Pioneer Day

I love our heritage. I know just about every religion has their unique holidays, and I love every one of them. In fact, I'll take any excuse for a holiday. So we celebrate "Pioneer Day" with the rest of most "Mormons" on the 24th of July to commemorate the day the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley, which concluded their 1000+ mile exodus westward to escape religious persecution. We honor the sacrafices those early saints made to establish and maintain the religious freedom. Many fought, were beaten, driven, and even martyred because of their unwillingness to part with their sacredly held beliefs.

Our ward (congregation) had a Pioneer Day celebration on Saturday, so of course we attended. I have to praise Melissa for her dedication to our children. She made new pioneer dresses for the older girls (Lillian and Morgan) as they had outgrown their previous dresses. She slaved at the sewing machine for several evenings to allow the girls to have pioneer dresses. Kudos to Melissa! What a mom! All I had to do was bend some wire I got from behind the shed and put new strings in the wagon cover.

Here's a photo of the girls while on the trek:

(just kidding.. it's doctored)

Here's a photo from when we finally got there:

Sleepin' Through Church

Today was one of those days you have to write about for fear off forgetting the experience, and it was too rich to forget. We got up this morning, had breakfast, looked at old pictures (a favorite past-time of ours) and then later in the morning, got ready to attend church. Our church services start at 1:00PM, which typically is pretty good, because the kids have already eaten lunch, and Dan usually falls asleep on the way to church, so it's more pleasant for us all. On days when he doesn't fall asleep, he personifies a tornado on one's lap. That's why we call him the "Lap Tornado". If you've seen a tornado, or at least the aftermath, the imagery is close to what it's like after Dan "rips" through. In fact, I've started wearing a bow-tie to church because the long neck ties create an occupational hazard. (Not kidding!)

At any rate, today was no different. Dan was asleep when we got to church. Great! However, halfway through Sacrament Meeting (the main worship service), ALL our kids were asleep! Yep every last one of them. Morgan was leaning over on my leg. I had Dan in my lap. Lilly was snuggled into Melissa's shoulder. And Kate was busy drooling on Melissa's leg. Melissa and I looked at each other and we just chuckled silently.

We've talked on more than one occasion about whether 'sleeping though church' is okay, but are always reminded mentally of the words of President Spencer Kimball: "When I was a very small boy, I was taught the habit of going to sacrament meetings. Mother always took me with her. Those warm afternoons I soon became drowsy and leaned over on her lap to sleep. I may not have learned much from the sermons, but I learned the habit of “going to meeting.” The habit stayed with me through my life. (“Chapter 16: The Sabbath—A Delight,” Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball, (2006),165–77)"

So I guess it's okay if a kid did it and turned out to be a prophet!

As a final note, after church, Lilly asked how we knew she was sleeping because she was pretty sure she wasn't actually asleep. Melissa told her, "Lilly, you were snoring. I had to nudge you periodically to keep you from snoring too loud!"

The Huntsville Times - 19 July 2009

The Weather Has Been Beautiful
First of all, I have to say that I'm not missing the summer weather of the desert southwest. The low humidity was nice, but our oven has low humidity as well. We did have one week that was pretty hot (like 97 degrees with 80 percent humidity), but the other weeks haven't been bad at all. Some weeks have been downright awesome. Like this one. For the past several days, the highs have been in the 70's and low 80's. And on top of that, the humidity has been pretty low. Not 5% low, like Tucson, but relatively low. It's been lovely.

We'll Kill The 'Ole Red Rooster When She Comes
So there's a few things that have been noteworthy in our lives ove the past month or so. One was dinner today. Though 'she' hasn't "come around the mountain" yet, nor was she "drivin six white horses", but we DID kill the 'ole red rooster! Yep. Here's the scoop: 18 weeks ago, we bought 10 chicks. Though we purchased "pullets" or hens, the breeder only guaranteed a 90% gender selection rate. So one of our chicks turned out to be a rooster (see below).

We couldn't tell until he was about 14 weeks old and started getting bigger than the other hens. He also started growing "saddle feathers" and other rooster characteristic plummage. However, the kicker was when he started crowing! That gets annoying fast. And for those of you who didn't know, roosters don't just get crow once or even a few times in the morning. They crow ALL DAY LONG! He crowed so much, it drove us bonkers. So I tried to sell him on craigslist, but how many people want 1 rooster... yeah. Nobody. Can't imagine why. So Friday night after the chickens all set up to roost for the night, I pulled him out of the coop and confined him to the small cage I have (you're suppposed to be fasting before you meet your maker, ya know... really it's to keep them from defecating during the butchering process and contaminating the meat). Then in the morning, I broke his neck, picked him clean, eviscerated him, and then put him in the fridge. Then Melissa took over. She did a great job roasting him (see below), but she wasn't very hungry to eat him.

The girls had no trouble eating it. I asked Morgan whether she liked him better alive or in her mouth and stomach. She responded, "Brewster was delicious!" I loved it! Not the meat; Morgan's response. The girls even asked me what I did with the feathers... they were all wanting to get his green irridescent tail feathers. The feathers were rather pretty. In all, he wasn't worth the effort. He wasn't meaty enough to be worth the two hours it took me to cull, pick, and butcher him. So if you're looking for a cheap meal, plan on having a big flock, else go the the grocery store. It was a good learning experience for me though... it had been ten years since I done it, so it was good to refresh my skills.

The Destroying Angel Breaks Free
For the longest time, we've been saved by the fact that our little explorer (Dan) can't open doors by himself. Hoever, we know that nature (and now little boys) can't be contained for long. Yes, Dan has learned to open doors. It's a sad day. Now he can go into his sisters' rooms and steal their stuff. He can also open the door to the garage. What's more is that once the door from the house to the garage has been opened, it's simply irresistable to him to leave the garage door button alone. So up goes the garage door and he's a free man! Our little destroying angel has found his way out (see below).


We'll just have to be more careful now. I'm gonna have to keep the car keys in my pocket!

Camp Clark
This past week we had the joy of having Howe cousins (Spencer, Hannah, and Rose) stay with us for a couple days. It was awesome for us, and especially for the kids to get to have their cousins staying with them for a couple of days. In the course of the visit, Lillian and Spencer completed a 'latch hook' tapestry. They did a great job policing each other to make sure they only completed a certain area before handing the tapestry off to each other; as they were taking turns working on it (see below).


Thanks to Lisa (my sister-in-law) for the tapestry gift! It took Lilly a white to get started, but once they started, they couldn't get enough of it! In the course of the week, the kids cooked, played, stayed up LATE!, played, made crafts, watched movies, etc. In all they had a great time. We're glad Melissa's brother Jeremy and his wife Linda, trusted us with their three younger kids for a couple days. The kids loved it. (see attached file: "Six crazy kids.jpg")




Clark Family Summer Reading Program
So every year in Tucson, the public library sponsored a summer reading program that culminated in some sort of coupon that equalled a free prize for reading for a significant duration of time. SInce we lost our sponsor, we determined to craft our own prize. So we promised the kids that when they completed 30 hours of reading this summer, we'd take them to "Point Mallard". Point Mallard is a huge recreational area that includes golfing, camping, and has a huge water park. We told the kids we could go to the water park once they each had completed 30 hours of reading. Of course Lilly finished that 2 weeks into summer break, but it took Morgan and Kate a bit longer. But alas, they reached their goal, so away we went. It was REALLY cool. There were tons of water slides, a wave pool, and an awesome area for the littlest kiddos. I have to especially pay tribute to Morgan, who just completed the first grade and also just completed book four of the Harry Potter series. It's like 700+ pages and she's entering the second grade. She is seriously a genius. I don't think I have ever read a book that has more thn 700 pages in my life, let alone before I was in second grade! All I can say is Wow! Great job Mo!


The Garden and Refrigerator Pickles
So if you asked me two months ago whether the garden was a total loss, I would have most assuredly answered yes. Some critter got in our corn and ate it all. The beets were measly. The carrots were bad. The onions were small. You get the picture. I wasn't happy about the state of the garden and Melissa wasn't either. However, when our tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers started producing, our perception changed (see below).
Our cucumbers are producing so prolifically that Melissa has searched for a good pickle recipe. Boy did she find one. Mmm, Mmm, Mmm. Those pickles are good. We have this gallon jar in the fridge that she just keeps adding cucumbers to, but man are they good. I ate a pile of them on my sandwich the other day.


Morgan's Artwork Published
I know this is getting long, but I do have to plug Morgan's latest art. She got published in the weekly Church bulletin. Each week, the ward bulleting is published and showcases some form of black and white cover art (we aren't rich, so we can't do color bulletins). A couple weeks ago, Morgan must have submitted some artwork, because when we got to Church, we saw that her art was printed on the cover. (see attached file: "Morgan's Published Artwork.jpg"). She told us it wasn't her best, but she was excited to see it published. We should ahve done like many famous kids' parent do and sue for royalties. I'm sure we'd be loaded by now. At least she kept a copy for her journal.

Summer Culinary Institute

In an effort to spend at least part of the girls' summer vacation in a constructive manner, we have been doing a cooking project every Monday. This past Monday was their favorite by far. We made white cake and frosting and practiced using pastry bags and tips to decorate cakes. The girls had a lot of fun. They probably ate more frosting than they put on their cakes but that was part of the fun.

These pictures were taken later in the evening when we were having the cakes for Family Home Evening. That is why the table is actually clean. As you can imagine we made quite a mess.