A Weekend of Contrast

My last post casually mentioned our family reunion. I had requests in my sparse comments for some juicy reunion stories. I thought about the reunion and the funny things that happened -- it is possible you might enjoy hearing about my slightly eccentric Uncle Alfie, who thought he was sitting next to Jenna Fischer at the black jack table. And then there's my rather boastful Cousin Fred, who accidently bumped an obnoxious kid (still not sure if it was a distant relative or not) into the pool. And who could forget my prim little Aunt Edna who started choking on a piece of sausage during one of the skits and had to have the Heimlich Manuever performed on her as she was turning blue? But since I don't have an Uncle Alfie, Cousin Fred, or even an Aunt Edna, I won't tell those stories. All that to say that though we Clark's are a colorful bunch, this reunion produced no great blogging stories. But there was a ping-pong tournament...anyone want to hear about who won that?

This past weekend we were on the road again, this time to a debate tournament at Bethany University in Scott's Valley. Catie & Michelle each participated with their respective partners, Tim & Kayla. The resolution for NCFCA team policy debate this year is: Resolved, that the United States should significantly reform or abolish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After loading up the car and taking off at 4:00 a.m., our young ladies began their first debate at 8:30 a.m. and ended around dinner time. It is quite an academic workout and I am very proud of them for being a part of it. Although we try to stress that how you evaluate your performance should not depend upon whether or not the judges vote for you, I have to admit it's so much easier to feel good when your ballots come back with positive decisions. We have definitely experienced it both ways and I'm thankful to say that this particular tournament yielded some encouraging results. Michelle was awarded the 9th place speaker out of the 32 novices participating. She & her partner were so pleased to have won two of their four rounds. Catie & Tim were likewise happy to have won three out of their five rounds in the varsity track. Our entire club did very well so there was much to celebrate for everyone--one of our teams, Ben & Jeana, took top honors, each earning a $1000 scholarship to Bethany. Like I said, there was much to celebrate.

One of the parts I enjoy about debate is the lofty feel one gets being a part of such a cerebral pursuit, surrounded by teens dressed in suits and speaking like well-polished lawyers. (We haven't quite achieved that yet-- but we're still proud of those cute young ladies!) Anyway, there's a certain image that one likes to cultivate when one is a debating family. Which is why I had to laugh at us this past weekend. Granted, our girls did look the part, but I do believe we were the only family who toted our trailer, our dog, and our kitten, to the debate tournament.

It seemed like a lot of work heading down the morning of, but that evening it felt heavenly to leave the awards ceremony and drive to our comfy trailer a mere three minutes away. We then enjoyed a rousing game of 31 and amused ourselves with the antics of our two adorable pets and our son who, in an attempt to stay awake during debate rounds, had consumed way too much Mountain Dew.

I'm having trouble adding photos to this post, but once I do it will include some cute ones of the pets. I have so many pictures now of the two of them -- they are such buddies -- that I'm considering making a photo calendar for my sister's Christmas present. She's a real animal lover and will have a special appreciation for such a unique gift!

Anyhoo, we praise God for our wonderful weekend -- from the lofty discussions of NATO reform to the hillarious antics of our punch drunk boy, it was a great addition to our family memories.

The End of the Contest - Thankfully

Well wasn't this fun??? I could tell from the comments that people LOVED voting for cute babies. I thought about extending the fun by posting Scott and my photos for round 3, but mercifully decided we'd probably had enough. (Just teasin', since as my sister pointed out it's a tricky thing to convey sarcasm without voice tone, I wasn't really thinking of posting more baby pictures, just of threatening to!)

I know you're dying to know which baby won. Actually, it was a tie. Baby #4 & baby #9 each garnered three votes. Even though one of baby #9's was indeed baby #9 herself, it is still legitimate (don't you think all the politicians vote for themselves? And what could be more legitimate than that?). So congratulations to Baby #4 & Baby #9! Since baby #11 won the previous contest, now each of my babies can claim a victory of sorts as the cutest baby -- see I was right all along, they were all the cutest!

On a different note, I attended a family reunion in Lake Tahoe this past weekend. My dad & mom were in charge and did a great job. We Clarks are quite a colorful bunch! It was very fun and my appreciation for the parents God graciously gave me continued to grow throughout the weekend. I would tell you about the ping-pong tournament but I couldn't mention who won without sounding boastful, so I won't even bring it up.

Hopefully when baby #4, #9, and #11 grow up, they will continue to value the family God placed them into enough to enjoy and look forward to family reunions. And hopefully by then they will no longer be arguing over who was the cutest!

And the Winner Is...

Well it is been an anxious couple of days here watching the cutest baby votes trickle in! The official tally, as of Thursday afternoon is as follows:

Baby #1 received 1 vote.
Baby #2 received 4 votes, counting the time she voted for herself.
Baby #3 received 3 votes, counting the time she voted for herself.
And the winner is...baby #2!!!

Among the votes were comments complaining about the selection of photos. There was some murmuring about the duplo in baby #2's photo being a detriment, but then again, that was the reason Kludge voted for her -- he was drawn to that lastic, platic, I mean plastic. A couple of you thought baby #1 got rooked with the pouty lip, but you know, his one pity voter commented how much she liked that pouty lip. Just goes to show you cute is in the eye of the beholder.

Truth be told, I tried to pick pictures as silly as the whole argument--none were chosen to flatter.

However, we're going to try the whole thing once again, and this time, each child has picked out their OWN baby photo, eliminating accusations of favoritism. Once again it will be a blind test, AND I will assign each baby a new number and no one will have any inkling who's who! (Don't pay any attention to the bow & bonnet -- you REALLY have no idea which baby is which.) Leave your vote in the comments section and feel free to opine regarding the narcissistic children who are trying to win this award, not to mention the narcissistic mother who would blog about it twice!


Baby #4 to the left

Baby #11 to the right

Baby #9 below








I didn't even add commentary alongside each picture this time -- yes sir, this is one fair-square contest. Let the voting begin...

Who's the Cutest?

I thought I'd post a member of our family holding little Rebekah. Catie & Michelle are both planning on posting a shot of themselves on their own blogs with their incredibly adorable new cousin--so Johnny gets the honors. I told him the chics really go for these kind of pictures!

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to meet Rebekah Sunday night. On the way home, however, Scott & I had the joy (NOT!) of listening to the three in the back argue over which of them was the cutest baby.

Both Johnny and Michelle claimed the honor for themselves. Catie believes that although she was not the cutest baby, she was the cutest toddler. I told them they were all the cutest, which satisfied none of them. I'm thinking maybe my readers can help us out here.

Get in a little practice before the November elections and cast your vote for who was the cutest baby...Johnny, Catie, or Michelle?

To keep everything completely fair, it will be a blind test in which you will have NO CLUE which baby is which!!!

Indicate your choice in your comments for baby #1, baby #2, or baby #3. (No fair voting for Rebekah, 'cuz we know she's the cutest now!!)

Baby #1, on the left, was famous for sporting
an incredible "pouty lip".



Baby #2, on the right, grew at an incredible rate, burstin' out of bathing suits with the best of them.



Baby #3, on the left, was fond of chewing on duplos.





P.S. Thanks for settling the argument for me -- do I have deep, introspective children, or what?!?

So Far So Good

If you read my previous post, you know of my hopes for a repeat of history. I just want to say, Sarah did her part--I'm sure you'll be reading about it in a super blog soon! Now I just need Catie to find the right young man in about 5 - 6 years ... oh my, did I just say 5 -6 years??? Can that be possible???

Catie assures me she will be commenting on this post!

Of Flower Girls and Old Age

There's nothing like waiting for the flower girl from your wedding to call and say that she's had her baby to make you feel old! This coming March, Scott & I will celebrate our 20th anniversary. That makes almost 20 years ago that Sarah & Megan, at the tender ages of 7 and 5, stood up with us as our adorable flower girls.

Then, six years ago, our flower girl Sarah, went and got married herself. Two flower girls weren't enough for her, she had FOUR! They even had shirts that read, "Chris & Sarah's Flower Girl Club". My two little girls, Catie & Michelle, ages 7 and 5, were among her flower girls. Sarah also honored me by wearing my wedding dress.

Now Sarah's going to have her own little one. Although I will love equally either a little great-nephew, or a great-niece, I am really rooting for a little girl. The way I figure it, if Sarah had a little girl this month and Catie somehow found Mr. Right and ended up getting married by, say, 21, she could ask Sarah's little 7 year old to be one of her flower girls. If I've done the math right, she should have about eight of them (flower girls that is). Chances are she's going to be taller than me, so having her wear my dress might be tricky. Oh that & the fact that she doesn't want to get married--these are potential roadblocks for my grand plan, and yet, it could happen!

Yes, having the 7 year old from my wedding about to have a baby does make me feel old. But I found a way to be proactive in the aging battle today. It really bugged me that my Myspace profile advertised my age, right in a prominent place. I tried to figure out how to just delete than information but I'm not that savvy. Tonight I found a better solution--I am now 29 and intend to stay there!

Yet Another Kitten Update

Is this just the cutest picture ever? You would think we had a new baby -- I think I've taken as many pictures of this kitten in the last two weeks as I have of Johnny in the last ten years.

Squiggy & Beamer are becoming real play pals and we're having fun watching them. We're pretty convinced Squiggy will rule the roost soon--he's already chased Jinx, even as she's hissing at him and emitting other worldy moans. He's also faced Beamer down a time or two and it is very clear that Beamer will defer to him. So the less that two pound bundle of orange & white can add a little swagger to his pounce.

Hey guess what -- I obtained a Myspace site yesterday. My main motive, shhhhhhh, is to keep tabs on the teens in my life. But it feels kind of cool nonetheless. I've heard other parents have done the same thing. My friend list grew today and I now have five friends. Yesterday Tom was pretty lonely and I couldn't even get my son to make me his friend while he had a real friend over. Today I'm downright popular -- counting Tom, I have FIVE friends! That's about the same number of blog readers I have, so it must be pretty lucky!!

Maybe tomorrow I'll post the vignette I have floating around in my mind about the flower girl from my wedding who is expecting a baby any day! Nothing like that to make you feel OLD! :)

Until then, I was just dying to get this picture on to my blog. It's our current desk top photo and I just felt selfish not sharing it with the blogosphere at large. I'd make it bigger if I could -- isn't he cute?!?

Thoughts on Pumpkin Helmet

Pumpkin helmet is definitely growing up! Isn't he handsome?

I was multi-tasking as I wrote this post and therefore left the computer often. One time I came back to discover the following addition courtesy of my boy (now everyone in my family has contributed to my blog):

I must say he is probablly the best looking person i have ever seen i am having to fight off the girls left and right. I tell him he doesnt have to work to hard in school because it is going to be easy to get a really good job just based off his incredibly good looks only one in a million can be this lucky.

It's a good thing he's got confidence, because spelling and grammar are not in his favor! Tonight we discovered something else, in addition to spelling & grammar, that he's really not very good at, in fact he's really bad at it...Pictionary. We were all pretty thrilled to have a night at home and good eats, so we kept the fun going with a rousing family game...boys against the girls. The men took an early lead and of course began to crow. However, the saying, "Pride goeth before a fall" was very apropos, because they sure did goeth down!

Scott & Johnny were just not on the same wavelength--and a common wavelength is VERY important in Pictionary. Scott mocked Johnny's drawings and Johnny often could not acurately interpret Scott's art work. And then to make matters worse, Johnny went brain-dead in the reading department. He thought "colon" read "cologne". It made for a nicer picture but it didn't help their team much. In general, Scott was justified in mocking Johnny's drawings. However, I think an examination of Scott's version of "belly flop" will show that there was blame to go around! Any wonder the girls owned this game?

It's okay Pumpkin Helmet -- Pictionary will probably not be required for either your job, or your magnetic chick appeal.

Squiggy Update

Boy, life has seemed pretty intense as well as busy lately. I have many thoughts, some ever rather deep, swirling around in my head. However, as I sat down to write a new post, nothing deep was quite ready to make it's way into the blogosphere. So an update on our sweet little kitten seemed like a lovely option for light posting.

The name has stuck and little Squiggy has wound the entire family around his crooked little tail! There's only one member of our family who is less than thrilled with the little guy--our very neurotic cat whom we love in spite of her personality challenges. She makes this mellow little kitten look awfully wonderful!

Even our toy fox terrier, Beamer, loves Squiggy. The two are getting on famously, except for this evening when Squiggy got his head a little too far into the 1/4 cup of kibbles Beamer was inhaling. That was the fiercest I have ever seen Beamer react. It was enough to send Squiggy scurrying behind the entertainment center. A few minutes later, however, the two were together again and Beamer was planting some sloppy kisses on Squiggy's little face. We know it's genuine affection because Beamer even lets Squiggy take part in his very favorite activity--doing dishes.

If Jinx ever joins the rest of us in our extreme fondness for Squiggy, that will be truly newsworthy. Until then, 6 adoring family members seems to be keeping this little kitten quite content.