I'm on my way to the loony bin....

As if there were any doubt, it's official. I need to check myself into the loony bin. WHY, you ask? Oh it has one little word written all over it...CLARK! Enough said! I just hope we all survive life with this sometimes little monster. Now that wasn't very nice, right? But it is SO how I feel today and most days lately. He is either sweet and great.......OR......not so sweet and not so great. But, we love him. Hopefully as he matures he will gain some self control over all the crying fits. Oh we can only HOPE!!

On to other things. Friday we were able to get a sneak peak at an air show that was taking place over the weekend at Ellington Field, where T.C. does his Guard duty. Since he is on orders right now, we were able to join him in watching a run through of the show. We weren't able to stay for all of it, but we enjoyed what we did see. Let me tell you, that is THE way to watch an air show. NO CROWDS!! (and free!) The Thunderbirds were there, but the kids and I didn't get to stay for that portion...as Ali had a guitar lesson. We did get to watch some old Japanese planes do a mock Pearl Harbor attack...that was pretty cool. Clark was in little boy heaven around all those planes and helicopters. He was too cute. He kept telling me that he could fly the planes and that he would wave to me. We just acted like we knew what we were doing and we walked right up to all the planes...no one ever asked us what we thought we were doing. Ha! We didn't have a good explanation, so that was good.

Saturday we decided to venture down to Galveston to check out the devastation. It was so sad. We used to just love going down there to the beach on the weekends. I don't know if it will ever truly recover. The Strand District where we would take the kids to an old fashioned ice cream and candy shop, was stripped down the sub flooring. There was absolutely NOTHING in the store...just the walls, staircase in the back, and the sub flooring. They had these great old glass candy cases...gone. I can only hope that they are in the process of renovating and hopefully were able to save some of the candy cases. We also drove through neighborhoods and there is still just piles of rubble on the sides of the road. There were piles of peoples earthly possessions, just waiting to be picked up by the garbage trucks. It was humbling, to say the very least. How often do we catch ourselves wishing we had this or that like so and so has? I mean really, and yet so many families lost everything from a storm named Ike. And so we drove back...to our comfortable life, comfortable home, perhaps changed somehow....wondering what in the world could we do to help.

Last night we had our trunk or treat at church. Clark was a puppy dog. That is a funny story in and of itself. We have friends that have a son that is in kindergarten this year. He and Clark are only about 8 or 9 months apart, but he is quite a bit larger that Clark. Clark sometimes gets a few hand me downs from Justin. The last round had a dalmatian Halloween costume in it. Do you think I would have ever put a used costume on Ali when she was that age..........of course not. I would have politely accepted the hand me down, and then turned around and bought her a brand new costume! However, child #2 comes along and I am like "heck yeah he can wear a hand me down costume...sweet!" Not that we love him any less, but money sure has to stretch farther the second time around. Just wait if we ever have a 3rd...heehee.

We were quite proud of Ali's report card for her first 9 weeks. She made all A's. As a treat today, I surprised her and took her to Red Lobster. We NEVER go, but she loves it. (though she hadn't been since we lived in Louisville) Clark was in school, and I just told her to put on her shoes and that I had a plan. She kept trying to guess where we were going. I knew she would never guess Red Lobster, I was right. We pulled into the parking lot (I was watching her in the rear view mirror), and she got the funniest look on her face. She kept saying, "I didn't do anything..why did we come here." We sat down at our table and she kept telling me, "this is so weird, I can't believe we came here." She was so excited...and ordered her favorite, shrimp scampi. She was all smiles! She even came up with a clever explanation of why kids say they are so full but yet still have room for dessert. "I have a place for my food, and it can fill up...but then there is another spot for dessert." So, she was able to order dessert and her choice was a chocolate chip lava cookie with ice cream. I have to admit, it was awesome. Needless to say, we left very full and quite happy. It was a great lunch with our sweet girl.

Today was picture day at Clark's preschool. When I went to pick him up after school, the teacher said, "Clark was such a ham at picture time...he was so funny." That was it, no explanation...and I surely didn't necessarily want to know what he did. Ha! If it was embarrassing, I didn't want to hear it out loud in front of the other moms. So...I laughed...and politely exited the room.

Here are some photos from the last several days.