Bros come to visit

So, this weekend I was lucky to have a couple of my brothers come in to town. I've been a lucky a few times this summer. One flew in from Chicago and the other rode a bus down from Manhattan. And yet another person (brother's girlfriend) drove for hours from southern Virginia to come for the visit.

I offered a cramped condo (storing 1.5 rooms of furniture for someone for one month), little tidbits of food, and driving without a chauffeurs license.

We never did meet up with different cousins, as it always seems to coordinate more than 2-3 people nowadays.

Craig offered never ending meals at the Silver Diner.























We took a walk at Manassas Battlefield Park, if only to experience Virgina with fewer people. Perhaps I should sign up to be a tour guide since I frequent it way too much!



















It's always great to catch up with members of the family. Plus, they forced me to open some gifts that I received over two years ago - Monopoly and Clue. Craig won Monopoly and Amber won Clue, but does it matter that I was a close second on Monopoly?

Ahhhh well. I was comforted that one night all the youngins feel asleep before me ....and I'm 11 years older than the oldest of them.

That counts as a secret happiness in my book. More later. I'm catching from four days of visitors and long hours of lost work....but I'm not complaining.

Memory Lane - shirtless brothers?

Warning! Shirtless brothers.


A few years ago I scanned about 50 family photo albums and about 20 slide trays into the computer. All of those pictures were fairly normal. They covered the 1800s through until about they year 2000. These were the growing up years of the four girls (oldest) and the younger years of my four brothers. It was also before digital cameras.

Now, I've secured a whole slew of pictures from my parent's computers that were taken over the last 9-10 years. I've been uploading them to Picasa so we can share all our photographs.

Interesting stuff. Lots of pictures of trips, of relatives, of flowers, of house remodeling and all of my brothers taking turns posing for the camera. Yes, that's right. We always think women are spending all the time in front of the mirror, but I'm fairly sure that I have evidence that this is not so. There are hundreds of pictures of boys flexing their muscles, boys posing in the mirror sucking in their cheeks to make their cheekbones look more defined and hundreds of pictures of partial haircuts and beard growth/beard shavings. To me they are basically all one in the same. We might as well save 5-6 of the pictures and that covers them all. But, alas, each has significant meaning that only people who know will know.

Don't believe me? Proof below:









Like I said - hundreds of these throughout all of the digital folders.

I mean, how else would we know that Brett used TWO shavers to get his head ready for a swim meet?

Very important historical documentation.

Facebook Funnies

Some people leave their Facebook feed fairly open for all of us to follow. I think I have quite a bit of my security settings enabled and so I rarely have anything feeding into the main feed. Let me know if I'm just not aware.

Anyway, it's sometimes fun to look at pictures people have posted. Some are beautiful wedding pictures, some are funny and some are from back in the day.

I was looking through a few of Craig's today and I found the comments even more entertaining than the pictures. It is a rainy day and so perhaps anything amuses me, but thought I'd copy/paste a couple of them into my blog for at least family entertainment value.

Photo One: Craig and Scot in Michigan

Scot wroteat 10:58am on January 1st, 2007
who is that pimp in the fur coat?

Craig wroteat 2:17pm on January 2nd, 2007
I think Scot is flashing gang signs

Scot wroteat 12:14pm
sweet reindeer coat... i think only we, being bread for the mafia from an early age, could pull this off

Photo 2: Craig and Scot at a Michigan beach.

Scot wroteat 10:59am on January 1st, 2007
again, this raw sexiness is overpowering!

Kiley wroteat 10:20pm on January 1st, 2007
Again with the no shirt thing.

Craig wroteat 2:18pm on January 2nd, 2007
Scot looks to funny to NOT post this one

Alma wroteat 9:37pm on January 6th, 2007
Craig, you have a belly button on your back. That is how powerful you are and why you were born so big. You had the benefit of two umbilical cords!Oh your left arm is also bending backwards.

Photo 3: Boys in Indiana - Craig, Scot and Brett

Craig wroteat 2:21pm on January 2nd, 2007
I am asking Brett "What the ...... is Scot doing?"

Rachelle wroteat 2:37pm on January 2nd, 2007
The real question is, "How can I get any of these men, including the jail-bait one???"

Alma wroteat 9:42pm on January 12th, 2007
Is that one on the right Pee Wee Herman?

Renaye wroteat 10:42am on January 10th, 2008
Don't know....but the one in the middle is definitely GEORGE MCFLY!!!!!!!!!

My Debut in the lead cast of a Hollywood Movie

My brother Christopher announced to the family today that I am in the lead cast of the Forever Strong movie ....that is, according to the following blog - http://hollywood-tollywood.blogspot.com/2008/08/hollywood-sport-film-forever-strong.html . My brother Craig, who is actually in the movie, is also a lead cast member according to this blog.

Obviously, they just posted what my brother Christopher put on wikipedia a few months ago.

And so, I've made my Hollywood debut. Let's hope that this is as far as it ever goes. But, perhaps if I am lucky, someone will actually check into what the "lead crowd filler" role actually is and maybe I will get an interview with someone or see some blog post talking about the absurdity of someone being cast as a live crowd filler.

Oh, and I clicked on this link - http://www.rugbymovie.com/ - and if you pause the trailer at the 20 second mark you can see my brother Craig tackling some dude for the 20th and 21st second. Now, that's a lead cast member. He made it to the trailer.

Rugby Movie - Forever Strong

I really enjoy rugby. I don't fully understand it, but all of my brothers play, make it the final four championships every year and give me a chance to fly out to Palo Alto to see the play offs and a few relatives. This is the first year in a while where no brother will be playing. But, when Brett comes off his mission, I'm sure he will be back on the playing field and I'll have another trip to look forward to.

A new movie will be coming out in September - Forever Strong. It's based upon a true story about the Highland rugby team (Utah high school) , but that's about all I know. Oh, wait, that's not all I know.

My brother Craig is in the movie playing rugby. He, along with a lot of other All-American rugby players from BYU and University of Utah in 2006, are real rugby players in the movie. The town they filmed in is outside of Toelle, Utah. The town is smaller than Toelle - so it might not actually be a town. I know, I was there. At least for one day. Believe it or not, I had to sleep in my rental car at a truck stop the night before because Salt Lake City had so many conventions that week. All hotels were booked in every direction. After driving around Toelle type towns (late at night- spooky feeling) and finding no hotels (not even Bates hotels), I finally realized I'd have to do the Hawaii vacation trick. That would be putting t-shirts over all the windows and trying to squeeze my six foot frame into the backseat of the smallest size rental car. Those kind of experiences are only good for journal entries at later dates. Anyway...off topic at hand.I sat next to this dummy in the stands and pretended to cheer. We weren't allowed to make any noise while we cheered. Silent cheer. I guess I had nothing else to do while I sat and waited for my brother to finish playing in some rugby scenes.

The players received free food for their efforts...and some exercise and bruises. Some of the volunteers that sat in the bleachers won free iPODs. I'm not sure how free that is after you've had to sit in the sun for 8 hours, but it was amazing to see the characters that came out of the woodwork to participate and await the chance to possibly win an iPOD and receive an over baked hot dog.

The main characters didn't know how to play rugby when they started shooting the film. Craig said they were told to be a little gentle when the main characters were running with the ball or being mauled. I would say tackle, but not sure if that is a rugby term.

Anyway, it should be a good movie. If anything, you will get to hear and see the rugby players doing a hauka (hakka?) dance at some point which is always interesting.

Other links:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMsVEyesEeM


• http://www.rugbymovie.com/


• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Strong


• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young_University_Rugby_Team


• http://www.byurugby.com/

Relatives - all or nothing eating habits

One of my many cousins just moved into town for a few years and I was invited over to their family abode the other night for dinner.

Nathan and Nichole have quite the cute little family and I enjoyed talking to them about the past and actually meeting most of them for the first time. The last time I saw Nathan he was leaving on a mission and that was about nine years ago.

Anyway, I brought a lot of cookies and such for dessert. This is when I found out that there is a genetic trait in our family - we have no self-control over ourselves when it comes to cookies and other treats. It's an all or none thing...mostly all. Basically, once the bag or package is opened it's completely likely that the objects inside will not last overnight. It doesn't matter how big the package is either. It's just a race to the finish.

My brother Craig was disturbed when he was at my house a few years ago and found a package of cookies with only one cookie left. He stated very firmly that "no Clark would ever leave one cookie" and so it couldn't possibly have been me that had last eaten from the package.

It was amazing to me to find out that this runs through some of my cousins as well. Perhaps we can be studied so our future generations won't be plagued with this frustrating gene.

Or, perhaps we can just all start listening to the hypnosis CDs that I've forgotten to listen to this week....

Craig - new member of St. Louis Bombers

Craig, my brother, has graduated on from BYU and college/All-American rugby and moved on to financial planning and the St. Louis Bombers.

http://www.stlouisbombers.com/

Rugby - Brett's turn to win the Wasatch Cup

Ok, so BYU takes rugby pictures with incorrect lighting on a consistent basis, but here's Brett's picture.

It looks like BYU won the Wasatch Cup for the third year in a row. I looked up the info on the BYU rugby site and found a little sports report.

I must say that I do enjoy watching rugby. Partially, it's because I can never really track the ball. I will think it's under some kind of pile of players, but out of the corner of my eye there will be swift movement in another part of the field and yep, the ball has somehow transfered over to the new location through some kind of strateg-ery that is beyond the grasp of the untrained eye.

Speaking of rugby, there is a movie that is supposed to come out with my brother Craig in it - Forever Strong - where he plays some rugby as well. Not sure on the movie status, but the premier seemed to bring positive reviews. Ok, at that link take special note that my brother Chris added me to the list of people on the movie. Yes, I did actually sit in the bleachers and do fake clapping and yelling while sitting by an actual dummy.

Merry late Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It's January 4th and I'm barely writing my yearly Christmas letter. It seems that it comes faster every year! But, here it goes...

2007 started out fairly stressful. Work stressed me to the point of my first gray hairs. As a result, I decided to make work a lower priority even though I still go everyday to manage expectations, people and projects. Responsibility isn't all that it is cracked up to be, but we all have to experience the "greener pastures" for at least 5-6 stressful years, aye?

This year I didn't take many trips. Those I did take involved seeing family members. My youngest brother graduated from high school. There's almost an 18 year gap between us! That means that 2009 brings my 20 year high school reunion. Gasp. I'm finally experiencing those weird feelings of being old. However, my first haircoloring erased some of those strange feelings. ..temporarily.


We've had a few family gatherings, but none with everyone. A few of us met up in San Franscisco in the spring to cheer on the BYU Rugby team in a national championship game. BYU came in 2nd place again. All of my brothers (and Mom and some cousins) were there and all participated either as alumni athletes (cheering) or in the game (Craig).



Craig made it to the All American team again and played a great game at West Point in New York. Mr. Adam Brett Clark is making his debut on the team this year and will be the 4th, and last, brother to play on the team. His high school team won the state championship and so hopefully that carries over in Utah. Go BYU Rugby!

The largest event of my year was actually a project that took a few hundred hours out of my life. I converted all of the old family videos onto DVDs so that they could be viewed and shared by all. I had finished the project and backed up on appropriate hard drives only to have two hard drives fried in the same week. Not good. Luckily, the second time around was faster and more efficient with a new round of technology at my disposal. I also compiled all digital photos and videos to date. Let's just say that 10 copies of everything gets old after a while. Costco photo center became a close friend. I got my time back and they got all of my money. (-:

I'm teaching little five year olds at my church. In the past, kindergarten was my least favorite grade, but these little people grew on me. This year I will be teaching 10 year olds. That is typically the age I enjoy working with, but I'm sure my work will be cut out for me.

Other than that, life moves along. I always appreciate interacting with family, friends church members and some co-workers. Thanks to all that stay in touch. I'm a little slow at times. Does everyone get a couple hundred emails a day like me? By the time I get home from work, I'm completely technology weary.

2008 is shaping up to be a great year! Hopefully there will be wonderful news from me and wonderful news to me from you.

Happy New Year and keep in touch, Rebecca

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