Clarkfam

Mike and Rachel Guymon Family

Dearest Family,

FYI: This entry now goes to Mike’s family as well. We love reading about you!! We love hearing what you all are doing. Mel and Shannon, have you guys moved yet? Where and when? I guess I haven’t done the best job of telling the kids everything that is going on with all the family. I said something about Adam and Jessica building their house and the girls said, “Cool! When are they moving to Oklahoma?” In my defense, I KNOW I told them they were moving there the same time we were moving to Minnesota but somehow that didn’t stick.

October cruised right on by here. Soccer ended at the end of the month and we were all glad since all the games were at night in the freezing cold. Amber’s last game was a 7 p.m. and Mike was out of town. I had to take all the kids and Braden had a fever and a yucky cough. I pumped him full of Advil and he did okay.

We had MEA (Minnesota Education Association) week where the kids were out of school for a few days. We went to a Rock and Mineral Show where the kids got to do crafts, collect some cool rocks, and they won 2 awesome door prizes.

Mason had his Kindergarten screening test this month that all 3 ½ - 5 yr. olds are required by law to have. He passed everything except they said he couldn’t hear “middle tones.” They rechecked him this week and he was able to hear them. Yeah!! We are so grateful that he has come so far so fast after not being able to say 1 word when he was 2. The couple of sounds he has a hard time saying the specialist said are age appropriate and he has until he is 6 or 7 to master them!!

On the flip side, after I attended a few ECFE classes with the boys and listened to some little kids talk, I realized that even though Braden talks more than Mason did, we can’t understand him and Braden sounds nothing like the little girls singing the songs word for word at school. So I asked a few questions and Early Intervention came to our house to do a pre-evaluation. He could point to all the things they asked and he identified all 15 pictures when asked. I thought he did great. When asked what do you do with oven/stove, he answered, “Mom!” When they went over the results with me, they said he was very talkative and responsive but got a low score because he didn’t put any of the ends on any of the words. They come on Friday to do the entire evaluation and see if he qualifies for help. If he does, they come to our house until he is 3 and they he would go to the school for speech. Braden had the flu for a week and then got an ear infection. After 2 weeks he is still coughing a little but sleeping better! He is back to his silly crazy self! (i.e. standing on the table pretending to be a monster, chasing the others while they run in fear, smiling a mischievous smile when you ask him to stop doing something and he smiles and continues to do it—basically being a two year old) It is good to have him back!

Amberly is loving school, is one of the top readers in her class, and is a friend to everyone. She really likes to read the Bones mysteries, as well as any Young Cam Jansen and Cam Jansen books. She is also a great soccer player with quite a number of goals under her belt, (or shin guard)! Amberly loves to make people laugh!!

Talia and Sarah are doing great in school!! Their teachers are great and we are very impressed with the school system here. They loved playing soccer this year and are awesome defenders!!! They love to play school with Amber and her little friends. The 5^th grades here have a mile run they time and the top runners from each class are invited to a big cross country style mile run. Well, the girls both placed at the top in their classes and did great at the run on Saturday. They wanted to puke when they finished. I told them that is how you can tell if you ran your hardest. They said they didn’t think cross-country running was in their future. I’ll keep working on them!! Amber, Talia, and Sarah started piano a few weeks ago and they are excited to be playing again. Amber is so excited to start and loves to practice!! Mom loves that too.

Mike is busy, busy, busy. He is an awesome dad and husband. He Sunday school class is a handful for him each week. Imagine 10 or so 12 & 13 year olds in a small classroom talking back and forth the ENTIRE lesson. They rarely stop talking for more than 4 seconds even when someone is reading a scripture. It drives Mike crazy but he has been asked to “channel their energy” instead of asking them to shut up – which is what I want to do when I go in to help.

Rachel kept busy with the regular stuff and got Braden’s flu. I am still sick after 6 days and ready to scream. No wonder it took Braden 2 weeks to feel completely better. I am feeling somewhat better and the end is in sight. Let’s just hope the others don’t get it! They can’t afford to miss that much school. We will be checking into flu shots very soon!!!

Everyone just came back from trick-or-treating and they have a ton of candy. Sarah was a Jedi, Talia was a Japanese girl (although they were “Minnesota Twins” for school and church party—get it—the baseball team Minnesota TwinsJ), Amber was an Indian, Mason was, of course, a Jedi, and Braden was a pirate.

We love you all tons and hope you are loving life amidst the chaos and uncertainty of life. Mom, hang in there!! Along the idea of one of Dad’s favorite sayings, “The stress will be gone when you have finished everything on your list!” (for those of you that don’t know Dad’s saying –It will feel better when it stops hurting.) We love you and appreciate everything you are doing for us all!

Love, The Minnesota Guymons

Rich and Rebecca Jarvis Family

Hi Everyone!! We are so excited about the chance to read up on how everyone is doing. We have had a fun and busy month. The highlights have been going to the pumpkin patch/corn maze, and our family vacation to Utah. We went just down the road to pick pumpkins, go on a homemade train ride, and get lost in our very first corn maze. The kids of course picked the biggest pumpkins they could find and got us lost in the maze. But we did eventuallly make it out and made some fun memories. Michael kept saying that he knew the way and would get us out for sure!! And you know how our family loves trains, well they thought that ride was pretty fun.

Then, we pulled the kids out of school for a week and went on our family vacation for the year. We went to Utah and stayed with our dear friends, Carsen and Michelle, who watched Joseph for the day so we could go to Lagoon with the oldest three. We thought we were being so smart going during the school year to avoid the crowds, little did we know that it was UEA weekend for all the Utah schools, thus, the whole state seemed to be there. But we still had fun! Brooklynn and Richy went on their first rollercoaster, and Michael braved the TidalWave, which is the big boat that swings back and forth very high, so that you feel weightless for a few moments at the top of each swing. They all went on lots of kiddie rides too. By the end of our day, they were finally brave enough to try some real rides, but alas, it was time to go.

We were also able to hike down in Zion's, go to a huge dinosaur museum, Hill Air Force museum, and to stop at 6 different Temples and take pictures of the kids in front of them. They are each going to line one whole wall in their rooms with pictures of them in front of Temples. We had quite the memorable experience at the Jordan River Temple. It was 9am, and probably about 35 degrees outside. We all had on our warmest winter coats and hats and had just reminded the boys of the need to be reverent around the temple. Well, this particular temple has a big round relflection pool out in front, and soon, the boys had forgotten about being reverent, and they decided to chase each others shadows. Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going. Michael got a little too close to the pool and did a full front flip into it without even realizing what was happening. I pulled him out and Rich got a quick picture of the now very sad Michael. He didn't even cry, he just stood there with steam coming off of his soaking wet clothes with this totally shocked look on his face. I ran to the car and grabbed his blanket just as a cute little old lady ran out from inside the Temple in her white dress. She had witnessed the whole thing and insisted we bring him inside to get warm and change into dry clothes. Three or four of these sweet Temple workers fussed over Michael who was still shocked that he had actually fallen in the pool. Michael didn't say anything for over and hour!!! It was sooooo funny, and sooo sad! When we took the kids later to the Distribution Center in SLC, he asked for a picture of the Temple he "fell in at."

We also had a lot of fun swimming at the hotels we stayed at and stopping to have dinner with Rich's sister, Rachel in Orem. We finished our week at Mary and Mike's house in Twin Falls, visiting and playing with more cousins. It is so fun to have the kids play with their cousins. We are anxious for them to be able to see all their cousins whenever plans permit. Know that everyone is always welcome!!

Well, we are all healthy and happy and hope you are too!! We hope everyone is getting out on regular date nights and doing lots of things to strenthen their marriages!! We are sadly seeing a bunch of people around us having problems and are daily grateful for each other!!! Take Care of each other!!! Love, Bec