Year in Review

Merry Christmas! We hope you (whoever you are) are doing well and enjoying the holidays! We don't send a Christmas letter because we know many people won't read it anyway. But for those who are actually interested in what we have been up to (but don't want to read an entire year of blog posts), here is a summary of 2013:

January: Started the year in Utah with Lily, taking care of my mom. I spent three weeks with her, and it was very special. Of course, it was a little hard to see her so weak and in so much pain, but I will be forever grateful for the time we spent together, and the time she spent with Lily. As for Lily, she had a fantastic time playing outside and thoroughly enjoyed her first experience with snow.

February: Adam turned 30 in February! He wasn't too upset about it. I kept trying to tease him, and I didn't get anywhere. I think he feels like he has more credibility as a therapist now that he is out of his 20s.

March: Lily thoroughly enjoyed playing outside in the not-as-cold weather. We attended story time at the library and played on the basketball court a lot. She became very attached to our BYU basketball.

April: We received a call from my grandma that we needed to come to Salt Lake City to say goodbye to my mom. It was a painful and tearful visit. She passed away on the 13th, but peacefully. It was a special experience, and I know she is happy. I stayed in Utah for two weeks to plan the funeral, sort through her things, and be there for my dad.

May: I was recruited to be the music director for the stake musical, Promised Valley. I spent many nights practicing demanding music and trying to figure out how to teach it to the cast. Adam also began his therapy practice. It took a long time to get the supervisor, paperwork, office space, advertising, and state requirements finished, but he finally began meeting with clients as a Marriage and Family Therapist!

June: Spent the month taking Lily to Promised Valley practices, dancing and singing. We made many good friends and had a wonderful time. We also moved to a new apartment, which has been a huge blessing. We are saving almost $200 per month, and have many more social opportunities with other moms, dads, and kids for Lily to play with. I do, however, miss our dishwasher.

July: Visited Adam's family in California for a week. We hiked, went to the beach, visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, cooked, and had fun with Adam's family. Lily and her cousin Amelia played outside in the inflatable pool with their Nana, and loved every minute. We also finally had our play performances, which were very fun and memorable.

August: We found ourselves in California once again. Adam's brother Travis returned from his LDS mission to Brazil! We were able to visit and spend some time with him. We also found out that we were expecting our second Clark baby! I spent the rest of the month sick and exhausted on the couch.

September: We finally got out into the beautiful Oregon wilderness and went for a quick one-night camping trip. Lily had fun throwing rocks into the river and listening to owls hoot in the middle of the night. Lily and I also took a trip to Idaho and Utah to visit my family. First we went to see my grandma, which was a lot of fun. My sister also came to stay with us there. Then we traveled down to Utah to see my dad and meet his fiancee, Elizabeth. We had a great time.

October: We returned to Utah, driving this time, for my dad's wedding. It was beautiful and fun to see family. Lily wants to get married in the temple like Grandpa and Elizabeth.

November: Lily turned 2! I also turned 28, but that didn't feel as significant somehow. I spent a lot of November working from home for my former employer, and Adam spent it working on his dissertation and grading papers for the online class he was teaching. Lily enjoyed attending a swim class, usually with mom and sometimes with dad. She learned how to blow bubbles, kick, jump off the wall, and lots of other fun water skills. We also found out that baby #2 is a BOY! Lily is very excited to meet her baby brother.

December: We are looking forward to visiting Adam's family again in California and celebrating the holidays with the people we love. We hope you have a merry Christmas too!

Strange things afoot in Oregon

Things have been a little unusual around here lately! Corvallis is not southern-California-balmy, but usually relatively warm. It only snows a couple times each winter, and it almost always melts by the next morning. But this past week, it was FREEZING! Literally. It snowed a week ago last Thursday. But this was no ordinary mid-Oregon snow dusting. It snowed over NINE INCHES overnight! School and about everything else in town was cancelled, including the big band Christmas concert I was very excited to attend.

What made this incident even better was that some ingenious high-up city authority decided that it would probably melt on Friday, so they didn't bother to plow the roads. By Saturday morning, everything was so packed down and frozen that they couldn't plow it. Brilliant. The result was an entire week of nothing happening in this town. Church cancelled. Choir performances and the stake nativity festival cancelled. The downtown entirely shut down for several days, and all public employees were sent home. Saddest of all (for me), the ward Christmas party was even cancelled. The choir, primary, and youth in our ward had been preparing an special program, which we have never done before. I had assembled a small group to sing a jazz number, and I was really excited. Finally, I had invited two non-member families to come with us, and they were both really excited about it. All cancelled. Stupid city planner.

It was also SUPER cold. As in, cold for Utah weather. It stayed below 20 degrees for almost a week, and dipped below zero one night. I haven't experienced negative temperature for a while, and I forgot how cold  they really are!

But there were good things - we got Adam at home more than usual, since campus closed for two days. Lily also really loved playing in the snow. Unfortunately, the snow was really powdery and "dry" so it was almost impossible to make a snowman. We tried every single day, hoping the snow had melted a little to make it wet enough, but it never did. She was very disappointed. So we improvised by using a spray bottle with warm water to make three snowballs, and stacked them on top of each other with the tiny end of a carrot for a nose, twigs for arms, and tiny pieces of raisins for eyes.  It was only about 10 inches tall, but that was good enough for Lily. She talked about our snowman for days.

Poor Lily was so tired after all that winter recreation that she fell asleep in her high chair!

Besides the weather, things have been busy, as usual. Unfortunately, Adam has not had many clients for several months. This has been a challenge for our income, but I have been blessed with the opportunity to work some from home. My former employer, DecisionWise, contacted me in October and asked if I would be able to do a project for them. It was only a 30-hour project, but it kept me busy for a few weeks, and Adam was able to come home early to watch Lily since he didn't have clients. That project led to another in November-December, and I will be doing another in January. Even though it has been a bit stressful to have deadlines, I have appreciated the opportunity to use my brain again and remember what I learned in college. And of course, the added income has been a huge blessing. I really feel that the Lord has been looking out for us this year. It has been a difficult one, but we have been blessed in so many ways.

And now, it's almost Christmas! I can't believe it came so soon! We will be going to California to visit Adam's family in Soledad (near Salinas). It will be fun, especially for Lily who will get to play with her cousin Amelia. Adam and I are especially excited to spend our anniversary in San Francisco. Ironically, he has practically never been there, even though he grew up less than three hours away. We are going to visit Chinatown and Fisherman's Warf and Ghirardelli Square and drive down Lombard Street. We are going to pass up Alcatraz, since I have already been and it is unbelievably expensive. But if you know of any other destinations we just can't miss, please comment!

Here are a couple more recent pictures.

Lily made a bed for herself under the table.

Mutual teeth-brushing

Lily's first french braids (Shortly after this picture, she started sobbing and demanded that I take them out. So sadly, she never wore them anywhere.)

This was our excursion to Storybook Land in Albany, which Lily really enjoyed.

Merry Christmas!

Catch-up: Halloween and Birthdays

I can't believe it has taken so long for me to write about these things! Halloween was well over a month ago. What can I say, things have been busy. We didn't do anything extremely memorable for Halloween, but Lily's costume was just too cute to pass up. Here are a few pictures of us. In case you can't tell, we were trying to be the family from 101 Dalmatians. Our costume probably would have been more obvious if we had, like, nine kids. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately), that is not the case. So most people struggled to figure out our costumes. But it was fun anyway.

Shortly after Halloween, we had a fire safety activity at our apartment complex. Lily was very excited about the fire truck, as has talked about that day every since.

Lily's 2nd birthday was on November 21st. She got to celebrate twice, since we couldn't have the party until Saturday. Here is Lily opening a few of her presents. The highlights included:

a Minnie Mouse doll from Grandpa and Elizabeth,

several fun books from grandparents,

a baby doll stroller from my good friend Amberly,

and two pairs of firetruck pajamas from my good friend Candice. If you read my first post from November, you will know that Lily greatly coveted Candice's son's firetruck pajamas when they come to visit, so they thoughtfully got her some of her very own!

Lily really wanted an Elmo party, so that's what we did. It was not extravagant in the least, but enough to make her happy. We didn't take many pictures, aside from these Elmo cupcakes I made, which Lily was so very happy about.

This is the community center where we had the party, with a few birthday decorations.

Here is Lily with her friend Jacquelyn, also a BYU fan. :)

Elmo balloon!

Happy birthday Lily!

This was Lily the day after her birthday, trying to wear my shoes to church,

And riding her brand new rocking horse. That was our gift to her, since she loves riding ponies so much.

I also had my birthday in November, although it was nothing super special. I was actually sick the day of my birthday and Adam took Lily to a Christmas parade while I lay on the couch at home. It wasn't a miserable day, but not the most fun birthday of my life.

However, Adam may have made the best birthday cake I have ever had in my life. He made me this peppermint cheesecake. It didn't look exactly like hers, but it was pretty close. Ours just didn't have shaved chocolate on top. I wanted to take a picture of it, but we ate it too fast (and shared with lots of other people). It was absolutely AMAZING! It might be my favorite dessert I have ever, ever had! I have dreams about that cheesecake now, it was so good. Good job Adam. I think I will just have peppermint cheesecake every birthday for the rest of my life.

Otherwise, I spent my birthday reflecting. I am not usually nostalgic on my birthday, but my life will be forever different after this year, without my mom. So I just wanted to think about the past 28 years of my life. I contemplated each one, and thought about what happened and how my life changed. Some of those memories made me cry because I am so grateful for them. These primarily revolved around meeting special people: a few very dear friends, my husband, my daughter. And my conclusion was this: I am so happy. 

True, this has been a hard year. There have been big trials and many little, frustrating struggles. But overall, I feel so very blessed. I have everything that is important. I love my husband and my little girl more than I ever thought possible. Adam truly makes my life amazing, and I am so grateful. He is so patient, unselfish, forgiving, validating, and fun to be with. He is an awesome dad and works so well with the young men in our ward. I know he has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he lives what he believes with full integrity. I have a testimony of this gospel as well, and I am so grateful for my Savior! My life would be nothing like it is without my knowledge of God's love and His plan for me. There are many other blessings, but they are all peripheral to the gospel and my family. We don't have everything, but we have everything that matters, and I am so grateful. I guess that was my birthday gift - the opportunity to contemplate how blessed I am. I hope I can remember that throughout this year, and that 28 can be filled with gratitude and thanksgiving.

Dad's Wedding & Family Pictures

So - the wedding! How was it? Beautiful, fantastic, fun, a little bittersweet, but mostly wonderful. My new step-mother/dad's wife (still figuring out an appropriate title), Elizabeth, was gorgeous and radiant. I was so happy for her! I can't imagine waiting so long to find an eternal companion. She has been so patient, and she deserves this more than just about anyone I know. Her family was visibly ecstatic. And we had a lot of fun too.

It was a long day for Lily, but she enjoyed it anyway. Whenever she sees a picture of my dad or Elizabeth, she gets very excited and says "They got married! Grandpa and Elizabeth got married in the temple!" Of course it's much cuter with her lisp, but I won't attempt to spell it out that way. She loves them both and had a wonderful time experiencing a wedding for the first time. She has since informed me that she wants to wear a wedding dress and get married to a prince (what?!).

The day was a bit hard for me simply because I was barely holding off being sick. I was really sick with a bad cold for a few days before we left for Utah, and did not know if I would be well enough to make the drive. Thankfully, I got feeling substantially better, but I had to sleep a lot and load up on vitamins to build up enough stamina for the wedding day itself. Chasing Lily around a public place like that for so many hours was completely exhausting. I was pretty sick again for several days afterwards, but on the day it counted, we made it work.

The ceremony was beautiful, although it was so crowded in that little room that it was hard to actually see anything. But it was still wonderful. I love the Salt Lake Temple. It's so beautiful and it reminds me of the day Adam and I were married. Some thoughtful relatives were kind enough to watch Lily for us while we were inside, and she told us all about seeing "big Jesus" (the large statue of the Christus in the visitors' center) afterwards. Apparently she had fun.

Then there were flowers and pictures and lots of happy people giving hugs, and finally a lovely wedding dinner in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Everything went so smoothly, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Even the weather cooperated. It was a beautiful fall day, and not too hot or too cold, except for my grandma who is from Idaho. She dressed appropriately for October weather where she lives, and I think she almost died of heat exhaustion in her warm winter garb.

Of course, we took lots of pictures. Actually, my sister Jessica and her husband, Stuart, took lots of pictures. We left our camera in the car. But we stole the pictures from them afterwards, and I can't resist posting the best ones. (Stuart, it is duly noted that you deserve all the credit for these.) And since we were already dressed up in matching outfits, and had a long time to wait around between various nuptial events, we convinced them to take some impromptu family pictures of us. I think they did a great job! Here is a sample.

Wedding Pictures

Family Pictures