another dreary February....lol

(in spite of my numerous efforts to get the pictures and text together, the blog would not cooperate, so excuse the slightly off-set text)

January ended on a high note with Dacia and the Topherbugs coming for a weekend visit.
We got way more snow than we had imagined, so rather than languish in the totally white world of Idaho Falls, Sam and I decided to escape:




Sam looks good in orange, so there was nothing keeping us.


So, here we are on board the Norwegian Sun, leaving lovely Miami, for even warmer climes.

we got a rousing welcome in Roatan, Honduras



Here is a view of our cool cruise ship

Main attraction in Roatan: the Iguana farm, and again it was reiterated: tasts just like chicken. Actually the tour guide was way more impressed by the fact that this iguana farm also was home to 3(!!!) chickens!


How about a piggy back ride.

Or way up in a tree

Here is the local Roatan LDS chapel. Note the 8' chain link fence and the barbed wire on top.... they don't like it when their pews and carpet walks off.

The beaches and the water were fabulous. Wish I had that out my back door all the time. But the poverty was also there...









This is now Belize. We are walking thru the Jungle! I got a little souvenir from there. Some sort of bug bit me, and kept biting me even days later....

They had some cool ruins in Belize. It was almost too warm there, we both got a bit of a sunburn.

Next stop: Cozumel. We decided we wanted to visit some more ruins, since we liked the last ones so much, so we took a small boat to Playa del Carmen, and then a bus to Tulum. I have been there 3 times now and I still love it. Sam really enjoyed it too.

The sun came thru the window on the left for spring equinox, at the left corner of the big building for summer solstice, at the right corner for fall equinox and an other window not in this picture for winter solstice..... These Mayans were amazing. However, in a previous visit our mormon tourguide said the sun shone thru that window on April 6th... I guess we'll never know unless we go again on one of those specific dates.

The Promenade deck. We almost walked a mile! And we brought our exercise clothes, so we could go to the gym.....










The obligatory towel folding class. here we have a sitting elephant and a bunny.

Sunset over the caribbean, as seen from my seat in the dining room

Formal night. It is too bad you can't get a better view of my fancy new dress... it cost a fortune... (99cents at Ross)

Grand Stirrup Caye at the Bahamas, our last stop at NCL's private island. A fun spot for all sorts of water sports. We did some swimming and snorkeling, walked all over the place, and enjoyed the warm weather and the sunshine.














It was kind of hard to come back home, light snow in Chicago, and 2-3 feet of snow in our backyard!

January 2008

This is a very different kind of Blog, called "a backwards blog" It needs to be read from the bottom up. New scientific findings have shown that reading up unstead of down stimulates the brain in certain ways, making you smarter.(Actually what happend is that I downloaded the pictures in the wrong order and it would be too frustrating to get them in the opposite order now. So, enjoy: Here are our parting views of the Oregon rainforest. It was totally beautiful

and we hated to leave, but Sheila and Pat were waiting for us. Everything was wet and dripping, moss covered all the trees and sometimes ferns grew out of the moss. Otherwise ferns covered the forest floor and every few miles we came across another little streamlet. How would it be to live here.... totally out of our price range, I bet.

Here are a few views of our favorite Oregon coast. We are madly in love with Arcadia Beach. Sam has actually checked on real estate prices: With ocean view: totally unaffordable. 10 miles inland: almost unaffordable. Would you ever come to see us, if we moved there? Seeing all that green and no snow was just so nice. We had been driving thru Portland the day before, and I had thought how much I would love to go and see the ocean.... a few minutes later Sam mentions how silly it would be to drive all the way out to the beach, but how much he would love to do that. I know why I married him!

Look at that amazing rainbow we came across, just north of Tillamook! I'll take rainbows over blizzards any day!

On our drive out to the coast, it got more and more sunny, and the snow from the coastal range got less and less until everything was just lush and green. Ahhhh. What a sight for winter worn eyes! Tillamook, by the way is the location of the famous cheese factory, you can watch it being made, sample it, have their famous icecream, and enjoy a hot lunch. Good clamchouder.

We spent a day in Portland with Christi. She had the day off and took us all over the place. We saw the famous Rose gardens (there were actually some hardy roses blooming, the huge park and all sorts of beautiful bridges, even the one the Golden Gate Bridge was patterned after. Christi is a great cook and has a formidable DVD collection. We had a great time with her.



My cold was mostly gone, and right before we left Bonnie's I got to hold little Zander.

The night before Linda, Heidi and Megan came to visit, as they were all in Moscow, celebrating Kalee's birthday.

Bonnie and Zander came home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon and needed some peace and quiet, so we got dispatched to take the 2 little girls to the local childrens science center. We all had a great time. Here Sam and Kenya are playing the irrigation pipes.








Amara is getting her face painted. She wanted a flower.

There was a cool place to read and play games, so grandpa got to read stories.

A visit to the hospital. Kenya and Amara with their new baby brother.

And here is little Zander in all his newness. Cute litte one with lots of dark hair. He turned out to be rather noisy.












While Bonnie and Aaron were in the hospital we got the full benefits of being grandparents. Grandpa's story time was a definite favorite. I have never seen 2 better behaved little girls... that is until their parents came back. Babysitting for just a few days has it's advantages, the newness of it doesn't wear off that soon and they are soooo good. It was fun.

Bonnie decided that things were a bit more urgent than originally thought, and we needed to come a day sooner, that, of course was right after a massive snowstorm. Roads were closed and a 1 1/2 hour trip took 3 hours, but we got through just fine in our little tank, and the countryside was truly beautiful. As soon as we arrived, she and Sam went grocery shopping, and then Aaron came and they went off to the hospital. Zander was born that night. 9lbs, 3oz.

Since we had the extra day in Spokane, we decided to visit the temple there. It is one of the small ones on the southern outskirts of the city. It was very nice to be there.

We had promised Bonnie to come to Moscow, when she had her baby. The plan was to leave on Wednesday, and she would have the baby on Thursday, but the weather was going to be really bad, so it would be safer to leave on Monday. Sam called me at 11 with this change of plans and expected me to be packed and ready to go in an hour. It took a little longer, but we left by 2. Since it is a little tight at Bonnie's, we decided to spend a couple of days with Linda in Spokane, which is just 1 1/2 hours from Moscow. We left with nice blue skies, and the roads were not too bad. Even Montana was clear. Once we got to the passes in northern Idaho, though, it was a totally different story. The area from Coeur D'Arlene on was total winter wonderland. And the whole time in Spokane it snowed as well.

This is Anita's house in St. George... Does that qualify for any citations Emily?










Sam's story time is always popular. And having a leg that accomodates 2 little tykes helps too.

Cute Caden helping with Christmas unwrapping

A crazy rabid squirrel.... what can I say

That was Emily there on my phone, so rudely interrupting Sam and my first Christmas in Idaho together. I guess she missed us, since we spent last Christmas with her. We missed her too, and were glad to be invited to visit with them later, stopping in Provo with Dacia and Bugs and their cute spouses.

My grandsons are cuter than yours! No arguments here.

Jen's parents flew in and out of Idaho Falls, separately.... which meant 4 trips up here. We cut it down to 2 with shuttle rides, but they still managed to get snowed in here with us, something we had fervently hoped for. So we were prepared with a turkey dinner and a real neat Christmas eve celebration with all of them, what a treat, and then we go to reminisce when Anya awakened us bright and early at 6 am with: Get up, get up, it's time to get the stockings!! Ah, Christmas morning with little kids, there is nothing quite like it!

Early on Christmas Eve, Sam's big Christmas gift was delivered. Since it had been snowing like mad all day, I felt it would be appropriate to let him have it early. Of course, I could have let him shovel for 3 hours, maybe he would have appreciated it even more the next day. But that seemed almost cruel. And he surely did appreciate it. Lots.

So, depending on whether you followed my instructions, this would be the beginning or the end of my blog. You can quickly test it, if you read it from bottom to top, you should be a ton smarter now.

A merry Christmas to all!

It is a little over a week before Christmas, and my Christmas letter has been written, but not sent yet, I think I am doing well, considering that all the gifts to all 8 kids have been personally delivered.(Which means that they had to have been bought or made and wrapped previously). The house is as decorated as it will get, and thanks to Dacia, I even have 2 kinds of very yummy Christmas cookies (minus a few samples that went south with my able bakers).
So, I guess I am leisure to sit back and send everyone a very merry Christmas from the Clark residence. We have had a great and busy year, travelling here, there and Yonder. We especially liked Yonder. The weather was great there.
All 8 kids are now happily married, talk about a feeling of accomplishment! And Sam and I took very deserved vacations after the last two, to celebrate. In Early March we took off for Atlanta... we always call it driving to Atlanta, but we rarely go straight there. In Spring we took the detour by Nauvoo and enjoyed a Temple session in the new Temple there. Then we sailed thru Atlanta and landed in Orlando for a Disney adventure at Epcot Center (this time of year is super, no lines). Next stop was Key West. I had always wanted to drive on that cool highway along all the Keys to the end. It was as fantastic as I had expected it to be, just not long enough. But we had to be back in Atlanta for our grandson Daniel's birthday. Atlanta in Spring is absolutely wonderful. They have "weeds" growing there, that we cultivate as flowers, like Azaleas and Wisterias, Dogwoods and Red buds. Coming back here was a rather chilly awakening... no spring until the end of April.
For the summer we took several trips to Yellowstone and the Tetons, and the obligatory trips to Salt Lake and surrounds to see any number of kids. We had a family reunion of the Johnson Clan in September in the Yellowstone area, Bonnie moved to Moscow, ID later that month, and we went to visit them at their new home in connection with a trip to Portland for a niece's wedding and Sam's convention in Coeur d' Arlene. We actually managed to do a quick jig into the Olympic Rain Forest to visit a sweet brother in law and his family. In Fall we took a trip to Montana to visit some loving family in Bozeman and for a daytrip to the Billings Temple. We had a early Thanksgiving trip to Atlanta, (see the previous blog). Another early Thanksgiving family trip to St. George to be with the 4 Johnson kids and their families, where Emily and Alan excelled as the best Turkey Chefs ever.
We had our first snowstorm for conference weekend, which we did not like at all.
That pretty much wraps it up. So, all in all, we had a great year and we feel very blessed in every way.


This weekend Alysia and Dacia came to visit and to play. Alysia made a gorgeous wreath.

Dacia took a nap after making the most delectable chocolate cookies.

Alysia and I made fancy clay figures

This is our european themed downstairs tree with straw and wood ornaments personally imported from my Aunt in Austria

Here is my fancy Frog in the Wreath ornament once it got finished.

Dacia, the cookie chef par excellence, ...

and the dutiful cookie samplers (that could't quite make up their minds and needed "just one more sample" to be totally sure that those cookies were totally delectable.

My finished products: Frog in wreath, sledding bunny, bear in stocking and mouse on candy cane.

Alysia was concentrating very hard on her masterpiece, that turned at really cool.
So, a very merry Christmas to all of you, please stop by to see us for a bit (if you can catch us), be would love to visit. All the best for the New Year from the Clarks.