The Summer I never got around to blogging...

Fix yourself a snack, kick back and make yourself comfortable, this could take a while...

Here is a bit of our summer in pictures...I'll try to keep the captions brief. We really had a busy summer. 2 trips (Our couple get away to New York and our family Mid-Country vacation-St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus and back)...but beyond that - we did lots around T-town. Here's a sampling of our summer.

Weddings galore, here is the whole Clark family at one.

Me and my BFF Christy at another

Riley and Cade were enrolled in the summer reading program at the library and earned free tickets to a Drillers game (Tulsa's baseball team) for reading all their books. It was "Bison" night so all the kids got a little stuffed Bison(see Cade's hand) --which beside the food, may have been the highlight of the game. I'm thinking "Bison Night" might be an "only in Oklahoma" thing.

Huge milestone: Riley learned to ride her bike (sans training wheels).

My garden was pretty pathetic this year. As you can see from the size of my produce here. Then again, I think it takes a lot of talent to get a carrot and a watermelon the same exact size. Seriously...you try it. We did get a few tomatos and zucchinis but nothing like years past.

Brooke cannot be contained. She will not stay in her crib - so we have to shut her door to keep her in her room. When we check on her, this is what we find.

4th of July -- Brooke LOVED the fireworks, she'd just clap and clap after each one

We LIVE at the pool in the summer. Cade took one on one lessons this year and was out of his vest, holding his breath, and swimming under water by the end of summer.

Another pool pic, because these two are just too darn cute.

Normal spaghetti night... I really love that my kids can eat themselves and I don't have to feed them anymore, but sometimes it's just almost not worth it.

We took full advantage of our splash park too. It's funny, the most patience my kids have ever shown is waiting for these buckets to fill up before they tip over on them.

Father's Day at the Lake.

Brooke was content to just play in the mud.

Riley "caught" a dragonfly!


Fathers Day at GreenLeaf State Park.


Cade trying to catch a fish with his Spiderman fishing pole. Didn't catch any fish, but we saw a ton of baby turtles.

Remember what I said about the kids trying to feed themselves...yeah, same thing.

There's a Blue Bell Ice Cream Plant just a couple miles from our house. Every year they have their "Taste of Summer" and have tours, tons of free samples, and lots of activities for the kids. Here are Riley and Cade "milking" a fake cow.

An annual Clark tradition, blackberry picking.

This year we got nearly 6 pounds (not including what we put in our bellies while we were picking...which probably equaled what we put in our buckets). With our bounty I made 5 pies, 9 jars of jelly, and we gave 3 pints to neighbors. Next year we're gonna do raspberries too! You might be able to roll us to the pool next summer.

NO more pictures mommarazzi.


Cade taking after Uncle Heath with his hurdling...

Cade turned 4!Blowing out his candles!

Brooke turned 2!

Blowing out her candles!

The mark of a good party...crashing on the tile. I think my husband did this a few times after parties in college, it must run in the family...

this was actually for our nephew Clark's 1st birthday, but you can see all the kids had as much fun as the birthday boy

We camped in our backyard a couple times this summer. The first time we did it a storm blew in around 2 or 3. None of us slept very soundly so when the wind was practically blowing us into the neighbors yard Wade and I decided we better move everyone in. Good thing we did, a massive storm blew in moments after we all got in.

Reading stories by flashlight (well LED "puck" lights) courtesy of mom.

Cade and Riley both loved their goggles this summer and I just thought Cade looked so stinkin' cute that I had to include this picture.

Just one of those days

Yesterday was one of those days that just went completely different that I thought when we woke up. My dad is in town a couple of days and this was his last full day with us. (He left before noon this morning).

Riley had coughed a lot the night before so I thought I'd run her to the doctor. I had a doctor appointment in the morning and right after mine I ran her to hers. Turns out she has pneumonia. Riley just kinda gets sick easier than most people, she gets a little tiny virus and it just takes over her body. So they wanted us to go directly to the hospital to get IV antibiotics...they needed to aggressively attack it. But first, I had to get Cade to pre-school. So I ran home, picked him up, ran him to school, and let dad stay behind and put Brooke down for her nap. I took Riley up to the hospital we got the IV (torture), spent a couple of hours getting the drip and doing some other tests...they left it in so if she had to go back today they wouldn't have to re-poke her. On the way home, I got rammed (from behind) at a red light by a lady who "speak-y no englisse" and had to wait for an interpreter to get there...I mean it was just an awful day. Today at the doctor they said she was doing better and could switch to oral antibiotics, breathing treatments, mucinex and Robitussin...sheesh. They have scheduled an upper GI for her on Monday. Poor thing. She refers to this incident as her "surgery" and her IV (that is all wrapped up so it doesn't come out) as "her cast".

Missing Mike

If only we could all just blog about sunshine and roses, but unfortunately life doesn't work that way.

Into each life, a little rain must fall...and we've had a downpour for the last 2 weeks.
Most everyone that reads this already knows, but Wade's brother passed away 2 Saturday's ago.

It has been the hardest thing Wade and I have ever been through.

We still don't have any answers to why this has happened, the medical examiner said it could take up to 12 weeks to get all the reports back. We did have a very nice service for him with a packed church which just shows how many people he touched.

We've had so much support from all over. Our neighbors have been AMAZING, from bringing food, to watching kids, and beyond. All my 'bus stop moms' even came to the "viewing" we had the night before the funeral. I called my mom at 3:30 on Monday and asked her if she could get on a plane that night at 8:30. She did, and took care of the kids, got them to school and gymnastics, tried to give them attention and keep things as normal as possible for them while the world was turned upside down for us. She even did 6 loads of laundry for me. Thanks Mom!

We've been trying to get back to everyday life, but it's a struggle.

Wade spoke at the funeral and had the greatest line in his eulogy--"Everyone has one of those friends they know they can call at any hour to come and bail them out of jail. Mike was NOT one of those friends. Mike was the kind of friend sitting in the cell right next to you, saying, "Boy, wasn't that fun".

That truly captures Mike.

Our kids will no doubt miss "fun Uncle Mike",

but there's no doubt that he'll live on in the countless stories we'll be sure to tell them.

Heee's Back!

If you haven't heard, my Jason is coming back to be the next Bachelor! Woo hoo!

TU friends...doesn't he remind you a little bit of McCord? Wade thinks I'm crazy when I say that, but he does to me (somewhat). Maybe that's why I like him so much, cause he reminds me of McCord and he was so much fun to hang with.

I just adore this guy, I can't wait to watch.

Summer is Over, schmover.

So it's official. Our summer has come to an end.
Riley and Cade have been in school for a whole week now.
Riley - a super excited 1st grader
and Caden started the Pre-K program.

The 1st week Riley rode the bus to school and I dropped Cade off after lunch (he only goes for 2 and 1/2 hours)

then I picked both kids up in the afternoon.
That quickly changed...the line to pick up kids is absoultely outrageous. There's 1000 children in the school (and growing). I sat for over an hour each day waiting to pick them up. Mommy and Brooke are just not that patient to do that every day. Hence we now have 2 bus riders. I really struggled with the decision. Cade is still 3 (at least for one more week)...who lets a 3 year old ride the bus with 5th graders??? But Riley is on the bus as well as several friends from our neighborhood (mostly younger ages). There are 9 kids at our bus stop alone (4 of those who were in our weekly playgroup and he knows very well.) Monday was the first day he rode the bus. I was crazy psycho mom and drove up to the school and hid (so he couldn't see me) to make sure he got on the right bus. I had a teacher come up and ask me to leave (I channeled my George Bush Sr.) "Sorry, not gonna do it". He got on the right bus and I booked it home so I could get this shot.

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. We've got birthday parties this weekend for Brooke and Cade. But I have lots of pictures I want to put up of some of the fun things that have kept us busy this summer. I can't believe how fast it went...

Slideshow mentioned below

If you're having trouble seeing the slideshow at the bottom of the last post you can either click "view all images" or refresh your page and scroll down right away to watch. After it scrolls through them it stops and since I wrote a novel you wont be able to see them if you've read through the text.
Sorry

O State Travelers

From one O-State to another

OKLAHOMA to OHIO
10 days +
5 states +
1 minivan =
2,183 miles driven (and we'd do it again, it was that great a trip!)

This was our family vacation this year. We decided we'd make the drive and have us a 10 day, mid country, Griswald family journey. My big Wilson family reunion was in Ohio at the end of July, but it all started the weekend before with a friend's wedding in St. Charles....

Here's some of the highlights:
Stop 1 - St. Louis (4 days)

• Six Flags (serious fun...not just for the kids but the adults). We went with Chad, Annette, and Kate' so we all got to go on some "big kid" rides too. We had a blast!


• Jennifer's wedding (and celebrating with good friends)


• Catching up with Christine, Micki, Derek, Christy and Mandy. Wish there was more time for me to see everyone else but sadly theres just never enough time. And of course spending time with Family, that always comes first.

Stop 2 - Indianapolis (2 days) And home to the most expensive gas along the way (4.18/gallon)

• Indy Motor Speedway -- We took a lap around the track, and one little boy I know was in race car heaven!
  


• Indianapolis Zoo. This zoo was incredible, probably one of the best zoo's I've ever been too...better than San Diego. It has a combined aquarium so they had this dolphin show (smaller scale, but similar to what you see at Sea World). The kids got to pet sharks! We took a train, rode a roller coaster, played in the splash park, fed giraffes... There was a butterfly house with hundreds of butterflies and the kids favorite part...playing with the walrus. This walrus would look through the glass at the kids and do whatever they did. So if Riley leaned to the left, he would lean with her, he'd play peek-a-boo with them. So cool!


• The Children's Museum (the biggest Children's museum in the world). And really the reason we decided to drive rather than fly...we knew the kids needed to check this place out. We knew it was gonna be cool when you see the entrance...

Stop 3 - Columbus (3.5 days)

• Meeting my newest nephew Garrett! Isn't he a doll?

  

• Cosi- We worried that it might be too similar to the Children's Museum in Indy, but they both had very different things. It couldn't have worked out better. A "must-visit" for kids in Columbus.

• Cookout at Todd and Lori's House -

• Hanging out with my dad and brothers's families before the massive family reunion. We had great food, great weather and we all had a ton of fun.

One of the greatest things is that all the cousins are all close in age.

Riley has Kate' who is 3 months younger.

Brooke has Kelsey who is 3 weeks younger.

Cade has Aiden who is 1 year younger (but were the only boys until Garrett). Seriously, these 2 are going to be lady-killers. Aren't they the cutest little ones ever sporting Grandpa's soccer jerseys from Italy.

Now Heath and Pearl will have their little one soon which will be about 8 mo. younger than Garrett...so everyone has a buddy. I have a jillion cousins, but all alot older than me. I love that they all have each other.

• Family Reunion- This is just from my Grandma and Grandpa down. I couldn't tell you how many people we had there, well over 100 (pretty good considering it stems from just 2), but we have the smallest of the families (16 and a half) but we're still cranking them out. And no we're not Catholic.

Stop 4 - STL (overnight Sunday)

Stop 5 - Tulsa (.5 days - Monday) (the longest part of the journey)

HOME!!! There's truly no place like home! And home to the cheapest gas on the trip (3.82/gallon).

I had a ton of pictures I wanted to share, but I know they are a lot more exciting to me than all of you, but here are a few other fun ones in case you wanted to see just a few more.

Better off...

Ok, so Jason was too good for DeAnna anyway.

*And thats all I have to say about that (Forrest Gump)

My Bachelorette Prediction

I'm a Bachelorette watcher (yes, I admit it) and I'm making my prediction...
Jason, Jason, Jason.

From the very first episode he has been my fave, Wade can back me up on that. Of course, Graham was my 2nd favorite so since he's out - the choice is easy. Poor Wade got a bit sucked into watching it with me this season. We have very few shows that we watch together (in fact I can only think of one) but Wade knew one of the bachelors from this season (Twilley) and so he got roped into watching him act like a goof. Once Twilley was gone Wade could care less about any of it, so I'll be watching alone. But this house is rooting for Jason tonight!

I Heart NY

We're back from the Big Apple and finally settled back into our normal routine.
We had an unbelievable trip. More than ANY other city there are SO many things to do and see, and we did everything and more than we had planned to do. I won't bore you with the details of all we did (you name it, we did it) but I've included a slide show (at the end) if you have the time and want to see a few pics. But I'll share with you a few favorites...



Top 10 things to do in NYC... (in no particular order)

1. St. Patrick's Cathedral -- We really love our church, but the architecture here was gorgeous. Our church is absolutely industrial next to this church.


2. Rockefeller Center (Top of the Rock) -- Best Views of NYC. Better views that the Empire State Building.

3. Staten Island Ferry -- the cheapskate in me loved this...it's a free ferry ride to Staten Island and it goes right past the Statue of Liberty. They don't let you up inside anymore so this is the best way to see/get pictures of Lady Liberty (A bonus was we got to see THE most flamboyant (and scary looking) trans-sexuals on the planet).

4. Apartment roof tops -- We met a buddy of Wade's the first night at his apartment. He took us up to the rooftop and showed us how they have a common area or people can get their own private area and can have gardens, or sunbathe, or whatever...some of the private ones were pretty cool.

5. Central Park -- this park is MASSIVE. Truly one of the best things in NYC. (Don't try to see it all in one day)

6. Grand Central Station -- I loved it here. Of course as soon as we entered the main lobby we both remembered the scene in Madagascar where the animals that escaped from the zoo are caught. Funny that's what we recognized.

7. China Town (Canal Street) -- Where I met and brought home many friends (Coach, Gucci, Prada, etc...I'm not sure if they are knock-offs or stolen--but the quality is amazingly good if they are knock-offs).

8. Fifth Avenue was pretty great too. Here I am (purchase in hand) at THE Saks on Fifth Ave.




9. The Today Show -- I love Matt Lauer (seriously... I love him). We didn't spend a lot of time there but here are Ann, Al and some other fill-in anchor, so I did get a picture of a quasi-celebrity. I also saw Lou Gossett Jr. --is he still considered a celebrity? He is in my favorite movie of all time (An Officer and a Gentleman), so I say he still counts.



10. St. Paul's Chapel and Cemetery. Possibly my favorite. We stumbled onto this place on our way down to Battery Park. This chapel was built in 1766. President George Washington was one of the worshippers at St. Paul's. It's directly across the street from what was the WTC. Cool story, this little chapel survived the collapse of the WTC without even a broken window. One sycamore tree that was destroyed by debris on 9/11 fell and didn't disturb a single headstone in the cemetery (there definitely was a higher force protecting this little place). Here's a great little article on it if you care to see how special this little place was http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_28_118/ai_79514972


This doesn't even touch all the other things we did in NYC. I literally got blisters on the bottom of my feet from all the walking and sight-seeing we did.

5 things I learned in NYC

1. Subways are the best way to get around the city (and yes there are rats, I've got pictures for proof).
2. DO NOT go to NY during the Pueroto Rican Day Parade...trust me on this...80,000 participants, 2 million in attendance. It was craziness, seriously. This parade lasted HOURS...seriously how many cars/floats can you see before they all look the same. It was 98 degree too, never thought it'd be hotter in NY than in Tulsa. We didnt watch, but we could not avoid them.
3. People there love Giuliani and credit him with all things good in NYC.
4. One too many sushi, make me want to barf-y. (For Wade change sushi to mackerel sashimi for same statement).

5. Old mixes with new like no other place I've ever been (check out this pic...the skyscrapers built up around this little building)

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

The one thing I feel like we could have skipped was Ground Zero -- Nothing to see, then again...maybe that's the point.

The only thing I would have liked to have done and didn't, was catch a show, everything else was a bigger priority to me...but I did go see a movie in Times Square by myself ($13.00). Wade had to go to the Webby Awards for a work thing so I went to see Made of Honor (my kind of movie). I'm not sad about missing a show cause we're going to see Phantom of the Opera in a couple weeks...doesn't get much better than that (unless you're going to see Les Mis...can't decide which one is my favorite, it depends on which one I've seen last).

Here's the slideshow.

And I'll try to get better about posting so I don't have to write a novel each time.