Last Weekend

Last weekend IBM had another family day thing that they paid for, so Dad took us to see the Gwinnett Braves, a minor-league team, play baseball. It was a pretty neat set-up. This first picture is of where we sat from the opposite side. We laid out blankets on the little hill over there in front of the score board and watched the game from the back. IBM provided bracelets for the kids that let them get into all the jumpy things and little activity things. Here's a picture of them walking around up there. They're kind of hard to spot. They also provided vouchers for free meals. It was so nice to go get everyone a hotdog, fries, and a drink, and have the lady tell us it would cost over $50 and hand her the vouchers. It's crazy how much things cost at a ball game. We had a lot of fun, and the Braves won, which was nice. Andy and my dad go to the games a lot and sit in the regular stadium and love it. It's such a better experience than going to see the Atlanta Braves and dealing with traffic and all the joys that come with Atlanta. Of course, we wouldn't turn down free tickets to one of those, either!And, I'm ashamed to say that we spent the entire day with Dad and I didn't get one picture with him in it! Sorry, Dad!!!

Our Newest Family Member

Andy was driving down the road today and miraculously saw a tiny baby box turtle in the road, so we've adopted it. We have no idea about determining sex, so we've decided it's a girl, and the kids are debating names right now. She's living in a cardboard box with her little swimming pool and rocks and a nice stick to walk on. Apparently, from what Andy read, box turtles can't be in a clear container or they'll obsess about getting out, and she's proven that to be true since the first container we had her in was clear. She bashed her head on the side for an hour! So, that's our excitement for the weekend!

The First Day of School

First, I just want to flash back to Drew's eye. I finally put pictures on my computer and there's one of her the morning after she got hit in the face with the softball when we went to Suches.

Kinda pitiful, huh? That's the fakest smile ever. She was doing her best. Anyways, back to the first day of school. We all survived. The kids did really well and were really excited. They started this past Monday, and my students didn't start until Tuesday, so I got to walk them to their classes this year. Drew is so old - I only walked her about 3 or 4 feet away from her classroom, gave her a kiss, and sent her on. Alli couldn't wait to get to her class. She was pulling me down the hall. Evan, who is a lot like me when it comes to these kinds of things, was pretty nervous. Once he got in his room, though, he was fine. They all really like their teachers and have had a pretty good first week. I, on the other hand, have had a crazy week. I mean, I love my students - they're mostly Hispanic and they're sooooo sweet and cute. But, walking in literally 2 hours before open house and trying to throw everything together was a bit stressful. I've spent the week organizing and doing placement tests for reading, which has meant a lot of worksheets (don't tell - worksheets are frowned upon these days), but I'm finally feeling sort of together now. The school I'm working at is great so far, and the principal is awesome. I think the best part about the administration is that they're realistic, which is a HUGE deal. So, life is back to normal around here for the most part and we're starting to breathe again and sleep better. Here's a picture of the kids before we left the house on the first day with their new book bags.

I Got a Job!

I just found out that I got a job teaching 2nd grade! Yeah!!!!! It's in a different school system (city instead of county), which I'm excited about (my kids will still stay in Lula where they've been). It's funny how things work - the lady that told me about the job has a sister who is friends with the principal. She said she hasn't seen her in a while, but saw her Friday night and mentioned that one of her teachers up and left the country suddenly that day. She called me Monday and told me about it, and I called her immediately. I was in her office by 3:00 that day for an interview, and she called me today to tell me she's recommending me to the board on Friday morning, which is when I'll be official. Open House is starts Friday at 12:00 and school starts on Tuesday, the 11th, so I'll have to prioritize what's important and what can wait as far as decorating, but I'm just so excited about it. When I was in school, I always felt like 2nd grade would be ideal for me - they're still little and cute and seek approval, but they're becoming independent, too. So, life is looking up around here. Hallalujah!

My Issues With Grammar

I don't know if it's my training that I had writing papers, or what, but I have serious issues when I hear people use extremely incorrect grammar. I mostly keep it to myself, because I know I don't use perfect grammar all the time, and I tend to type my blog the way I speak. But, I just need to tell everyone about one of my absolute biggest pet peeves when it comes to grammar. It's not anything obvious, but it's something I hear ALL the time. It's the phrase "but yet." "But" and "yet" are redundant! I have the official word from languageandgrammar.com.

When using both but and yet as coordinating conjunctions, you can only use one (otherwise, you’re creating a redundancy).

Use either but or yet when conveying two ideas that are in contrast, thus separating them. Tony Dungy’s family lives in Tampa, but he’s part of a family in Indianapolis or Tony Dungy’s family lives in Tampa, yet he’s part of a family in Indianapolis.

So, there you have it. The phrase "but yet" is wrong, and now you can all feel self conscious whenever you say it in front of me because, yes, I notice every time!

Weekend Getaway

A couple of weeks ago, we went with my family to a little (or not so little) house up in the metropolis known as Suches, GA (I'm kidding - it is the furthest thing from a metropolis, which made it the perfect getaway spot). It was up in the mountains, so there was a little bit of nausea on the way up and on the way down, but no puking, thank goodness. It was a little touch and go for me on the way home, though. We had a great weekend. The house is right on a little river, so the men did an awful lot of fishing while me and my sisters took the kids tubing. In the information book, it said we all needed to wear life jackets, but we quickly got over that and decided we'd be ok without the bulk. It started off really nice and relaxing, and the information book said the trip would take about an hour. But, the river was a little lower than usual, I guess, so it took us more like 2 hours. We still had fun, but were so relieved when Andy and Jose met us rowing up stream in a canoe. We had all started to wonder if we were ever going to find the house, or if by some chance we started off in the wrong river. So, once they met us, as is the norm when you toss a man into the equation, it all went crazy. The craziness added to the fun, but the kids started moving around and wanting to get in the canoe, and then Andy got out of the canoe and Steph got in it, which displaced Alli, who had been sharing a tube with Steph, and Andy got in a tube to let Steph have his seat in the canoe, and I got out of my tube to hand Evan to Andy, and Drew saw the empty tube, so she jumped in it, and then all of a sudden everyone was carried away by the current and me and Alli were standing there in the river with nothing - no tube, no canoe, no life jackets. Andy kept yelling, "I'm coming back for you honey," but the current actually picked up at that point, and there wasn't much he could do on his belly in a tube. So, we walked back, which proved interesting because the river bed is extremely rocky and in some places it was up to my knees and 2 feet later it was up to my chest. I ended up laughing through most of it, but Alli was not pleased.

That night, Steph and Jose brought out some fireworks that they had leftover from 4th of July or New Year's or something, so we started a nice fire and played with the fireworks, and of course, where there's Jose there are neat pictures. Here's one I thought was especially precious.

So, here comes the typical Clark family disaster that seems to accompany everything we do. Drew, being the active child she has always been, incurred another black eye. The first really severe one she ever got was when she was around 2 years old. She fell and hit her eyebrow on the base of the rocking chair, which cause a massive knot on her head, and a pretty good black eye, which peaked right on Easter Sunday, and to this day, she has a little place where her eyebrow doesn't grow. One the Friday night that we arrived in Suches, me and her and Andy were out in the yard throwing the softball, and Andy decided to toss one way up in the air for me to try to catch. Well, in my adulthood, I have been hit with a softball enough in my life to know that if I'm not going to catch it, I better get out of the way. It doesn't make for the greatest softball player, but it helps me avoid injuries, which is more important to me now than catching the ball. Well, Drew is just a better softball player than I am at this point, and she knows how to get right under the ball to catch it. So, when I missed and Andy laughed at me, she asked him to throw one in the air for her to try to catch. So, he did. She did an excellent job of getting right under it. Unfortunately, she didn't quite get her glove in the right spot and the ball hit her square on the cheek bone right under her eye. It was pretty traumatizing for us all. She SCREAMED, and Andy got to her before I did and saw that it immediately swelled up and buried her face in his shoulder to hide it from me so he could prepare me for how bad it was, which really just freaked me out more. I am SO not an overreactor. My kids get cut, and my response is usually, "It'll make a scab, you'll be fine." But, when I saw her face, I almost cried. To avoid traumatizing her any worse, I turned and ran in the house to get an ice pack and get myself under control a little. It was definitely the worst black eye I have ever seen not in a movie. It busted the blood vessels in her eye on the left side of the iris, which made her look really freaky. It was so swollen on that side that if you didn't look at the right side of her face you wouldn't recognize her. But, it's mostly healed now, except for a just a little bruising and some broken blood vessels. Other than that, the weekend was really nice! :)

Fun With June Bugs

When Andy was a kid, he used to tie a string to the feet of a june bug and fly them around like a kite, so he's now passed that tradition on to Evan. Here's a little video of them.

4th of July 2009

Last night we went with my side of the family to see fireworks at this neighborhood called Sterling on the Lake. It's one of those huge subdivisions that they're trying to turn into its own little community, so they have all kinds of events, like free concerts and stuff. It's just down the road from my parents' subdivision, so we went down there and took a picnic dinner and watched the fireworks. Fortunately for us, Jose was there to take all kinds of awesome pictures. In all of these, he used the flash to take the picture in the dark, and then left the shutter open to capture light afterwards, and he has all these different colored flashlights, so we did some neat stuff with them. Just to further explain, because I can be a little slow on these things, the flash captures the image, and then leaving the shutter open only captures light after that, so you can dance around in the background with the flashlight, and all the camera captures is what the light did. Here are a few of what we did with the kids: And, of course, what would a 4th of July post be without pictures of fireworks? Again, Jose took the picture with the flash and left the shutter open to capture the fireworks, which made for great pictures!

Garbage Pail Kids

Does anyone else feel like you're responsible for the majority of the problems with today's landfills, or is it just me? I just loaded all of our garbage in the back of Andy's truck and all I have to say is, wow.

Meanwhile, Back in Lula...

We've been doing a lot of renovations on the house in Lula. One of the things that we knew needed to be done for a while was the front door frame needing to be replaced. Also, the front porch was what I like to classify as junk, so we decided to have a new one built as well. The house is in one of those subdivisions that some idiot contractor (Tipton Home Builders - Jerry Tipton is the owner - any letters you'd like to send him involving what a sorry person he is for not caring more about putting his name on quality products, or even prayers in hopes that, yes, he will answer to God one day for his actions would be lovely) built as quickly and cheaply as possible. Yes, we do like the house, and the neighborhood is great, but there have been SEVERAL things that we've discovered were done half way that we've had to repair. So, we needed to replace the door frame, and the front porch, and when we tore the cheapo carpet up to lay down hardwood by the front door, we discovered that the problem was more extensive than we realized. So, as is our luck (and a lot of people's luck, I'm realizing) there was a lot more water damage and mold - yes, mold - than we realized. Andy tore down the porch, and then he has some friends who he layed tile for who returned the favor by doing all the work (more advantages of having a husband who can do so many odd jobs - I love that!). They pulled out the door, and pulled down the siding to see how far the damage went, then replaced everything, sealed up the window above the door because it was just another escape for leaking water, and put a new door on with a PVC frame instead of wood. The next day, they replaced the all-wood junky excuse for a front porch with a very nice wood and metal porch. (Money saving tip that I was not aware of: metal electrical conduit looks very similar to wrought iron when painted black and costs much, much less.) We still have a few things to do. The posts on the porch will get some kind of caps, and the door will be painted black to match the shutters, and then, of course, there's the huge mess that we have to clean up. We're also looking around at awnings to put over the door since there's that huge void where the window was, and to prevent future water damage. Here are some pictures I took with my phone during those 2 days.

For all you Twitter Fans

For everybody that keeps asking me why I don't do Facebook or Twitter, here's a great example (video stolen from my sister's blog, by the way)! And, don't even try to say blogging is the same thing. (I hear your wounded pride speaking now!)

Divine Retribution

Anyone who's a parent has been told at least a million times that your kids will pay you back for the things you did to your parents. I guess it's the curse that keeps on cursing, and whether it's a true curse or just a simple combination of normal kid things and genetic tendencies, so far it's been pretty steady around here. Evan acts so much like Andy, Alli is very much like me, and Drew seems to be a good combination of both of us. When I was a kid, my sisters and I were bestest friends, slept together every night, and fought like cats and dogs, and my kids all do the very same things. One thing I've noticed that I've found funny is that when we were really little, we loved to sit in mom's laundry baskets. I don't know what the excitement is -- it's probably similar to the excitement of a big box. But, she was always yelling at us to get out of her laundry baskets, and her laundry baskets never lasted long because we were always sitting in them and breaking them. As a parent, I am super protective of my laundry basket for that reason. I only have one, and when it's not full of laundry (which is most of the time) it sits on a super high shelf that the kids can't reach. Unfortunately, because of that curse, the kids have found that our little tiny storage ottoman works just as well. I am forever telling them to get out of the ottoman. So far it seems to be a bit more sturdy than a laundry basket, but it's one of the favorite places to sit and watch TV for some strange reason!

Evan Strikes Again

First, I feel like I need to point out that he did this to himself, all by himself, and he's actually happy in this picture, although he looks a little upset. Those of you who are very familiar with Evan will find this funny and typical, and those of you who aren't are just getting another glimpse into his strange little psyche. He is his father's child, that's for sure! Aside from the good laugh he got from all of us, he also learned a good lesson about the combination of hair and tape.

Drew, the Softball Star

Ok, I know I said before that Drew was done with softball for the year, but that's ended up being untrue. She plays first base and is one of the best players on her team, so after she sat out of one game, Andy bought a very, very light-weight bat, took her out in the backyard, and decided that she would be fine, and she has been. She had to wrap the cast everytime to protect the other girls from getting hit with it, which made no sense to me since there are flying balls throughout each game, but we complied and she's has done great. She's an amazing ball player, I must say. The team ended up taking 2nd place in the whole county, which was a pretty great accomplishment since last year this very same group of girls didn't win a game! After the last game the parks and leisure people handed out trophies for the first place and runner-up teams, so that was very exciting for everyone. Here are a few pictures of her playing in one of the last games (after she got her cast off and decided the brace was too binding to play ball in!) and one of the whole team with their trophies. Drew is in there in the middle sort of under the trophy. You can see her eyes, and she's not really smiling in that one.

At the very beginning of the game -- you can still see the marks on the field where the dirt has been smoothed.

Getting a player out!

Getting another player out!

Getting ready to hit!

Ready to run to third base!

Crossing home plate!

The whole team!

Another Crazy Weekend

Last week, around Tuesday Andy convinced me to take a sick day on Friday. Actually, I had been talking about it because it's almost the end of the year and I still have 9 days or so left that will just disappear, so I've been giving myself several 3-day weekends lately. So, Andy helped solidify it this week by suggesting that we go to Atlanta and spend Thursday night with my sisters, and then go to Six Flags with them and their hubbies on Friday. I was so excited about it. A day off at Six Flags was exactly what I needed. So, we headed that way Thursday and went to dinner with Steph and Jose and Erin (Lee was out of town). As we were getting ready for bed we were talking about morning plans and picking Lee up from the airport, and Erin was telling us that we needed to just pick him up on the way, so we got up bright and early and I showered while Andy packed up our overnight bag and we headed out. As we pulled into the airport to get Lee, I noticed that he wasn't out there yet, and there are all these signs that say things like, "No Stopping," and "Active Loading and Unloading Only," so I said something to the effect of, "I guess we should get out and pretend like we're actively unloading," which Andy and Erin were more than happy to do. So, we jumped out and Erin popped the trunk, and Andy started digging around in there, and I thought, "Boy, they're taking this fake unloading thing seriously." Then, I happened to look down and notice a strange suitcase, and said, "Whose suitcase is that?" I got nothing but a sly smile from Erin and Andy, and was then handed boarding passes for a flight to.............NEW YORK CITY! It was a total surprise (I'm pretty oblivious and naive and gullible, which comes in handy at times like these), and we immediately flew to Laguardia Airport (which is pitiful compared to Hartsfield-Jackson, I must say), and by 11:00 a.m. we were in New York City hailing a cab. It was absolutely amazing. We stayed right in the middle of Times Square on the corner of 47th and Broadway. The hotel was equally amazing. It's called The W, or just W. Here's a picture of it in the day and at night. You can see the big W waaaaay up at the top. On the far right of the next picture, you can see the W. This is how in-the-middle-of-everything we were. When you first walked in, the entrance was surrounded with glass walls filled with water, so there was water above us and all around us. We had to take the elevator to the 7th floor to check in, and the lobby was gorgeous. Even the elevators were cool. Our room was on the 49th floor and was so pretty and modern, and we had an amazing view of the city. The first day, I felt like I was walking around in a surreal fog. We walked up and down Broadway and 5th Avenue and took a million pictures, and we found this tiny little pizza place that had the most amazing pizza. We ended up going back for more later. The next morning we got up and went to see the Statue of Liberty, which was also sort of surreal. I have to admit, though, the immense amount of foreign people became overwhelming by the time we got off the last ferry back in NYC. They have a poor sense of personal space. Anyways, after that we walked over to Ground Zero, which is no longer a monument or a tourist attraction, but a huge construction zone, so we weren't that impressed. But, after that we headed to China Town and saw a gazillion knock-off hand bags and sunglasses. Three blocks from there was Little Italy, which we just loved. We ate outside at a little restaurant there and people-watched for a while. Then we headed down the street and tried on some more sunglasses and bought some gelato. I don't know if it was authentic gelato, or just really good ice cream, but it was delicious. After that we headed to Soho and shopped quite a bit, but bought very little. Then, that night, Andy got us tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. It was so good - definitely the highlight of the trip. It was such a good play - very funny. I read about half the book before life got in the way, and the book wasn't near as funny. After that we went to dinner at 11:something and were seated around midnight. We ate dinner, walked around and took a million more pictures, and then headed to bed. We got up the next morning, grabbed a cab, and headed back to the airport where we were so anxious to see the kids. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but SO neat and fun. Most of the pictures are of me because Andy wanted the trip to be all about me. He was so interested in doing everything I wanted to do and made it such a great weekend. He is precious and amazing and I just love him so much!