Reinforcing the 2nd Amendment

There are many reasons why Americans feel the need to preserve and protect the right to bear arms, such as: deterring undemocratic government, repelling invasion, suppressing insurrection, facilitating a natural right of self-defense, participating in law enforcement, etc. Today we had fun preserivng our rights granted under the Constitution. It's always nice to have fun fulfilling one's civic duty. Today we did just that: we introduced the young Clark cousins to firearms.

We (Papa, Matt, Jolene, Megan, and I) took Lilly, Morgan, Sierra, and Boden to the range to introduce them to firearms.  We had a great time and several men thanked us for bringing kids out to the range to introduce them to firearms the right way.  I guess I just took it for granted that most kids would have a proper introduction and instruction using firearms, but after thinking about it more, I guess our society generally introduces children and adolescents to firearms the wrong way: through violent media.  Before I start "going off", I want to recap how the kids did as some of the kiddos had experienced using a firearm previously, while others had not.

Lilly had reservations about shooting, but after seeing Morgan use the child-sized .22 rifle, she decided she wanted to try. After firing 10 or so rounds, she kept asking, "Five more?"  See below for how they ended up doing.

Sierra and Boden also did very well.  See below for how they ended up doing.

How We Broke the News to Grandma

Most of you know by now that we've moved back to Tucson. For those of you who were curious how Melissa broke the news to her Mom, here's the video:

The Christmas News

We love Christmas!  It's full of family, better-than-average-societal kindness, smiles, laughing, good food, and surprises.  We've had much of that this Christmas... including surprises.  Our great surprise is that we've moved back to Tucson!  Yep, you heard it right folks, we've moved back to Tucson.

This little plan of our has been in the works since last September, but it wasn't final until just a couple weeks ago.  So we thought it would be fun to surprise our families at Christmas when we arrived in Tucson for our "visit".  It was fun to see the surprise in their faces when we told them.

Here's how it all went down:

Back in September, it wasn't clear to me that the competitive contract I've been working on for the past 18mos would be awarded to my company.  Now I'm not a "glass is half empty" kind of guy, but I do believe that the glass will be empty before you know it unless you do something about it.  So I started my contingency planning.  That contingency planning led me to talk to some friends within my company back in Tucson.  After a couple conversations, it was apparent that there was a great opportunity back in Tucson.  So I talked to Melissa about it and she was excited about the chance to be back with family... I take that back... she was ECSTATIC about the chance to move back to Tucson.  So I pursued the opportunity, and it led to fruition.  So I start work in Tucson on Jan 25th!

Now rather than make the arduous 1700 mile trip for Christmas, then go back for a couple weeks, then make it all again, we decided to just move before Christmas.  So we loaded up the stuff that Melissa and the kids will need for a couple weeks and hit the road.  I'll have to go back to Huntsville for a couple weeks to work, watch the movers pack our stuff, and finalize the sale of our home in Huntsville.  But then I'll be back in Tucson in late January.


We'll miss Alabama.  We'll miss the many friends we have there, the woods in our backyard, the short commute to work, the verdant beauty of the south, living in the country, and so much more, but family is priceless.  We're glad to be back with them.