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

The Community of Christ (RLDS)

When Caroline and I were in Kansas we went to Independence. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has their world headquarters there. The have changed their name to the Community of Christ.



This is where they have the general conference, every three years. It reminded us of the Tabernacle, but was kept rather dark and had a different feel to it.




This is their Temple. It is rather unique, and the interior was quite beautiful, with lots of natural light.

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.

My Birthday

Last Tuesday was my birthday. Brad went out of his way to make it an awesome day. Amongst other things, we went on a ghost town/mining town hunt. It was tons of fun! I put together a picasa album of a few of the pictures. You can click this link if you want to check it out.

Aaaah China

I mentioned a few posts ago that Caroline had just run a 5k. Well they gave out some stuff in a little packet to all those who participated in the race. The usual shirt, wristband, water bottle...you know. Anyway, the water bottle came with some great instructions - pay particular attention to instruction #2.

We'll be very careful to keep it away from any water. Nothing like stuff made in China. :)

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

Playing with Colors

So last week I photographed a really nice family at the old BYU Academy (pictured above), otherwise known as the Provo library. I was a little unsure about taking photographs there, especially since we took them at about 1:30pm, which is generally about the worst time of day to take pictures (the high sun equals dark shadows and squinty eyes). However, I was able to utilize the old brick on the building, afternoon shade cast by the builidng, and a little Photoshop to get some nice pictures.

Another thing I have been doing is trying to learn more about selective coloring, saturation, and such in Photoshop. So I took this picture of these two cuties and worked to make their blue eyes pop at you a little more. I also brightened up that red dress to create a contrast with their blue eyes (as orange and blue are complimentary colors, in case you have forgotten ;)). I am not sure if you can tell from this picture (because I shrunk it for the blog, however if you click on the picture it will show you a bigger image) but I was pleased with the results. I also added a bit of vignetting, which is something that happens with some camera lenses when they are all the way opened up, which actually is something you don't want to happen (ask Brad about the technicalities of that), but can be duplicated with the power of the computer. It creates the darkened corners forcing your eye to forcus of the center of the picture (see I learned something in art school...well maybe).

Finally another bonus of digital photography and computers. In this photograph there is a window, can you find it? Hopefully not, as I did a little cover up work. Behind the boy on the right I added a brick wall where there is actually a window. Anyways, that is just a little something I have been up to.

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.

What a Wonderful Surprise

Did you have a favorite food as a kid? One of mine was brown beans with hot dogs. I am sure my parents hated it, but since all they had to do was open a can of brown beans and cut a couple hot dogs into it to make me happy they rarely refused. It was the best thing ever! Thus, it was to my great joy that we found this can of Beanee Weenee at Smiths the other day. I didn't know that you could get it with the hot dogs already inside. How awesome is that!

*Sorry about the picture, it was from a camera phone...ugh!

A Bad Storm Means Good News

Since we moved in we have been worried about a tree in our backyard. It hangs over power lines, phones lines, etc, that run to our house and our neighbor's house. About six months ago we finally got the city to come look at it and despite resting on so many lines, they declared it perfectly fine. Suuuuure...



A couple weeks ago we had a surprise snow storm here. The weather was bad enough to break some of the branches on the tree and weighed it down quite a bit. This resulted in the power line to our neighbor's house getting ripped off the side of their house where it had been attached.



We talked with our neighbors and our landlord about it and surprisingly they got the city to come and look at it. The man who came was very concerned, so he called in a crew and within an hour all that was left was a stump. The poor guys had to work in a heavy rain storm. Too bad they didn't take it out when they came six months ago and the sun was shining.

The Tea Party

Caroline and I went to the local 'Tea Party'. There were a few good speakers and some great signs. Here are a collection of my favorites.


Debt is the problem, how can it be the solution too?


Talk is cheap, except when congress does it.


Extinction is forever. Save the taxpayers