And We're Off!

So tomorrow is the big day! It's the beginning of our 22 hour journey to Texas. I'm so grateful that we were able to figure out a way for Clark to come with me. I don't think I posted about it, but for a while there was some doubt that he would be able to help me drive down. The ship's schedule is crazy! I don't know how people handle Navy life year after year.

Clark has to go into work for a while tomorrow, and then once he gets home we we'll strike out. Just him, me, the van, the kids, the dog, a little u-haul trailer, and miles and miles of road. As I'm sure you all know there are a few things that can ruin a good road trip. A few are:

• children under five
• car sick dogs, children, or adults (or anything else that causes similar symptoms--I'm thinking the flu or that burger from the last pit stop)
  
• car trouble
• rain, sleet, or snow
• a broken cd player or radio

I'm sure there are more and feel free to add to the list. Personally, I love road trips. There's something about setting out on a long journey, the car packed with snacks, and your favorite tunes all lined up and ready to go that makes me feel happy and free. I remember my very first road trip on my own. I was barely seventeen and my parents let me drive from Houston to Hattiesburg, Mississippi (about 9 hours) all by myself. I was so excited! I filled up my brown station wagon with gas and bought some trail mix and was on my way. I ended up eating that whole bag of trail mix (filled with dried fruit, mind you) within the first couple hours and had to make pit stops nearly every hour the rest of the way. Maybe that was too much information, but it sure makes me laugh when I think about it now.

Another favorite road trip of mine was when Clark and I were visiting his parents near Las Vegas and we decided to take a little road trip to the town where he grew up (Fallon, NV.) I think it was about six hours, so not long as road trips go. Clark's parents let us borrow their nice car and once we were on our way we proceeded to play with all the bells and whistles. Despite the chill we decided to open the sun roof, but once we got it all the way open it wouldn't shut. We stopped and called his parents (we didn't have cells back then) and when we told them we had opened the sun roof they just said, "uh, oh." To abbreviate, we couldn't get it shut and had to drive almost the entire six hours with the wind blowing so loudly that we could neither listen to the radio or carry on a conversation (unless we were shouting.) Not to mention it was cold!

I hope you don't mind me reminiscing! I guess the point of all this is to ask you to say a little prayer for us that all the kids will stay healthy, the van will stay in one piece, and we will make it to the Lone Star State safely sometime Tuesday night.

I'll be emailing out our new address at my folks' place soon. Thanks to all our Virginia friends who have made our time here so wonderful. I will miss you so much. Keep in touch! Blogs are great for this! If you don't have one, get one!!

Snow?

I know this probably looks so pathetic to all of you in Colorado or Utah or ALASKA! But this is the most snow we've had this year. Sunday morning we woke up to a dusting of snow and the kids were beyond excited (this was what Evie had been praying for all winter!) So they bundled up for some pre-church fun in the snow. Luckily our church meetings got switched to 11am after the new year. Russell really hadn't ever seen snow (and still hasn't in my opinion), so he had fun checking it out. Clark threw a snowball at him and he looked at me with a completely shocked look on his face. I had to help him scrape together a very small and grassy snowball and point him towards Daddy. He got the idea after that.

Evie really misses the snow we had in Philadelphia. One year we slid down the huge pile of snow left by the snow plow at our apartment. Fun stuff. She's excited about getting back to the snow when we're in Idaho next winter. There are snow angels to make and snowballs to throw. But for now this little bit of snow was almost as exciting.

Great Shot!

Here's Clark's brother Bryan and his wife Kirsten. They came to visit us recently. They got married after we had moved away from Utah, so we haven't spent very much time with them over the years. I was so excited that they were able to come. I got to know Kirsten so much better and she rocks! Thanks for taking all these beautiful pictures, Kirsten. You're a star! Love ya.

Beautiful Russell--gotta love that face

Russell showing off his new favorite stick and Rosco being Rosco

Puppy love!

In Daddy's hats!

The whole clan!

Bricks and Backpacks

Here's a link to a video my brother-in-law Ellis Elkins made a few years back at BYU. It's a neat mini-film that has a good message. Check it out and give him a great rating!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh4r8Tl-U4g

Leila

Brush those teethies!

Melinda was right! I haven't put very many pictures of Leila on here lately. Looks like it's time for me to make her another slide show! Here's Leila making Daddy proud. She found her Uncle Bryan's toothbrush and was brush brush brushing away! What made us laugh was that she wasn't just chewing on it, but was really doing little brushing movements. I call her my little monkey because she will imitate just about any movement or sound. I've done some signing with the other kids and sort of forgot until recently to do it with her, but she's picking it up so quickly. She does the basics--milk, finished, and more. She turns one year old in just two and a half weeks! She's cruising around, but seems perfectly happy to speed crawl (or have Mommy carry her) every where she needs to go.

Fun photo shoot

My sister-in-law took pictures of us while she was here visiting last week. There are so many cute ones I think I'll just post a few every day or so. Or maybe I'll just make a slide show. Anyway, here are a few for your enjoyment!

I love my baby!

What a stud. And he's a true ham. He loves posing for the camera.

Evie loves the camera too. She'll give you some attitude if you ask for it. But this one is all sugar.

This one makes me think she's knows something that I don't know. What is it? You better tell me, Anna.

So I'm singing the praises of this cleaner that I bought on an "all-natural" whim a few weeks ago. It's cleaning power is good, but what I'm excited about is that it didn't blind my baby when I stupidly left it out yesterday. I had given Leila some snacks in her high chair and had gone over to write Clark a quick email (cell phones don't work on the ship, even when it's in port.) When I finished (I'm talking five minutes or so later) I walked into the kitchen to find Russell standing less than a foot away from Leila's chair spraying this cleaner in her face. It looked like he had sprayed down the table and then decided that wasn't quite fun enough. Leila wasn't crying yet, but her face was completely wet with the cleaner and she was blinking a lot because it was getting into her eyes. Well, you can guess what happened next. I sort of freaked out a little bit. I gave Russell a smack on the hand he won't be forgetting and nearly drowned Leila in the kitchen sink trying to rinse it all out of her eyes. Amazingly, she never cried at all. After a call to the pediatrician (if you want quick service just try telling them your toddler sprayed your baby in the face with kitchen cleaner) and a bath to make sure it was all off we were all feeling a lot better.

I guess it could have been a different story if it had been one of those cleaners with bleach or something really strong in it. So today I'm singing the praises of "natural" cleaners! Maybe I would have been better about putting it away if it had stronger chemicals in it, but you never know. I think I'll be buying this stuff from now on. Just in case!

Moving Craziness

I've been waiting until things calmed down here and plans became settled to post about what the next few months hold for us, but I've recently decided that I'd better get on the stick and stop waiting for things to calm down because it ain't happening. Most of you know that Clark is scheduled to deploy again soon. The original date of deployment is February 19th. We decided to move the family down to Texas to live with my Mom and Dad while Clark is gone. I debated about this for quite a while. The main con was having to make Evie and Anna change schools in the middle of the school year and also the fact that we are renting our home and were wondering if we could get out of our lease a bit early. Our landlord gave us the okay, and I decided it was better for the kids to move in the middle of the school year than it would be for them to have a depressed and overwhelmed mom. My sister and her husband are getting sealed in the Houston temple on Feb. 9th so we've decided to put most of our stuff in storage here and drive down to Texas early in the week of the sealing. Clark will fly back to Virginia that weekend and hang out here for about a week before he deploys.

Since all this has been decided and planned, the Navy has decided to see how crazy they can make us by moving Clark's deployment date around. Although it has never officially been changed from Feb. 19th, the powers that be have mentioned the possibilities of it being moved a month back to sometime in March, or a few weeks earlier, (Feb. 1st.) Our plans to go to Texas are so far staying the same, and unless by some miracle his deployment gets canceled completely (could happen, but the chances are slim) our moving day is pretty much set for Feb 5th. If his deployment gets moved up, we'll move that date up (and I'll be going nuts trying to get everything ready in time!)

Clark's Navy commitment is over at the beginning of June, but unfortunately the Navy is exercising their right to extend him a bit until his replacement can be flown out to the ship during the deployment. His replacement will not be done with his AEGD program until the end of June and with traveling time and waiting for military flights we're crossing our fingers that we'll see him by the end of July.

When he gets home we'll move out to Boise-area where Clark's brother Russ lives with his wife. Much of Clark's extended family lives there as well. We are excited to be closer to family, even if it may be temporary as we aren't sure if that's where we want to settle forever. Clark has interviewed at a couple of places there and we kind of wish we could skip to the part where we are moving out there. But if there's anything that the last deployment taught me it was that through trials you really do gain more than you lose. Our relationship was strengthened and I gained a greater testimony of prayer and of Heavenly Father's love for me and my family. There was a very real presence of comfort and strength in our home throughout the time that he was away. I truly felt the love and prayers of my family and friends lifting me up as I was on my own each day. Thank you all for that! It will not be forgotten--ever!

I'm really going to miss Virginia and the great friends we've made here. Sometimes I wonder what makes us so special that we get to be so lucky to have such great wards and great friends wherever we go. I love you guys!

So now we're three weeks away from moving day! I've sold some furniture on craigslist and done some cleaning out, but so far that's about as far as my prep-work has gone. Let the packing begin!

Can we come back in yet?

Sometimes I have to send the boys outside to play. I guess they wanted back in, but I had to snap this picture. They are standing on a bench. It's Rosco's favorite place to lounge when he's outside. He also uses it to stare at the family as we eat dinner.