Anna’s New Profession

Last Saturday, Anna decided what she wanted to be when she grew up. I was at the grocery store when she decided that, so part of this story is hearsay, and you’ll have to ask Julie about its validity.

She elected to become a hairdresser, and Julie gave her blessing. She cut the hair of one of her stuffed animals, and then Alden’s hair (with Julie’s help), and then as an act of true devotion to the art, she decided to cut her own hair. Julie says that she warned her that she might end up with a boy haircut, but that Anna was OK with that, and went in the bathroom with a pair of scissors and a comb, and started hacking.

When I got home from the store, Anna was locked in the bathroom, and wouldn’t let anybody look at her. And with good reason, I suppose. She eventually let me in after I promised not to laugh, and that was one of the hardest promises I’ve ever had to keep. I’ve never seen anybody whose hair was cut by a lawnmower, but I can only imagine that a lawnmower would have done a better job.

I offered to help her fix her hair, and she accepted, and since I had only slightly more training than Anna, we spent the next 45 minutes trimming and fixing and layering. It was definitely not the best haircut ever, but we did manage to disguise a lot of the damage; Anna even said that she liked it when we were done.

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As Julie and I talked about that experience last week, we both admitted our surprise that it took her a little more than six years to finally cut her own hair. Several of our friends have told us stories about their little girls getting hold of the scissors at age three or four, and cutting off a pigtail, or some other strange thing. (Maybe that was Julie and her sisters….) In a way, I’m glad she decided to wait, because now she’ll be able to remember the experience; if she had done this when she was two, she’d only have the pictures.

Kids and Cleanliness

Does the state of one’s home really dictate whether kids should play together? Do moms truly only let their kids play with kids whose houses are clean and pristine?

Here’s some background: While we were driving home from church, James asked if he could invite a friend over to play today. I was getting ready to respond that, yes, he could, when Julie said that, no, he could not. I asked he why that was, and she said something about “girlie reasons,” and that I wouldn’t understand. Hmm…

When we got home, the kids went inside, and I tried (stupidly or ignorantly or both) to understand a little bit about what was going on. Julie explained to me that because our house is in a state of disarray, that a friend might be able to come and play today, but that he wouldn’t be permitted to come back if the mom heard about how “dirty” and “icky” the house was. She cited to me an example of a girl who lived in the same neighborhood as a niece who came to play twice, but never returned, supposedly because the house was chaotic.

I don’t understand. I used to play with friends whose houses were at least 20 times messier and 50 times smellier than our house is right now, and some of them were my best friends. I’m certain that my mom knew how these people lived, because they were all fairly good friends.

So, dear readers, please offer your advice to this Clark in Wyoming. Have you, either as a mother or a kid or something in between, ever stopped playing with a friend or avoided having your friend go over to a friend’s house because it was dirty? Comments are open.

Home buying

Just a little update from the Clarks in Wyoming. We're buying a home.

We've told some of you about it, but it's pretty much official. Unless there is some really crazy issue, we'll be getting a home here in Lyman. We loved our year-and-a-half in Big Piney, and we miss everyone terribly, but it's become pretty apparent that we're not going back there anytime soon.

You can look at the listing to see some pictures.

I'm mostly excited to say that we'll be cutting our monthly housing payment by nearly 30%. That's a relief.

The things some kids will do to impress the ladies

     

Bald is beautiful, right?

Simple Truths

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
• You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
• You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
• And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Author: William J. H. Boetcker. Via they.mislead.us.

Small-town Wyoming hits the big time

Watch CBS Videos Online

This is pretty cool. The lady who runs this place, Cheryl, used to cater for EnerCrest, so I can vouch for her cooking. Her sister, Tanya (who is also featured in the video), was EnerCrest’s accounts receivable specialist, and our next door neighbor in Marbleton. I’m looking forward to visiting.

P.S. There is a 32 second ad before the video starts.

How cool is this?

The family has gone to SLC for spring break, and I have to work. So, I decided to clean up the 23 gigs of photos on the hard drive, and start deciding which were really worth keeping. I think this is definitely a keeper.

From left to right: Grandpa, Carl Clark; Me, Aaron Clark; Great-grandpa, Wilford Clark; Dad, Jed Clark.

We took a four generation picture like this with James, me, Dad, and Grandpa when James was about this age, but I haven’t seen it for quite a while. If you have any knowledge of its whereabouts, please let me know.

Ft. Bridger, Wyoming

We went down to Ft. Bridger today for an Easter Egg Hunt. It didn't go so well. We missed the opening horn by about two minutes, and as a result, we didn't end up with any eggs. Bummer.

We got over that pretty quickly, though, and decided to go for a walk around the old Fort. It's a fascinating place, with a lot of history. It's name comes from the Jim Bridger, a trapper and trader who helped explore much of the west, and, if memory serves, helped discover South Pass. That discovery helped enable the significant migration of thousands of persons throughout the west. Other than that, I don't know much about the Fort. Sorry.

I ended up shooting a few pictures, and I thought this one was kind of interesting:

 

It's not much to look at on its own, but after a little post processing, I thought it was kind of fun.

 

Weather today

We may be down later than planned.

AC

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Sent from my mobile phone.

Ummm... No I'm not

Missing, that is. I’m right here where I’ve always been, readily accessible by both phone and email. It Wyoming! Not outer mongolia!

James’s Baptism

 

Some of you probably haven’t seen this yet.

Anna, Age 6

 

It’s so hard for me to believe that she’s actually six years old.

Some Photos for you

That’s his name...

 

We went to look at houses yesterday to get ideas for what we’d like to do in our next house. One of the houses had a pretty good name, wouldn’t you agree?

25 Random Things

As I feel like the absolutely last person to post something along these lines, here we go:

1. I like music. A lot. I really learned to appreciate good music while I was on my mission, and there wasn’t any. All we heard, all day, especially during the summer was Cumbia. To which I say, “Meh.”
2. I don’t play much music anymore. I used to could plunk out some tunes on the piano when I was a practicer, but I haven’t practiced regularly for years.
3. My brother and I do not agree on how he broke his leg. He thinks it was on purpose. I know it was an accident. Methinks we’ll have to wait to get the real story in Heaven.
4. You know those neat little playlists that people have on their blogs? I really can’t stand them. When I look at blogs, it’s usually after the kids go to sleep, and they always come on really loud.
5. I speak Spanish, but not as well I did 10 years ago.
6. I want to learn to speak Italian, Portuguese, and French.
7. One of my favorite emails is the Word of the Day from Merriam-Webster. I get one every day. The coolest word I’ve learned this week is “slumgullion.”
8. I think I inherited an interest in language from my father, who speaks enough foreign languages that when he was a bus driver, the kids thought he was ex-CIA.
9. I really love to cook, but only if the knives are sharp, and the ingredients are quality. Dull knives and bad ingredients are the worst.
10. I also really love to bake. Cookies and pies are my favorite, but I enjoy making bread, too.
11. We lived with my in-laws for over a year while we were saving for a house.
12. Even though I grew up in Utah, I now consider myself a Wyomingite.
13. I may have read every book that John Steinbeck wrote. My favorite is East of Eden.
14. I have had open heart surgery twice, and anticipate another one sometime in the next 10-15 years.
15. One of the hobbies I list on my résumé is computer programming.
16. Apart from my wife and kids, I consider my brother and sister my best friends.
17. I passed all four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination on my first try, a feat which testifies that there is indeed a Benevolent God, because I couldn’t have done it without Him.
18. My favorite food is spaghetti.
19. My least favorite food is eggs. I like scrambled eggs and things that have eggs in them, but I don’t care for fried, over-easy, hard boiled, poached, or any other variation of cooked eggs alone.
20. I have three kids, who I adore.
21. I have three kids, who drive me crazy sometimes, too.
22. My siblings and I all have a father-in-law named David.
23. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I don’t subscribe to the ideals or beliefs of either party. I do, however, usually vote based on economic principles, and for the most part, that means I side with Republicans.
24. We don’t have television in our home, and we don’t miss it. We have a television, and we watch videos, but we don’t have cable or satellite or over the air signals.
25. Even though I made it into the school spelling bee twice in a row when I was in elementary school, both years I messed up on my first word because I went too fast. Bummer.

Even when he’s crying, we still think he’s cute

 

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Aaron has been walking to work since we moved to Lyman, we only live about 4 blocks away but the weather has been really cold and windy, not Big Piney cold, but definitely cold! I’ve been proud of him, Andrew’s heart attack, (Andrew is Aaron’s younger brother,) has been a real wake up call that Aaron is taking seriously. Well on Tuesday Redi gave Aaron a company truck to drive, a big, new, four door, massive truck, needles to say Aaron hasn’t walked to work since. I asked Aaron why an accountant needs a work truck, he’s not really sure but he thinks they felt bad that he was walking to work in the cold. Aaron is in Elko, Nevada today and tomorrow, last week he was in Rifle, Colorado. Last night James cut his hand with a pocket knife, no stitches were needed thank goodness, and today Alden got locked into the car. A big thank you to the Lyman Police force! If it’s not one thing it’s another! Cousin Shelby is up visiting this week helping me get ready for the baptism/blessing on Saturday and James has his first pack meeting tonight. Here are a few pictures. The quilt is one that the Bear group made for their leader who just had a baby boy. On it they wrote advice on raising a boy. . . “Don’t let him eat his nails.” “Make sure he does his home work.” “Don’t let him play video games.” “Don’t let him puke.” I thought it was a cleaver idea. I should ask James what advice he would give on how to raise a boy. As I was tucking the kids into bed Anna gave some advice on a safety hazard, (one of the requirements that we have been working on for James’s Wolf badge.) She said, “Mom, I found another safety hazard, locking babies in a car!”

Aaron lost his job at Enercrest just before Thanksgiving. We looked into staying in Big Piney, but Big Piney is such a small area there just wasn’t any thing available for a business CPA. Just before Christmas Aaron accepted a job in Lyman, WY, (Lyman is two hours south of Big Piney.) Aaron now works for Redi Services as a Project Specialist Accountant. Everything has just fallen into place, we’ve found a place to rent in Lyman and we were able to rent out our home in Big Piney. We moved over Christmas break. Moving was a bit crazy, the Holidays and snow didn't help much. On Tuesday, Dec. 30th, I knew that Aaron and I wouldn't be able to get everything done, we needed help! I made one call Tuesday morning to Mary, the Laurel class President, and asked her if she could invite any of the Young Women who weren't busy to come and help at 11:00 a.m. When we arrived in Big Piney there were 8 people there to help! We finished in three hours and Wanda filled her horse trailer and brought the rest of our stuff to Lyman! I can’t forget to thank the people who were going to help us Friday after Christmas but we got snowed out. And then all the people who changed their plans and came up on Saturday to help load the U-haul and move all of the heavy items. It is strange how things work, I don't know why we were supposed to move to Big Piney for 18 months, but I do not regret that we did. We meet so many wonderful people that it was worth it! Thank you to our family and friends for babysitting, for your food, your strong backs, your horse trailers, your time, your prayers, your love and friendship. It has been amazing to see how God works thru others to bless our lives! James will be baptized at 11 a.m. on January 31st. Alden will be blessed following the baptismal service. You are all invited! Please RSVP so that we know how much food to make. Our new phone number is (307)747-1808. Our e-mail is theclarkfam@gmail.com. Love, The Clarks

The Christmas Card

I tried to keep it simple this year.

We love you all.

Aaron, Julie, James, Anna, and Alden