Finally, the Clark family four blog

Ok, so my sister has inspired me to blog. I love reading her blog and receiving updates on the family and seeing how we are crazy busy and I forget to send email updates to everyone, this might just do the trick.

So, here are some quick updates on everyone.

GARRETT
Garrett turned 10 last Sunday, September 21st. Yes, I now have 2 children in double-digits. It was really kinda cute as we sat at Maryna's soccer game on Sunday and he kept saying, "Only xx minutes until I'm 10, mom." At 11:17 that morning, he looks at me and said, "Finally, I'm 10!" We celebrated with a birthday party on Saturday at XSite laser tag. Three hours of laser tag and arcade games...a boy's dream come true.

Garrett continues to do very well in school as far as grades. The one area he is struggling in is his ability to pay attention...shocking, I know :) Anyways, I told Garrett after we got his midterms that all his grades were good, but needed to work on doing what the teacher asks him to do and not worry so much about his friends. He's been given the challenge of raising his grade in that area by the end of the quarter.

His success in soccer continues. His team is quite good and it is fun to see him realizing the talent that is on his team. One our way to a game one day, he looked at me and said matter-of-factly, "Mom, we have good players all over our team. If they're not fast, that have good ball skills and those that don't have the best ball skills are really fast. How cool is that?" Anyways, his team is struggling to not run over everyone else. Last week his coach told them that had to shoot only wtih their non-dominant foot and played a man down (they still won 16-0).

MARYNA
Maryna turned 12 today. We also celebrated her birthday on Saturday. She had a spa party at our house in the afternoon. It was complete with manicures, pedicures, facials, back massages, food and presents. They finished off the party by playing Rock Band on our XBOX360 (Brad's idea).

Maryna is doing extremely well in school and continues to be in advanced classes for math, english and spelling. Midterms proved very successful with very few complaints (which I think Maryna was very happy that mom didn't have to discuss anything in detail).

Soccer is her passion right now. After an issue with her trainer last year, we decided to move Maryna to another team. Although this team is playing at a lower level, she seems to be handling it fine. She does get frustrated many times when she makes some beautiful passes and noone on her team can put the ball in the net. We tell her to continue to be positive and work hard and she does. Two weeks ago she scored 5 goals in 2 games. She is quite the little stud!



BRAD
Brad's job continues to get better. He has started meeting with many more clients and grow his client base. He has also set up a new "agency" and is the GA (meaning the general agent, or man in charge). He has the two guys he's working with refer to him as your majesty or your highness :) Quite funny I must say.


I was laughing the other day in thinking about Brad and soccer. When we were dating, Ben was playing for the high school team and Brad used to complain about how chaotic the sport was and didn't understand why people would want to play. Well, now Brad is playing on 3 teams (1 outdoor and 2 indoor) and is Maryna's assistant coach. Glad to see I could rub off on him a bit.



MELISSA
I continue to work at the hospital. I will have completed 7 years next month - boy, time flies. Since I am not coaching high school this year, I am the team manager for Maryna's team. I also play on an outdoor team and an indoor team to stay busy. I love seeing how my kids continue to excel in all their activities and am very thankful of the talents they have been given.



Love to all our family and friends. Please keep in touch.