We're Pooped!

WHEW! It's been a really long week. It was my first full week back at school and Bryan worked late every night. Our sweet pup went through two water bottles as we are trying to find a way to keep water in her kennel at PetSmart. She chewed the metal clip that attaches to the wire on the kennel. Since she has been banned from staying at PetSmart for playing in her water bowl, we'll take her to a new boarding place and hope they wait a year to tell us she can't stay just like the last place. Never a dull moment.

Tonight it was sushi and rental movies. The rest of the weekend is looking just as relaxing!

If She Only Knew Me

Every year I ask my students to write a letter to me so that I can get to know them better. I ask them to tell me anything they want me to know about themselves. Last year I was introduced to a good book called If She Only Knew Me that tells the story of a little boy going through a rough time at home that, in turn, affects him at school. I read this to get the students inspired to write.

Well, I didn't get anything super serious this year but I did get some really funny ones.

Dear Mrs. Clark,
I'm very lucky to be getting very nice teachers five years straight. If you want to know a little about me, I've got a small temper. I play baseball, basketball, and football. My favorite subject is math. I don't know how to end this so I guess I wil ask you a question. How do yo manage to stay so calm with little kids asking you questions all the time?


And another.

Dear Mrs. Clark,
I imagined you were going to be nice after somebody told me you were. Now you really are nice because you let us sit on our desks and all that. Here's an image I wanted you to be like. In my image, you were good at video games and computer games and skateboarding so I thought you were going to be like that. Anyway, it's not too relevant.


Hmmmm. Not sure what to think of those.

One more funny: I had the students work with their tables to come up with a list of rules they thought would be good for independent reading. I looked at table 2's list and they had "Don't scratch each others' backs" as the top rule. So, next time you are at the library or Barnes and Noble, please resist the urge to scratch the back of your closest neighbor. Maybe 9 year olds do know best.

A Very Clark Weekend

Mom and Dad Clark came to visit us. It was a very relaxing weekend in Naperville. After an 8 hour trip that should have only taken 5, Dick and Sharon arrived at our house. Bryan was home soon and we headed out to dinner. Saturday morning was a lazy one. Even Claire was relaxed.

We had a great brunch, found the church where Great Grandma and Grandpa Clark celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, shopped at the outlet mall and I did some yard work while the original Clarks played Guitar Hero. We had a great dinner at Ted's Montana Grill and then came home for a fire and s'mores on the back patio.

After a church on Sunday we had lunch and took a few more pictures before they headed home.

We even got our first family picture in the new house. It took quite a few tries and this was as good as we could get.

Oh, Claire and Eau Claire

Claire has really been enjoying the new house. She helped pack the old one too. See?

And when she wasn't being productive, she was playing with Lily.

Lily especially likes the new house. Can you see her favorite hiding place?

And, on our way home from a wedding in Minnesota, we stopped in Eau Claire, Wisconsin at the Kolhlepp family farm. Todd and Connie were gracious enough to have us in for dinner and there was a LOT of family there too. In attendance were Al and Kathy, Terry and Nancy, Niola, Ann, Uncle Elmer, Aunt Marge, baby Olivia, John, Jan, and Chuck. Lunch was delicious, the fellowship was great, and Olivia was so fun.

Mom and Dad Clark will be visiting in Chicago so we'll get some pictures from that soon.

Firsts

After hanging out on the farm with the Kohlhepp family and thinking about how much Grandma Clark would love to see the pictures, I decided to create this blog. Technology is great, huh? You can check in on our lives at any time. I just wanted to get the first picture up to give it a try so the whole site is a work in progress. I will continue to mess with the header and title and add a picture. So, if it looks a little different next time, know that I have been hard at work on it.

It is only fitting that our first blog post be about another first in our lives.

Our first house deserves our first blog. This is our new house with the cars in front. This picture was taken in the spring so it looks a little...browner...now. We really should go get a lawn mower now that we have been here for a month. Can you believe it's been a month already?
More pictures to come of our house with furniture in it.