Mad Scientist and Books

Clayton, Part I:

This is my brother Clayton and his wife Jessa. Clayton has been working with a company called Mad Scientists for the last 7 or 8 months. Basically they do science experiments for kids at birthday parties, school classrooms, etc. Brad and I got to go and watch him perform once at the Pleasant Grove library. It was awesome. If you know Clayton, you know that this is the perfect job for him. Anyways, I guess yesterday while working at a summer camp the local paper, The Daily Herald, came and interviewed him and took some photos. There is an interview with him and another Mad Scientists on the The Daily Herald's homepage, and he said there will be a blurb about it and a picture in the paper today. Check out the video interview here, and if you are interested call up Mad Scientists and ask for Clayton to do your kids party, he really is great at it!

Part II: Books

Clayton is also a writer and reads many, many books. He started a very interesting blog where he reviews books that he likes and plans to post some of his own writing. Interested? The blog is called Books By Clay, check it out!

Summertime when the living is easy...

Just thought I would share a few day to day things that are going on at the Clark house this week. On Monday I trimmed the overgrown rose bush in the front yard. The great thing about that was I ended up with three various bouquets of roses for the house. Granted I had to kill about 10 earwigs that came in on the flowers, which I hate (earwigs that is), but I think it was worth it.


Monday evening Brad and I went out and picked as many cherries out of our cherry tree as we could manage with a stool, a very unsteady latter, and limited tree climbing abilities (note to self: wear shoes, rather than flip-flops when trying to climb trees). Today I am making some cherry jelly, which I have never had before, and tomorrow I plan to bottle the rest. I am hoping that the cherry jelly will be delicious and go well on things like the Cranberry-Orange Scones I made Monday afternoon (yes, that was a shameless plug for my cooking blog: twolittlechefs)

ps...if you want another one of our crazy neighbor stories please ask, and refer to our cherry tree

Afternoon Walk

One afternoon we went for a walk with the Rathers in a nice park. It was wonderful, but very hot and humid.

The boys' favorite section (other than the area with all the turtles) was where the branches overhung and made a kind of a tunnel.

There was a lot of special stick finding going on, though some of the branches had to be 'adjusted' to make them just the right size.

The boys were very excited when they found some animal tracks

While we were there Jeremiah and I became great friends. I knew we were going to be pals when he corrected his brothers, informing them that my name was not Brad, but Brown, which is what he called me the entire time.

Rather Family Fun

Staying with the Rather's was a lot of fun. We enjoyed some wonderful food by expert chefs. :)


We also did some family bonding on the Wii.


There were also plenty of games and building, which including the burying of the boys.

Road Trip

Caroline and I made the journey to Witchita to visit her brother and his family. We had a blast as you can see.

Along the way we saw a huge convoy hauling tanks and armored cars. They were heading west and we were going east, so we could only try to take a picture through our window as they went past.

The area west of Denver was beautiful, and so was the rest of trip east, but rather flat and boring.

Family Fun

We had some of my family over last week for dinner. We had a blast. I pushed Victoria on my longboard for awhile, then we rode together, and then she decided that I needed to be pushed by her.

Victoria enjoyed playing croquette with us, but she often looked more like she was a little witch trying to ride a broom.

In the end Caroline had to show us how it was done.

She also enjoyed looking after baby Joseph.

Hatching Turtles

Caroline and I went with my family to duck pond on the south of campus last week. The ducks were not hungry, but they were pretty active. At one point the ducklings decided to climb up on the turtles and keep them warm.

One of the turtles lay on a branch, sprawled with his legs just dangling. Looked rather comfortable.

Running Woman

Last Saturday Caroline and her family ran in a 5k at Thanksgiving Point. It was fun to see the crew and Caroline was the fastest of her family, and in the top third of all the racers.

She was in great spirits at the beginning of the race.

By the end she was all business

Mothers Day

Mother's Day, as you know, was last Sunday. Brad and I invited my parents over for dinner. Then Brad's father came into town, so of course he was invited too. Then we decided to invite my brother Clayton and his wife Jessa, since they live a couple of blocks from us. And then we figured we should just make it a party and so we invited the Memmott's too- Brad's sister Kelly, husband Grant and their kids Victoria, 3, and Joseph, 11 days. It was a lot of fun; thanks for those who attended.

So Brad was kind enough to make some apple crisp. He was so cute about it. Because I was taking up the entire kitchen (literally) making Sweet Barbacoa Pork, fresh Pico-de-Gallo, and cream sauce (which you can find on my cooking blog), he moved his operation to the table. It was fantastic. He pulled out all the ingridents, lined them up, and appeared to be filming a cooking show, as you can see from the picture above.

Unfortunately I didn't take too many pictures at the event, but I got a couple. Above left is my parents and Grant Memmott. On the right is Brad and his father.

These lovely folks are (starting from the left) Brad's sister Kelly and daughter Victoria; baby Joseph (who slept most of the evening which made it nice for Kelly so that she could eat); and Jessa and Clayton Rather.

Thanks for coming everyone. And if you are interested in coming over sometime for dinner, we'd love to have you.

Brad's Birthday!!

Brad had a birthday on Saturday, so we spent the day celebrating. We had a lazy morning and opened birthday presents, we then went and made some purchases and went for a casual hike in the mountains. That evening Brad and I went to PF Changs and ate some delicious food. After which we had some friends over for cake and ice cream and a little wii competition.

Brad owning the soccer field (as usual) the day before his birthday.

That's us on the big day.

Brad's cake. I made a two-layer chocolate cake with a rasberry frosting filling, chocolate frosting everywhere else, and blueberries on top.

A little tribute to my Brad. He is a wonderful person, a great man, and an extraordinary husband and he has so many talents. I am so happy that he married me and puts up with me everyday.

I love you Brad.