Fire!!!

I took this picture from across the valley where I work. This fire burned quite a few acres for a couple of days before it was put out. It is pretty dramatic when it is so close to the city and easy to see! For once the west-siders have the advantage, ha.

How about that Michael Phelps?

Wow. This guy is a true inspiration. 8 gold medals. What more can you say? He was in the pool training for 5 hours every day. (And he consumes between eight and ten thousand calories a day. Yikes.) Anyway, Tom and I have enjoyed watching some of the Olympics, and every morning I looked forward to the newspaper headlines to find out if Michael had gotten his next gold. It was a close one sometimes, but I am truly amazed that he actually did it. I think I will remember this for a long time. My favorite moment is the 4 x 100 freestyle relay. You can watch it here. The race is toward the end of the video. It is worth watching!

We were also blown away by the Opening Ceremonies. China really put on an impressive show. You can watch highlights of that here as well.

Proof that I really am a farmer's daughter

Tom took this picture of me driving Dad's combine, in the middle of the night. What get's more farmer-girl than that? :)

What's happenin' at the Clarks

This week, Abby lost her first tooth! Her eyes are looking a lot less puffy, aren't they? The doctor loaded us up with some allergy medicine ($$$$$- ugh) but it is doing the trick. She wasn't concerned about the asthma symptoms. Probably a side effect of the allergies.

I may have mentioned my work is trying a new flex schedule, and I'm allowed to work 4 10-hour days with Friday's off. Last Friday was my first Friday off, but it was a busy day in stamp-land, so I had quite a bit of work to do from home. Tom had spent the week on the road, so his boss let him work from home that day so he could walk Abby to school and see her classroom. Friday afternoon found us all at the dining room table with our laptops. Abby was playing a game online, and Sarah was not to be left out. I just had to get up and snap a photo of the moment.


Mom and Dad, this pix is for you. See how big these trees are growing that you bought for us last spring?

We have just a few yummy blackberries this year. Hoping the plant will take off next year!

It wasn't looking like we would get any raspberries this year, dispite how healthy and large the plants are. But, low and behold, I see the fruit is starting to come. They are covered with bees right now.

We finally got a frame put up around our mirror in our entry. It finishes it off so nice!

Abby's first week of Kindergarten is going well. She is such a big girl. After the first day she wanted to just hop out of the car and go up to the door herself. No Mom assistance necessary- and she is already talking about her new friends.

Except... she has really been suffering from allergies... puffy eyes especially. I don't know what is triggering it. Also, she has had a couple of weird episodes at night. I didn't think much about it until last night when it occurred to me that it might be asthma symptoms. For example, she is swallowing a lot and wheezing and has a really shallow cough. From the swallowing I thought she was needing to throw up, or was having heart burn or something, but I read that asthma creates extra mucus, so maybe that is it. I made an appt. with the dr. tomorrow morning.

Kindergarten!

Hi! This is Abby! I'm here to tell you about my first day of school! Mom took pictures of me in my new school clothes.
Foothills Elementary is a really great school. Mrs. Tipton is my school teacher. She has really pretty hair and she is really nice. She even gave me a brownie after school.
I saw Aiden and Zach from my daycare today. This is a picture of my new class lining up for school. Looks like I'm the biggest one, huh?
My Mom painted my hand orange. It tickled.
I was working while my mom was helping me. Yay- it was a great first day!
More photos here. Oops, I forgot something. Even Mrs. Tipton has blonde hair but really short and pretty. I met 2 girls named Gemma and Eliza in my table group. It is the blue group. The other groups were red, yellow, and green. My favorite color is blue.

an early anniversary gift

This weekend we replaced this mess...
with this beauty:
Yes, I was aware of the strange irony of taking a photo of my new camera with my old camera. Our old Sony was a good old friend, but not so reliable lately, and definitely beat up. It was time for a replacement. Hopefully the quality of my photos will improve (if I can learn to use it properly!) I'll let YOU decide.

more harvest

Here is an update about the rest of our time in Montana. On Tuesday when Amma (mom) was working, we spent a little time in Fort Benton visiting the library, store, levee, and aunt Ruth. We also stopped to see my old piano teacher, Doris Rowe (below), and heard about her recent 80th birthday party. She is so sweet.

We also stopped to take some pictures of the Shep statue. If you haven't heard the story of Shep and are wondering what is so special about a dog that you need a statue of him, the story is on the sign below. He has almost made Fort Benton more famous than Lewis and Clark! :)


Back on the farm, I spent several hours on Wednesday cutting peas in the combine for dad. I managed to get through it all without breaking the combine or eating rocks :) I'll have to post some pictures later for proof. All the years growing up on the farm I was missing out and I never had a chance to try it. I told mom if I were ever a farmers wife I wouldn't be much of the cookin' kind. Driving combine was much more fun :) Last night, after Tom got back, we went out on the combine together. Dad went to bed and left Tom and I to run it, so I taught Tom and between the two of us we ran it until almost 3 AM. Real farmers!

I forget how many animals there are on the farm. You'd think you'd see more in the mountains, but we've seen way more out here. We saw plenty of antelope, bunnies, gophers, coyotes... fortunately no rattlesnakes. Here is a quick photo of a fox we saw the other night.

Today we have to leave to head down to Bozeman. The week has gone too fast, but we were glad for the time we had. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for everything!