Trip to Washington!

And we're back! Hello everyone! We have had a very busy past month or so with my clinical year ending, moving into a new place, and then a fun trip to Washington! For the past 6 years Josh has been telling me all about the Ellensburg Rodeo, "the greatest show on dirt"! He's talked about it so much that I wanted to go and find out for myself! So, over the Labor Day weekend, and during my week and a half break from school, we headed to Washington. We stayed in Ellensburg with the Horsley family (thanks again for the hospitality and good food) for 5 days and then spent a few days in Seattle before coming back home. We had a great vacation and loved spending time in cooler weather surrounded by good friends and family! I posted a bunch of pictures from the trip because those are more fun to look at than to read anything I have to say! They are not in order, in fact, they're posted from the end of our trip to the beginning. Have fun! Oh yeah, that rodeo was "The greatest show on dirt"! Unfortunately they can't say that anymore because of a lawsuit from some lame guys (Ringling Brothers) who use "The greatest show on earth".


This is me on a random mountain ledge, we missed the boat to go whale watching so instead we headed over towards the Cascades National Park and went looking for Bigfoot. Unfortunately we didn't find him, but we did find lots of waterfalls, rivers, and beautiful mountains!

Before heading east, we spent a few hours cruising around Antecortes looking out towards the San Juan Islands. It was beautiful! As you can see from Josh's facial expression we were bummed to have missed the Orca watching cruise.

Josh got to see Jeremy Kukes (his long time high school buddy) and his family when we went to dinner at The Palace in Ellensburg.

Old friends, watch out they might be older but they're still crazy! Jeremy, Josh, Eric

Josh and I (and a good picture of my chubby belly poking out! Good thing I'm pregnant!) in Seattle at the Space Center. We didn't go up, but we did check out the music museum next door!

Me loving all the gorgeous fresh flowers at Pikes Place Market! I wish I could've brought some of them home with me!

Fish throwing at Pikes Place Market

Lots of fish, lots of stinky smelly goodness!


We went up to Salmon de Sac and Eric decided he was going to jump off the bridge! We all wanted to; however, both Josh and I were on the injured reserve (I have a baby in my belly and Josh had stitches in his knee) so Eric being "The Man" decided to do the deed himself! Apparently Eric (the smart one of the bunch) had always watched the guys do their crazy stunts and had never jumped off the bridge! He demanded the shorts that Brett had, put them on and headed over to the bridge in the 50 degree weather. He posed for the camera and then jumped! Josh says it made his year!

Eric after his plunge into the freezing river! The bridge is about 25 ft or so...but Josh missed the actual jump with the camera. But don't worry, Brett is going to e-mail us a copy so keep checking back for the update.

This is the group that went up to Salmon La Sac, before the bridge jumping. From left to right, Josh, Jack, Elise, Brett, Eric.

Paula and Lynette eating their elephant ears at the Kittitas County fair! Yum!

Although Josh had 16 stitches in his knee (he cut it open playing soccer 2 nights before we left to Washington) he still wanted to go on a bike ride with Jack. They were supposed to do 100 miles but due to the injury and the cold windy weather, they only went 20 miles. Josh is in Jack's riding gear and it was pretty funny!

Eric, Brett, Josh up at Lions Rock. It was beautiful but very windy and cold!

Josh and I with the infamous Ellensburg bull! It sits in the center of town and apparently Josh has some history with it. He used to sneak over to it in the late hours and spray paint the testicles blue. Oh my husband what a character! ;)

Josh and I up at Lions Rock

We went and picked our own sweet corn! It was so good. Josh took off like a mad man into the corn field (apparently he's done this before) looking for "the good stuff" while I struggled to keep up and kept falling all over the corn!

Jack took us up to Quartz mountain one morning. It was a beautiful drive and fun to be back in the mountains. We saw a coyote and some campers but mostly the place was quiet. We were supposed to be able to see Mt. Rainer in the backround but it was covered in clouds.

Snoqualamie Falls
Josh, Paula, Scott at the viewing area of Snoqualamie Falls.

Paula and Scott at the troll that lives under the bridge in Seattle. It's near the U district (I think) and is a bit random but fun!

A picture of Mt. Rainer from the car while we were on our way to the airport our last night.

2 years of marriage and Yep...I'm pregnant!

Thank you to all of you who have made our little announcement that much more fun! We are so excited to be parents and to answer the number 1 question we've received....Baby Clark is coming March 09! Which really makes me barely pregnant! Currently I am 9 weeks-and no I haven't been feeling too sick, yet. And although I know from a medical stand point (and hopefully some common sense) that our baby is only the size of a grape and I'm not supposed to be showing, I swear my belly is poking out and my clothes are already getting small! Josh keeps saying I'm just going to have a big baby! Maybe it's just gas??? Haha! Realistically I just need to eat better! :)

Below are a couple pictures from us celebrating our 2 year anniversary this past Monday. We went out to dinner and splurged on dessert. It was a lot of fun. I'm so grateful to be married to my best friend and my "match match". I couldn't have wished for a better man to share my life with. I love you so much babe!

The big day has finally arrived!

We had an appointment at the birthing center today and were able to hear a heart beat!

July Fun...

We got a good laugh at this car last night. It's a decked out Lincoln with an obvious lift and huge rims and tires as well as Lamborgini doors! Crazy! We went with some friends to South Beach last night and ate at a place called Big Pink...we got there around midnight and literally searched an hour for a parking space on the street when we finally gave in and payed $10 to park in a lot. We ate and finished our "dinner" at around 2am. On our walk back to our car Josh and Punj witnessed some domestic violence taking place in the street. A man punched his wife so hard that her legs literally flew out from under her. Us girls saw her on the ground after the fact and my first impression was that she was drunk and fumbling in the street. Josh was ready to crush the guy! Anyway, to make a long story short we ended up helping this woman get her face cleaned up and then called the police. When we drove past a while later they had arrested the guy...good thing. I guess you know why we hardly ever go to South Beach!!

Another interesting adventure yesterday...we went to a wedding on a beach in Key Biscayne and following the wedding this religious group started baptizing people in the ocean. It was a bit strange to us, reminded me of "O Brother Where Art Thou". I guess it's good to see them demonstrating some kind of faith huh?

A couple in our ward were married yesterday, it was a beautiful setting but very hot!

Josh and I before the wedding. Everyone was supposed to wear all white which made everthing look uniform and very beautiful.

We stopped at a park near our home last weekend. There is always so much wildlife at this park! It's fun to go and see it all! This spider grossed me out!

This turtle was the largest one in the water, most of the others were a lot smaller.

Josh had fun taking pictures of this iguana. I personally don't like getting too close to large reptiles!

This next bunch of pictures were taken a few weeks ago. We had lots of fun bowling!!

Genie and Jamie
Josh and I
Grant and Genie
That's me...I'm kind of a dork!

The Swenson's and the Recalde's.

Going to see the Marlins play!

At the game!

Memories...

I found this on my friend Jamie's blog and thought it would be fun. Here is how it goes

The Memory Post

1. As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! If we're only blogging friends, write about a post that is most memorable.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses.

3. If the memory happens to involve my family, please include them!

4. If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all ☺ And please do this on your page too, so we can all share in the fun times together. :)

Catching up

The past 6 weeks have been a whirlwind around here. I was doing my surgery rotation and working 60 hour weeks. I'm sure that doesn't sound too bad to any resident out there, but it was crazy trying to run a home, and never being home. Luckily I had a lot of help from Josh-he pretty much saved me by keeping up on our laundry, feeding me, and making sure I had enough food to get me through my long surgery days. Anyway, the rotation is over now so things are starting to get back to normal. Therefore, I am catching up on our blog as well!


North Carolina:

Josh and I decided to take a last minute trip to Wilmington, North Carolina over the 4th of July weekend. We had been thinking about moving up that way and decided it would be fun to go and check things out. Josh's good friend Brett lives in Raleigh so he drove down with his girlfriend to spend the weekend with us. It was a lot of fun to see him, meet Elise, and check out North Carolina. I had Friday the 4th off so Josh and I left on Thursday night (after a long nap) and drove all night. It took us about 12 hours total to drive including an hour breakfast stop in South Carolina.


This is pretty much what the road looked like from just north of Palm Beach, FL to Wilmington.

Josh drove the majority of the way, I took over for the last couple hundred miles.

This is Josh eating at our new favorite breakfast place, Shoney's...yeah right! We tried their breakfast buffet of chitlings, grits, and anything else greasy that you can think of! Definitely a southern style breakfast in South Carolina! So gross!!

Due to the holiday weekend, the hotels were packed and wanted outrageous prices to stay so we camped at the KOA!! It was an adventure for sure!

This is Topsail Beach just a few miles North of Wilmington. It was a beautiful place filled with really nice beach homes and properties!


This was our campsite. I forgot to take pictures after we set up the tents but you get an idea anyway! It wasn't a bad spot, just very hot and humid! I don't think Josh really slept that night, poor guy.

This is downtown Wilmington, which sits right on a river. It's historical and fun! They handed out these silly hats for the 4th.

This is down south a bit from Wilmington on an old Civil War battlefield. It was right on the Atlantic and so pretty! Very hot though, that's for sure. I felt so scrubby from our 12 hour car ride and I'm still in my sweats!

Brett, Elise, and Josh at the battlefield



Have you ever seen the old TV show Dawson's Creek? Wilmington is apparently where it was filmed so now you have an idea of what the place looked like! It was very pretty!

Okay, these next couple are for Mark and Heidi...this is the soccer stadium. It looked pretty nice.




Cooking at the Clarks...

Most of you know that Josh loves to entertain. I'm getting more used to it as time goes on, but Josh is definitely better at it than I am! These next couple pictures are kind of random but these were taken one night when we were having a new family in our ward over for dinner. It was quite the project but it turned out very nice!


Josh is the ultimate chef and I try to take lessons from him!

Texas de Brazil...

Our friends Punge and Jamie. It was Punge's birthday in June so we went to dinner at Texas de Brazil. It was very good! Happy Birthday Punge (last month).