I Am Alive.....

.......barely! I really hate to move. I know there are many of you that will agree with me. Moving with children has always been a challenge, but moving with a special needs child in the mix is only understood by those who've done it. School doesn't start until the 28th and I can't wait. I need them all out of the house so I can get things organized. I'm very tired of living out of boxes and bags. Throw in the fact that I am team mom for Joshua's football team and "head team mom" of all the team moms (a position I was appointed at a meeting I was not in attendance for) with a charity game coming up for Shriner's Hospital, it has been even more interesting. I am receiving baskets for the auction being added to all the junk in my house. I also am the chair for The Family Fun Committee at the boys elementary school. We are doing an ice-cream social for Open House. This a.m. I had to order 900 more cones and 24 more gallons of ice-cream. Life is never boring and for that I'm thankful. I do sometimes wish for a little quiet! I am including these pictures to prove how much of a mess I really am in. If you do not hear from me for a long time, please send someone to check under a pile! This was our old house. We had moved some beds. This is how I woke up and found Andrew sleeping one morning.

These curtains really need to go! These are found in Aaron and Jared's room.

The mess in Aaron and Jared's room.

Bringing all the laundry over and sitting it in my living room/dining room. At least Joshua was able to sit and eat breakfast. (I don't normally allow hats at the table, he was about to leave with some friends to go to Kings Island)

This is our closet size bedroom. We cannot shut the door yet.

The mud room. I will love having this when it is organized. The curio is going in the yard sale tomorrow.

I can't wait to cook real food again. I am so tired of eating out! The kitchen is small so the boxes are really in the way!

The basement where everything else was thrown.

The endless mounds of laundry! I will hopefully return soon........

Moving

Please pray for us. We are in the process of moving into a different house. Aaron has a difficult time with change and has had many issues over the last few days. We also had to give one of our cats to my dad. Our new landlord is letting us keep only one. My sister has a cat already and my dad wasn't too thrilled with the idea, but he caved and did it for me and the kids. I'm supposed to be finding her a new home. I'll update after the move, please try and remember us in your prayers. Thanks!

The Trouble of Only Having Sons....

....is they play rough. In other words, when you finally have a daughter for a week, she becomes part of the chaos. In this picture you can see the boys have made Rachel their quarterback. You may also notice the other two are in full gear. Rachel is just placed in position without any protection. This photo was taken the next day at a bowling alley. You can see she survived the football practice and was unharmed. Isn't she beautiful? I think she must really be mine. hehe

My Daughter is Coming for a Visit!

Yes, you did read the title correctly. I know you all think I have just 4 boys, but I have a daughter that I get once a year. Her name is Rachel. That is actually what I was going to name two of my boys had they been girls. Ok, so Rachel isn't really my daughter, but I love her just the same. My dear friend, Tina, was my neighbor. Rachel and Joshua are the same age and were in class together. In 2003, Tina needed someone to help with Rachel for 2-4 wks. during the summer. Tina's grandmother helped with the kids and was going home for a visit. Well, during her visit, she fell and broke her hip. The few weeks turned into an entire summer. It was the greatest! Rachel truly became part of our family. Tina has sinced moved to Kentucky, near Louisville. It has been so hard to have her farther away. It is so great to have Rachel for one full week every summer. The boys call her their "sister" and Scott and I enjoy a "daughter" for a little while. Rachel has asked her mom if she thought she would be "blog worthy" after this visit. I told her I was so excited she was blog worthy before she even gets here!! I will take lots of pictures for new blogs. We get her tomorrow evening. Please pray for her families safe trip and for her mom's seperation anxiety!

Update

The good news is the rash is gone and no one got it! We still don't know what it was, but at least it's gone!

Strange Rash

We in the Clark household prefer to do things differently. I have always had illnesses in unusual ways, and now my children take after me. Aaron has an undiagnosed "syndrome" that has baffled doctors since his birth. Now Jared has a rash that the doctor can't figure out. If you look closely and have ever had an allergic drug reaction, this is what is looks like. However, he hasn't been on any medicine, used any new soaps, detergents and so on. It doesn't itch, but does hurt if touched too much. This is the reason for him to be half naked. The doctor said it could be a virus (and be contagious) so give him benadryl and keep him away from the general public. Now for the rest of us, we just sit and wait to break out! It is all over his body, with the exception of his head.

I'm Back, and I Finally Have Pictures of My Husband!

I can't even try to begin to explain to you all how incredible this trip was. I hope the kids learned as much as I did! I know that traveling with 31 5th and 6th graders sounds frightening (I was actually scared to death), however, it was a blessing! These kids worked so hard and put all their efforts into God's kingdom. It was amazing. This is our Children's Pastor, Julie. Her theme for this week was to let God stretch you. This is her and a girl named Kayleigh demostrating a stretching doll. We joined Trevveca Church of the Nazarene for this week. They had 6 kids and 3 adults that worked and had fun with us all week.

This is our van. We had 7 boys with us everytime we were in our van. On the way home we had to add more due to an emergency with one girl (she is fine) but the last 2 hours home we had 10 boys!

This is Scott driving our van!

This was my favorite sign on the road into the YMCA Camp that we stayed at.

We had 2 Scotts on the trip. My Scott is the one in the red shirt. Scott H. drove a moving truck down with all the luggage and supplies. During our trips through town, he rode with us. It was great to get to know him better!

We also had 2 Leslie's. The Children's Pastor at Trevvecca is also named Leslie. It was fun being around someone with the same name. It's not something that happens often to me.

This is Terry. She came with her grandson, Anthony. She is an amazing lady. She is a wonderful christian influence. She only has one leg. She had her left leg amputated at age 40 (she is now 72) due to bone cancer. She is a miracle from God. She walks with crutches that you use with your hands (not the ones that go under her shoulder) and makes it look so easy! She was a blessing to have on the trip.

I love Drew! He was in my car the whole week and I spent a lot of time with him. I would threaten to tell his aunts in my blog if he gave me a hard time about anything (that's how I got this picture)! I called him by best friend. I had so much fun with him. He worked hard all week and was great with the kids. He was also in my group that canvased the neighborhood. He did an amazing job. Brenda and Jana can be proud!

We worked hard all week, but had so much fun too. This is at one of the restaurants that we went to. This is Drew, Matt and Tanner.

This is Sarah. She is 19 and has just been called to be a Children's Pastor. She is working with Julie this summer. She is technically not an intern yet, but we have been working her hard! She looks like she's 12. Every restaurant gave her a kiddie cup and had her order from the kids menu! We had fun with that! This is her with her kiddie cup!

Pump It Up was another place we went to. If you've never heard of it, it is huge inflatables that you can jump in and they have slides and obstacle courses. This was Scott with his own game for the kids. He would run and jump on the one side while another kid was laying on the other. When Scott would land, they would go flying. Needless to say, Scott had a great work out that night. All the kids wanted to fly.

This was Scott coming down the slide at the end of an obstacle course.

Now for our work pictures........




This was our puppet team for day one.

This is the library we worked with and for. They allowed us to put our "celebration" and VBS on there. They gave us a room to hold the service and set up outside.

This is the neighborhood we passed out flyers to invite to our VBS. The first day was a bit scary, but by day 2 we had no fears. We were well accepted!

We made cottoncandy for the kids. Scott H. was covered!

Singing and hearing stories about Jesus......

Joshua and Dakota helping two kids with a craft......

Scott helping kids with a craft (this really touched my heart, I don't have much opportunity to see Scott with other kids)......

This is me with a lady named Carol and 2 of her grandkids. She is a new christian and I told her I would pray for her.....

This is Dakota painting a child......

We also did work outside for the library and the neighborhood. This is me mulching....

Boys picking up trash......

This is all of us outside the library. They were so thankful and great to work with!

After 2 days in the neighborhood, we helped a hispanic church. Pastor Pedro Cruz and his wife have been there for 3 years. They started with 60 members, and now have 172. They do everything alone and were very grateful for our help.

This fence needed to be removed and the swingset inside needed to be relocated.......

Pastor Pedro helping out......(this is after the swingset was moved I'm a little out of order)

Drew putting on new grills after the doors had been painted......

Amanda and me painting the rails.....

The swingset in its original place......

This is the shed we were going to paint. The week before our arrival, a storm knocked over the tree and smashed the shed, with all their lawn equipment and tools inside. We tore the shed apart and disposed of it........

Landscaped the church.......

Had interior painting to do....... (This is Derek)

We had such a great time! I know that I've been changed by this experience, and I pray many others were too. It was very hot and humid, and the work was hard. These kids were a pleasure to be with and I'm so thankful I was able to go. I'm proud of each and every child for all their efforts and attitudes!





This is Joshua and Dakota our last morning there.