Marine Ball

My son Luke is a member of the JR ROTC at his high school and it is sponsored by the Marines.
Well every year the Marine Corp celebrates the Birthday of the Marine Corp. They have a ceremony and then a Marine Corp Ball. The recruits get to invite a date and dance the night away.
Well my son invited me to go with him to his Ball. I was shocked and honored, I thought that was such a nice thing to do!!
I had a really good time.
Here are some pictures of the ceremony!




The firt picture is of my son marching!



Here are some more pictures right after the ceremony and of us before the ball and at the ball.

Grass is growing!!

Well as most of you know I am pretty obsessed with having grass in my back yard.
So obsessed that I bought a tiller and actually hauled steer poop in the back of my Rodeo..can you say GROSS!!
However it looks like my efforts are paying off!!
Here is the before picture.



and here is the after picture..it started coming in about 7 days.

The process was to till up the earth so it's workable. You can do that with a shovel but I wanted to do it quicker so I bought a tiller. Then once ground is broken up we shoveled in about 3 bags of steer poop and mixed it with the dirt, then raked the ground even, then spread seed evenly, then spread a healthy covering a steer poop and watered it twice a day until it started to sprout.
Pretty easy. I can't wait till it comes all the way in!!

Halloween is over!

Halloween is over! It happened to be one of the funnest Halloween's we have ever had!
We had our friends over and their children who are our children's friends and it was just a very fun time.
Here is a picture of Luke and Timothy and Bunny of course.

Here is the whole trick or treatin crew.


While the kids were all outside trick or treating all of us adults were hangin out at the house handing out candy and partyin it up!

Steve and I dressed up as drunk people for Halloween...we were very convincing!

Amy had the coolest costume, I just LOVED her witche's hat. I also discovered my friend has Green eyes...I always thought they were blue!


The boys also watched Gremlins and played board games when they got back home..They were very good and had a great time..Can't wait till next year!

Fall is here!

Fall is here!! YAY!! Fall is my very favorite season. It is such a relief to be able to go outside without sweating your buns off and knowing that every day gets you a little bit closer to Winter.

Summer was a busy time for us here in the Clouse household, the start of school, football season, and work and our personal lives kept us extremely busy.
We are all looking forward to a season of rest.

Today was the last football game of Timothy's first football season. We lost miserably but it was fun as usual to go and watch them play and to get to yell at kids always delights me hahahaha.

Here are a couple of pictures of Tim and his 4 new best buddies. They have spent a HUGE amount of time together with football practices, games, and parties after the games...I have a feeling they will remain lifelong friends! From left to right, Colby, RJ, Trenton, and Timothy.












Yesterday afterschool the boys got to carve their Halloween pumpkins. I let them draw their own designs, Timothy hasn't yet grasped the whole pumpkin carving thing as you can tell from his strange design, but it actually came out pretty good.







Luke took a more traditional approach to his carving..it is funny, if you give a boy a knife he immediately wants to use it as a weapon hehehe.




Here is the finished products..pretty good pumpkins I think.


Here are a few pictures of Luke, He is in JR ROTC and looks soooo handsome in his fatigues...I am hoping the war will be over by the time he graduates so I can let him join the Marines...He wants Marines, I think he should be a Navy Seal...I will win that battle..stay tuned! lol
PS It is not that I don't want him to go to war...actually never mind..I don't want him to go to war, but I guess if he has to go to war I would rather it be a war protecting America, not a war for oil....

The cabin-Fall Break Oct. '08

Well we just returned from our favorite little vacation spot the Clouse family cabin. While there we redid the screened in porch as seen to the left. The bears did a wonderful little number of ripping the screen down a few years ago so this trip we rescreened the entire porch.



Here are my 3 handsome chaperones and sweet little Bunny of course! We left the big dog at home this time and I hate to say it, the vacation was MUCH calmer and more serene without him!



It wasn't all work though as we did get away to Potato Lake for some rest and relaxation. It my favorite place to take pictures as there is a beautiful group of Aspens which just stand out against the normally green pine trees.









Here is me and my boys Tim and Luke. Boy they sure are getting big and handsome!!










Here is some local wildlife in our front yard. I wish I had a better camera, but these mule eared deer were literally 50 feet from our front door. They let me get pretty close to take their pictures too!

Another great trip!!
Here are some more pics

Luke's First Homecoming

Oct 4th, 2008
My oldest son attended his first homecoming!
He is a Freshman this year at Casa Grande Union High School and is he is quickly changing from a bony young boy into a strapping handsome young man.
He went to the homecoming with a few friends but did not take a date.
His next big dance I believe is the Marine Ball as he is a member of th JROTC.
Isn't he handsome!!!

Football Mania

So my son Timothy is in Pop Warner tackle football this year.
Wow what a commitment it has been for him and the entire family. He started out with practices everyday for 2 hours (6-8pm Mon-Frid) and games every Saturday.
Now we are only 3 days a week and games ever Saturday.
We haven't won a game yet and actually we have only made one touchdown the whole season. I don't blame the kids as they do exactly what the coaches tell them to, but personally I think our coaching staff are a bunch of amateaurs, but Hey they are volunteering their time so I don't complain to much.
Plus the kids don't care that they lose. They really are having a great time.
Timothy is REALLY good on offense and defense. He just loves to tackle people and to sack the quarterback!
Isn't he handsome!!