Camp Clark: January 2012

Uplifting School News

We have some great news to share regarding our school. First, construction for a brand new school has been approved and is now underway! We couldn't be more thrilled since it is very close to the existing location which means a 2-3 minute drive to school from our home. The parents and faculty are ecstatic about this since it has been over a year in the making and there is now light at the end of the tunnel. It sounds like the building will be ready for our 2012-2013 school year in September. WooHoo!

In addition to our new digs, Aspen Academy has been nominated as 1 of only 8 schools in MN (out of thousands of schools) as a "Blue Ribbon School". This is an extremely high honor and acknowledges our academic excellence at every grade level. There is an application process that Aspen will participate in with this nomination, and if selected, we will move on as a national nominee in Washington D.C. We are so proud of our school board, our staff, our children and all the parents in our small community for helping make our school the excellent school it is. Go Aspen!!

Weekend Fun

This was our first weekend in a LONG time that we didn't have anything whatsoever planned which was PERFECT! We had the entire weekend to just do "whatever"...and whatever we did! Friday night we had our traditional disco night at Camp Clark which has turned into a variety of activities performed at the same time: disco dancing to music from the 70's, guitar playing (Dad), throwing football, singing karoake and a tea party with snacks. The kids just love the music Dave and I grew up on which is hysterical. We let LTD stay up a little later but we all got to sleep in the next day. Saturday afternoon after Dylan's basketball, the kiddos and I headed over to Life Time to swim and burn off some energy. When we got home, it was time to say goodbye to our interior Christmas decorations and everybody pitched in cleaning it all up. Since we have not been sledding much this year due to limited snow, we loaded up the troops this afternoon to go tubing at a local ski area. It was a perfect day to be outside and we had a great time. The kiddos are signed up for downhill ski lessons for the month of February so they are really excited to give that a whirl too. We topped it off with hot cocoa while sitting at an outdoor bonfire. Nothing better than the smell of an outdoor bonfire in the middle of winter.

Tomorrow it's back to work for me but the kiddos have the day off school which means one more day of play time. LTD have friends coming over for a full day of "playing". Wish I could play too!

Christmas Memories

Christmas and the New Year celebration are long over and 2012 is in full gear. As we look back, it was a "different" Christmas without Papa Egg. We all missed him dearly but Grandma Good did her very best to make Christmas wonderful as always, despite how sad she felt inside. Grandma, your love always makes us smile. In addition to a quiet Christmas in Bismarck, we also got to share time in Fargo with Uncle Ken and LTD's cousins and Papa and Grandma Clark who flew in from Texas to be with their grandkids. The slumber party in Fargo was a blast for LTD even though it took them a few days to recover. We also got to share time with Papa and Grandma Kemmet back in Bismarck which was a very nice treat as well. The only negative was getting the stomach flu which we ALL came down with which was SO lovely, especially since 3 of us had it on Christmas day.

On New Years Eve, we had a quaint gathering of friends, family and neighbors back home in Savage. It was the perfect size gathering and so nice to connect with everybody and learn more about our fun neighbors. The Brigham family stayed overnight which is kind of a tradition between our two families. Loads of fun and lots of laughter!

We look forward to a new year full of happiness, health, joy and promise. God has been really good to us and we pray he continues to guide us and teach us what His purpose is for us in this life. We also pray He can guide Obama right out the Oval Office door :)