Ice scream, you scream, we all scream for ...

AN ICE CREAM PARTY!!!

So for those of you who haven't heard, I won an ice cream party from Dreyer's Slow Churned ice cream. I entered the contest in May, about 2 weeks after my knee surgery. I was feeling very grateful because at the time I was basically worthless and had to rely on so many people to help take care of me and my family. I thought that it would be a nice way to say thanks and give a little something back. I had to write a paragraph telling why my neighborhood should win the party, and lo and behold- I won! This was a great surprise because anyone who knows me must also know that i am just about the unluckiest person ever! (Matt was sad that it wasn't a trip. He has encouraged me to do better next time!)
Anyway, this past Saturday was the 'Neighborhood Salute' block party. Dreyer's did EVERYTHING...they sent a big box full of supplies- ice cream scoopers, all the paper goods, wet wipes for sticky hands, invitations, an apron, and so on...right down to the sharpie marker to write on my sign! Two days before the party fed ex delivered a big box of ice cream and all we had to do was put up some tables and dig in! It was so fun! We had over 150 people show up and it was wonderful to watch people talk and laugh and enjoy some sweet ice cream. I feel so blessed and grateful to live in such a wonderful neighborhood!!

(My apron said, "I won a Dreyer's ice cream block party!)





The Clawson family was kind enough to set up their awesome movie screen and after eating ice cream quite a few people made their way over to watch a movie. It was a wonderful night! (They rent the screen/sound system out...if you are interested let me know and i will give you an email address)



oh, and we made the front page of The Daily Herald! We're famous! Here is the link. (please pardon my super excited smile...i was having fun!)
http://heraldextra.com/news/local/central/orem/article_c9a68693-29aa-56cb-8b2f-a2ac53c1890e.html (you'll have to copy & paste...for some reason i can't get that link embedded..oh well!)

Josh turns 8.... & The Party

Happy Birthday to Josh.... yesterday. Josh spent his birthday in Tennessee with Melissa's family going to a movie, dinner, etc. He had a great day.


Before everyone left for Tenn., we held a birthday party for both Sam and Josh. I know we were a little crazy getting more than twenty 6 & 8 year olds together in one backyard.... but it worked and it was a blast.


We had the kids do a few relay races and then we moved around front for some pinata fun. We had two set up, one for Josh and his friends and the other for Sam and his buddies. It took some effort, but Batman and the Blue Power Ranger didn't have a chance.

The end of Batman.

Video of Sam finishing off the power ranger. I think I am going to sign him up for baseball...

Of course we had some present opening. Do you think Sam was excited about this one?

Then the best moment of the night, we had a silly string battle. Each kid got a can and went at it. Get's pretty crazy with 25 people running around with silly string cans. Check out the look in each of the kids eyes.... they can't take their eyes off the silly string or was it the belly in their face...

The end of the silly string battle turned in to a "bring the big guy down" game. All of the kids piled on to try an tackle me. It's a good thing that I didn't go down, there would have been some squished little boys.



Not everyone ended up enjoying having silly string everywhere. Look at this face.

We had a great time, the boys loved it. Happy Birthday Josh and Sam!

Birthday Bliss

Today is Sam's birthday and he has been happy to tell anyone who will listen that, "Now I am six AND I passed kindergarten!" Way to go buddy!



More to come on the birthday party!

Pretty, Pretty, Princess

Sam and Ellie decided to play some sort of beauty shop the other day. Sam spent a lot of time and effort getting Ellie dressed up and whippin' up a new hair-do, and this is what happened...



Nice.

Josh's 1st Pinewood Derby

Josh is not quite 8 yet, but they decided to let Josh join scouts a month early so he could participate in the annual pinewood derby. Glad they did, he loved every minute of it. He helped design, build, and paint his car. He ended up with a really nice, sleek black car. He was up against some tough competition and 15 other cars, but he was ready.




Josh's car was pretty quick, he did really well in the heat races finishing 1st, 2nd, 1st. After the heats, he ended up in a tie for second so they had a head to head race for 2nd. Josh won the first run off by two car lengths. Then they switched lanes and did it again. You can see the results in the video below. Check out the catch up speed on Josh's car. If you look close, the orange car even leaves just a little early.



So Josh ended up with a very good 2nd place finish, not bad for his first pinewood derby. He had a blast watching his car win just about every race of the night.

Ok.... I know it was just a pinewood derby and it was just for fun and we should be happy with second, but.... There is an asterisk in the record books for the 2009 pinewood derby. The folks in the BCS.... I mean the scout leaders, had some tricky formula that prevented Josh's 2nd place car from ever racing the 1st place car. That's right, #1 and #2 never raced against each other. In fact, the 1st place car never raced against the 3rd place car either. This was not a timed race, it was all about placement in each race, so you might ask how could this be? Wouldn't the first place car have to prove itself against the fastest cars? How could they award a car 1st place that didn't even beat the 2nd or 3rd place cars? What's even crazier is that the one car that beat Josh in the heat races didn't even place in the top 3.... What? Oh well, what are you going to do. I don't really have a case that I can take to Congress but we will always wonder who really won that night.

Here is one more video of the heat races. Josh is in the far right lane, the other black car in the middle lane was beating everyone pretty easily in its races so we were a little nervous about the outcome of this race.



It was a great night, Josh had a blast. We must say a BIG thank you to Grandpa for helping put together another really fast car. The Clark Pinewood Racing Team legacy lives on.

Posted by Matt

What I've been up to...

If anyone was wondering how my week was, here is the answer....



Why did I have both knees operated on at the same time? Its a long story, and honestly, I am struggling with coherency as it is, (aaahhhh...painkillers...) but it was very necessary, and my recovery is actually going quite well. The procedure on my right knee was pretty standard, but the work on my left knee was fairly extensive so I had to stay in the hospital for a few days. While I was there I had this cool drain in my knee.

There was about 8-10 inches of tubing inside my knee...constantly draining...
It was there to help with swelling / bruising. Imagine how swollen I'd be without it!


Anyway, I am home now and on the mend. (Matt has taken wonderful care of me!) Even though the surgery was more complicated than we expected it seems that we have finally gotten a big clue to what is going on in there. I have a follow-up with the Dr in a few days and we will get the pathology results. I can see that things are just falling into place and I feel very optimistic about the situation. I have a lot of be grateful for!!! Thanks for the support and prayers of so many friends/family members-we have certainly felt a lot of blessings this past week or so and we appreciate you!

Spring Break

So last week was "Spring" Break for the kids. We were kindly greeted by 10" of snow.... so we had that going for us, which was nice.

We took the kids up to Park City for a few days and stayed at the Canyons ski resort. Most of the ski resorts had just closed for the year so the crowds were gone. It is only an hour away, but when we got there the kids asked what state we were in now. Sam's answer... "the city of Park". Sam is always full of good information.

It was very nice and very relaxing to hide away in the mountains for a few days and spend some time with the kids. We did a lot of arts and crafts things, painted aprons, made bead designs, etc. It was great to see how creative these kids can be.



We also went into Kamas, about 15 minutes outside Park City, and went to their very nice indoor pool. If you are in Midway or Park City and looking for something to do, I highly recommend it. The two favorite activities at the pool where the high dive and the slide. We spent a good three hours there before the lifeguards quickly got everyone out of the pool, someone found a.... "Baby Ruth" in the pool, wink, wink. Anyone that has seen Caddyshack knows what I am talking about, if you haven't seen the movie, first, what's wrong with you, second, I think you can figure it out. Don't worry, no one pulled a Bill Murray (again, watch the movie).

Here is a video of Sam flying through the air and a couple pictures of the kids on the slide.

We all had a great time over Spring Break this year.


Posted by Matt

Ellie Gets Glasses

So, we found out that we all look like blury blobs to Ellie. No wonder she likes Jeff so much, she can't really see what he looks like.

As a father I am always proud to see specific things that my kids got from me; blond hair, blue eyes, smarts.... wait a second! I think I need to ask some more questions about that.

Anyway, Ellie did seem to get my eyes. We found out she is nearsighted. Sitting really close the TV, not a big deal by itself, but she squints to see a lot of things as well. We decided to get her checked out and sure enough, the little girl needs glasses.

So, here is a picture of Ellie stylin' in her first pair of glasses.


Posted by Matt

Maybe one day....

....that is what I say to myself every time I think about updating my blog. Over the past few days I have decided that maybe the time has come to announce that we are, indeed, still alive and kicking, but then it took me a few days to even remember how to post. I know...I'm awesome.
I was planning on posting a big Christmas update, but that didn't happen. We had a great holiday season. The kids were so much fun and we really enjoyed spending time together and with family. At the beginning of January I had sinus surgery, so January was pretty low key for us, but I kinda liked it! (not the surgery, but the month of winter hibernation) We are starting to wake up from our long 'winter's nap' and over Feb-Mar we enjoyed a fun visit from "Nana" (my mom), had a great trip to Mesquite, celebrated Ellie's 4th birthday, and I have even attempted to cook a few meals here and there! Life is good!