The Clarks: June 2013

Friday, June 28, 2013

The Boys

I haven't done an update on the boys for awhile and thought I'd get everyone up to speed on what they are up too.

Carson found dad's swim cap and said he was the black spiderman. I about died laughing!

They sure do love their ice cream!

Tanner loves his dads shoes. He is always giving them to Brad, trying to take them off of Brad, or trying to wear them himself. He literally wants to walk a mile in his shoes! This boy loves his daddy! Its pretty cute.

They also love helping their dad with household projects, whether dad wants the help or not. Oh reminder to self: don't tell Carson what gifts your giving Brad for his birthday and father's day present, because it goes like this; "Daddy look there's your present, its a ..... ! Wanna open it?"

Soon after we moved into the house, Carson kept wanting to have sleepovers with Tanner. At first I resisted, I didn't think it would work (meaning I didn't think they would actually sleep), but Carson kept pleading. I felt guilty knowing that Carson didn't like being in a new place all by himself. So after our nightly stories I just left Tanner in there. I didn't hear a peep and later when I went to check on them this is what I found:

These two are each others best friend or worst enemy. Now that Tanner is older he is getting better at playing, which Carson loves, but he is also getting better at defending himself. Tanner is now at that age where he pinches, slaps, and scratches mostly out of excitement, but other times out of frustration. Lots of times I hear giggles, but other times its screams. The life of siblings, right? So if Carson has a few scratches on his face in these pictures you can thank Tanner for those.

I don't want you to think that Tanner is a bully after reading that. In fact he is just the opposite. His nursery leaders always tell us what a good boy he is and if another kid is crying he comes up to them and pats them on the back to make them feel better.

Carson's sunbeam teacher said something similar. She was so surprised on his first day of Sunbeams how friendly he was and trying to make friends with all the other kids in the class.

We've been going a lot to the pool or splash pad to keep cool. They love it.

We bought a new fish. Remember Beast? Well I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but poor Beast unfortunately died the week Tanner was born. Which wasn't a huge lost since I obviously had other things on my plate. Since Carson loved the Koi fish so much at the hotel I thought it would be a good time to dig out the old fish tank and get a new fish. His name is Batman.

Carson is teaching his new friend Jackson (my high school friends little boy) all about Superheros.

at our local McDonalds they have a girl who is there almost everyday doing face painting during lunch time. Carson of course got spiderman, and then the next time Ironman. We'll see how many Superheros she can paint...

I love My cute boys.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Some Getting Used To

So we've lived in Texas for three weeks now. There are definitely some things that we need to get used to out here.

#1 Humidity
When we first got out here I almost felt like the humidity was smothering me! My makeup would literally melt off my face, but now I really only notice it when I go outside, and even then its not too bad. I hear August is the worst.

Humidity has some awesome side effects though. With our family of extremely dry skin, our skin has never looked or felt better!

#2 Driving

One thing I hate most about moving to a new area is getting familiar with it. I'm already bad at directions, but then to stick me somewhere new...Thank heavens for GPS on phone's! I don't know what I would have done 10 years ago.

Frontage Roads. We had frontage Roads in Tucson, but not like this. You don't just get on and off an exit. You have to drive forever on the frontage road to get onto an exit. Plus the frontage roads are obviously only one way streets, and there are stores along the frontage road so if you want to go to a store and miss it you have to do a circle. Its confusing.

Traffic.

#3 Diversity
This is not a bad thing, but it is definitely not what I'm used to. Houston is a BIG spot for Energy Companies and Medical. Both fields bring in a wide variety of people. From all over the world. I think half of our neighborhood is from India, I've met others from Russia and Asia. In our ward I've heard lots of different accents and have been able to place some of the origin: Canada, Guatemala, and an Aussie. Who doesn't love an Australian accent? It will be so fun getting to know these people! Plus I hear that a lot of our neighbors are from Louisiana and have an awesome, family friendly, neighborhood Mardi Gras party, and parade.

#4 Weather

I think its funny when people say its raining here, because in AZ we call them misters and they help cool you down. They do have "real rain", but it seemed the first few times we were here it was the mist rain. It does rain here more often then Arizona (obviously) and they have a lot of overcast days. Something I'm also not used it. Its always a clear sky in AZ. Even during monsoon season. Clear skies all day and then around 4 one black cloud suddenly appears. Heavy rains for a few minutes, done, clear skies once again.

June 1st was the start of Hurricane season. Little nervous on that one, good thing my visiting teacher is the wards emergency preparedness leader! I gotta do a little bit more then just my 72 hour kit...

#5 Patriotism
Flags are flown EVERYWHERE here. Not just little flags. BIG! Every establishment has them and I love it! I love the American spirit that is here, even though this area is such a huge melting pot. Yes, they are also very proud of Texas, but I love that too. Tucson was horrible at that. The 4th of July is practically non existent. No wonder our entire ward flees to Utah for the holiday. Last year Arizona celebrated its Centennial and Tucson didn't do a thing! I'm excited to celebrate the 4th of July here, because I'm sure its gonna be big! Isn't that how the saying goes? "Everything is bigger and better in Texas!"

#6 Greenery
I love the green! It's so pretty here.

#7 Prices

Groceries are about the same, but they have some really good deals on meat! Which is a good thing for our family!

Preschools here are ridiculously expensive! In our school district, school is a serious matter.

No one mows their own lawns. You hire someone. We are going to be the weird neighbors that actually do it themselves.

So its only been three weeks, and I know there will be lots more things I'll need to get used to, so this post might have some follow ups.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Texas Bound

The time had finally come. It was weird seeing our house empty, knowing that it wasn't ours anymore. (By the way, having someone else pack up all your stuff and drive it cross country was awesome!)

We said some sad goodbyes in Arizona

and then hit the road to Texas!

It was a 15 hour drive. We took off over Memorial Day weekend and split the drive into 2 days. It really wasn't bad at all! The boys did great and we stopped off at some of our favorites along the way, namely, Andele's Mexican in Las Cruces. They have the best Green Chili enchilada's EVER! If you are ever in the neighborhood...

We made it to Katy, Texas!

After we arrived we stayed in a hotel for a couple days until our house closed. The hotel was really nice! It was right across the street from Brad's work (which he loved) and they had a huge Koi pond in their lobby and gave out fish food to everyone to feed them. Of course the boys loved it. Especially Carson. Tanner just wanted to jump on in with the fish; but these where huge, would eat anything in the water, fish. I'm sure it would traumatize the poor boy for life. So we didn't let him jump in for obvious reasons.

Not used to the 2 hour time change yet! 10:30 local time and my boys where still sleeping! Didn't get up until 11!

Then the day came. We got the keys to our new house!

About to enter our new home for the first time!

The first night at our new (empty) place! Our furniture and personal belongings would arrive two days later. Our new neighbor was so generous she let us borrow all of her air mattress's so we had something nice to sleep on (besides the hard floor).

The movers arrived on June 1st (Brad's Birthday) so poor Brad didn't get much of a birthday besides unpacking a house. I made a little joke out of it saying that his birthday present would be to unpack all the boxes to find his real birthday present. We did make sure to go out for dinner and we got him a cake.

Its been about 3 weeks since we've moved in. We are (for the most part) settled in. We still need to hang up pictures, and figure out which light switch goes to which light, but this house is turning into our home. We are making new friends, but have been so fortunate to already have friends here. It really is a small world! My mom jokes that it seems like wherever we go, we know someone. Brad's old boss from Morenci live about 15 minutes away (I wrote about them in this post forever ago). I also found an old friend from high school here and she is even in our ward! Its been so nice to have instant friends to help navigate around a new town.

We really feel so blessed!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Preschool 2012-2013

Because we where up in Utah for the family reunion, we missed Carson's preschool graduation. Which in a way seems fitting since we technically missed his first day of preschool too, because we were in Utah. I know its not a big deal, being his first year in preschool and all, but I was still sad we missed it. I've loved seeing how much he has grown this past year and he's learned so much!

Here's some highlights from the past year:

First Day!