our family. Always helpful and aware of the needs of his sisters. He can be ALL boy, but he can also be calm and sweet. At present time his favorite color is red (which changed this year. It has always been green), his favorite dinner is french dip sandwiches, he loves anything shark related, and he's about to start 3rd grade!

The bulk of his gifts were lego related, which he couldn't be more thrilled about.
He also got a pogo-stick. He seems to be a natural at it. He wants to keep getting better and better until he can manuever around the house and eventually go up and down the stairs. Nothing wrong with goal-setting!

Don't you love spontaneous fun!?! We were blowing up balloons and one shot off the end of the air pump, sending it sailing all around the downstairs. The kids hooted, hollered, and chased down the balloon. This fun game lasted for quite some time and completely wore them out!

Next up-- the birthday cake! ALWAYS a Texas Sheet Cake for this boy! It is his absolute favorite! Silly me thought we had plenty of birthday candles. When I went to get them out of the cupboard I realized I only had 7! So we lit the 7 candles, had him blow them out, and then lit 2 more! He thought he was the coolest! Love when something that could has been a catastrophe turns into something okay! PHEW!!

Happy Birthday little man!!!

Feeling Old

I celebrated my 37th birthday this past week. We have a tradition in our family that the kids make my cake. I found a recipe a few months back for a yummy looking cake and so I steered the kids in that direction. I measured out all of the ingredients and they went to town. I did the parts that involved the oven or stove but they did the rest. They did a wonderful job making this delicious Caramel Cake!! Mmmmm! Thanks kids! Phew-- that's ALOT of candles...

Kimball

Kimball was recently called to be the Young Men's President in our ward. He had been serving in the Stake Young Men's Presidency and really grew to love the young men. He is excited for this new challenge and a chance to get to know the boys in our ward better.

These are a few pictures from a recent stake YM/YW activity. I love this action shot (thanks Kary) of Kimball being taken down by our Bishop in a game of mud football.Those who know Kimball know what fun he can be. He loves to laugh and to make people laugh. He loves to play and have fun like in these pictures. I love that about him. But I also love that he can be incredibly spiritual and lead our family in choosing the right. He has a way of explaining the gospel that just makes it so clear and simple. I know he will be a wonderful leader for the Young Men he is serving just as he is a wonderful leader for our own little family.

Camping

Last weekend we went camping with the Clark Family. We thought it would be fun to spend time together before Papa and Mommer leave for their mission in September. It was also a great way to escape the heat of the valley!! I am already missing the weather which was absolutely gorgeous. Oh, what fun we had!!! Kevin found a beautiful and super fun place for us to call home for a few days. One of the highlights of our trip was Jay and Ashley's Ranger. The kids (and adults) couldn't get enough of the wild, whiplashing, hold onto your panties, rides! The kids would chant and beg for more!!!

Sorry for this next picture, but I have to include it. Kevin was my hero for building this little toilet for us. It sure made "going" out in the woods easier for the girls!

Emmalin LOVED riding in the Ranger. After returning back to camp each trip she would do a little fake cry letting us know she wasn't ready to be done. When set down on the ground, she would crawl back inside...

She seriously LOVED it and would giggle and laugh and say "WEEEE" the whole time.

The rock wall was a HUGE hit with the grandkids. They climbed all over chasing lizards and other creepy crawlys. Can you see Mommer on the wall? We were all a little nervous about that. But she was awesome!

Amberly having fun with glow-sticks

The men and children went off for some target practice...

...while the women went and did more of this...

Lots of great places to hike and do what Clark's do best...chase down lizards, and snakes, and frogs, and anything else they see!

Here is a sampling of some of the wildlife that we found. We even brought home a few little treasures. We now have another skink, a frog, and a few more lizards. The snakes had to stay in the forest. Mommy isn't too fond of them (shiver).

We can't wait to do it again!!!!

Uncle Bryan's 40th Birthday Party!

Bryan is Kimball's eldest brother. On this night we celebrated his 40th birthday! Bryan is truly a wonderful example of son, father, husband, brother, friend. We love Uncle Bryan!

We swam, BBQ'd, ate cake, and played party games. Karin went all out planning this party. Thanks Karin, we had a blast!


Karin and the birthday cake she made for Bryan. The inside was Rice Krispie Treats! Awesome!


Gage and Amberly had tons of fun jumping off the boulders into the pool! They started off in life jackets by by the end the took them off and jumped in. If you know my kids, you know what a feat that was for them!

Carrigan loved swimming with her cousins. She is becoming a little fish!

Emmalin and Daddy!

Bryan and his cake.

"Pin the toupe on Bryan"

Ashley gave a roast about Bryan, teasing him about how "old" he is getting, complete with wig and glasses. The roast was also inspiring and helped us learn more about Bryan.

More games about Bryan's life.

We hope it was as fun for you Bryan as it was for us! We had soooo much fun!

Piano Before and After (almost)

A friend of ours had this piano in her home for 7 years. She rescued it from a school dumpster. She saved enough to buy a brand new piano and wanted her old piano to go to a good home. She called us and told us it was seriously the ugliest piano but it sounded good. She was right on both accounts. It was SERIOUSLY ugly but it sounded good. Well after doing some research on the internet I was finally ready to TRY and give it a makeover. Check out these before pics. Deep scratches and gouges. Stickers on it. Key tops chipping off. Ugh! I had my work cut out for me for sure!

It's still not gorgeous. There are some areas that I need to sand and paint again. And we are waiting for the key tops which I think will really help. But here it is for now. Even though it's not perfect at least it's an improvement from what it was! For now it will do and will sit proudly in our living room while we save our pennies for a new one!

Summer Fun

So last summer we bought a swimming pool. We LOVED it and had so much fun in it. We couldn't wait to get it out and set up this year. Memorial Weekend we cleared a place and got it all layed out. Darn thing had a hole that we couldn't find. We TRIED for a week and a half to find the hole. We had some pretty sad kids, but it wasn't in the budget to get a new one because of some unexpected expenses that came our way at the same time. Well... this past weekend a dear friend of Kimball's decided to spoil our children and bought them a pool. He doesn't have children yet and is much too kind to ours! My kids call him Uncle John. Well, the pool is up and the kids are like little fish. Thank you John. You are WONDERFUL!

Our family now has a goal to find a way to pay it forward!

Zions Camp

(Posted by Kimball)

The second week of June I went to Williams with the young men from our stake. There were about 35 ranging in age from 14-18. We planned out a whole week of games, hikes, food, and fun.

We started the week with some games on the first day and a night hike that tested EVERYBODY. It was about 12 miles round trip with an elevation change of 2500 ft up. We got everyone home and in bed at around 3 am. What impressed me was they all got up at 6 am to get to a scheduled service project for the city of Williams the next morning. Most of them did not complain.

The following is some of what happened.

As you can see, the area we camped was absolutely beatutiful!

Each quorum of boys were responsible to first build their "shelter" using some wood and tarps. No sleeping in tents on this trip, it was all about teamwork and group unity.

For some of the games they worked together to get things done.

This is the popular 10 foot wall. The record this year for 3 people was 10.5 seconds held by the Palo Verde priests. The record for 5 people was held by the adult leaders at 21 seconds.

We built some trebuchets from scratch with the help of Wiley Ahlstrom. The record there was set by the 2nd Ward at 125 paces or about the length of a football feild from endzone to endzone. They shot big grapefruit.

Brother Hansen built a human bowling ball for one of the games. I was the guinea pig.

Team working together to solve the problem at hand.

The boys did some service for the city of Williams by picking up trash for the Hog Rally the following day.

We ate very well the whole trip.

That bacon looks great! Day 3, bacon looks AMAZING! They looked like zombies.

Shannon Shultz made the whole eating experience top notch. Great cook. Great smile.

Some showed up with a bad attitude.

But the attitudes improved and everyone had lots of fun.

The squirrels in the Grand Canyon are not shy.

Bishop Hoopes overlooking the South Rim.

Kyle, Skylar, and CJ

We all had scriptures to memorize through the week that all focused on obedience. Tom Gassaway is passing off one here with Bishop Hoopes.

Wade Gable, Moroni Dominguez, and Tom Gassaway all resting after a long hike in and out of the Grand Canyon.

President Ricky King and his son Spencer.

After the week was ended we had an award meeting and then a testimony meeting. This is a group of tired young men and old men. Ironically, the whole meeting was surrounded by rain, hail, lightning, and thunder...just like the origonal Zion's Camp. It was a good time.