Art City Music Festival!

Every year, Springville holds the Art City Music Festival, where musicians can spend the day writing songs together and then performing them. This was Caleb's first year participating, and he had a great time! There was a shortage of bassists, so he got to be in 3 bands. In the first video, I don't think they had the mike volume correct, because it was really hard to hear the singing. Anyway, enjoy! (Caleb is on the far right in the black shirt in each video)

The first band was Fourty-Two

The second band was Logan's Run

And the 3rd band (my personal favorite) was Igno

Broken Kid.....

Last week I got a call from the school that every parent dreads, "Mrs. McClellan, we need you to come get Caleb and take him to the hospital."

I guess they were playing soccer in P.E. and Caleb and another boy were going for the ball at the same time when the other kid's shoulder collided with Caleb's collar bone. His collar bone lost that battle and snapped right in half. This just confirmed my belief that they should stick to measuring ball circumference and velocity in P.E. at the smart kids school and stay away from actual physical activity... :)

Once I got to the school, I found him lying on the soccer field surrounded by friends offering to make him cookies and bring him Slurpee's, AND having his head rubbed by a really cute girl. The counsellor got him all bound up and on the back of the golf cart, which was a really fun, bumpy ride, then we got him into the Jeep for another really fun, bumpy ride to the hospital where he was a very strange shade of green and telling the triage nurse the pain was a SEVEN!

The doctor came in, took one look at his collar bone and said "Yep, it's broke" . They still x-ray ed it and then put him in a sling. This is is first broken bone....

He had a really rough couple of days between the pain meds and the nausea that they caused, but we are 6 days later and he already has much more mobility and hardly any pain! He's just glad he got out of P.E. for the rest of the year!

St George Ironman

This last weekend I got to go volunteer at the St George Ironman. For those of you who may not know what the Ironman is, I'll tell you! It is the triathlon of all triathlons! It's a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a full marathon (26.2 miles)!! I know, crazy! These people are amazing! My friend Heather has been training for it for the past year. She is amazing!!

I was lucky enough to get picked to be a finish line volunteer from 8 p.m. until midnight. Heather's predicted finish time was around 9:30 or 10, so it was perfect!

Since I didn't volunteer until later at night, I got to watch the whole swim, and then the bike transition. The swim was held at Sand Hollow Reservoir. The water temperature was only about 58 degrees....brrrr!!

Here are some of her support crew at the swim. Her mom's friend Carole is on the left end, then her brother Troy, her mom, her friend Janet from California, me, and her brother Chad

Then we headed down to watch her on the second loop of her bike, and the wind had picked up!

It's not a very good picture, but she's the first biker

She had an amazing family and support crew, here's her mom:

And her brother Chad, his wife Jordan, and their baby Garrett. Chad was playing the Rocky theme on the kazoo! Very inspirational!

The best spectator shirt ever!

And then it was time for a nap before I headed to the finish line. Another volunteer got this short video of Heather after she crossed the finish line (and me chasing her around). She was just smiling and giggling, so glad to be done! She completed 140 miles in 15 hours 8 minutes. She is absolutely amazing!

From now on when I introduce her or talk about her, I am going to call her Ironman Heather!

Creative Easter Eggs?

Even though our kids are getting "too old to color eggs", I love to force them to do things they don't want to do just because I am the mom! They were VERY excited about it:


I bought the super monster egg coloring kit which turned out to be a big hit with the whole family.

Aryn made a moustached egg:

Caleb, still obsessed with The Shining, made a Jack Torrance Easter egg:


Complete with ax:

Clark made a red neck Easter egg:

And mine is a Richard Simmons egg:

It turned out to be a really fun night with lots of laughs and stained fingers :)

16 years ago today....

16 years ago today, I married an amazing man.


Even though sometimes I don't always bring out the best in him...



I somehow manage to keep him around




He is the hardest working, most dedicated family man I know. And no matter what we do, together we always end up having a great time


I can't imagine my life without you babe, and I can't wait to see what the next 16 years bring.

Preference Dance!

Last night was Springville High's Preference dance, and Caleb was invited by Angela. Teenagers sometimes crack me up, he could not understand why he had to dress nice. He thought jeans and a t-shirt were more than appropriate for a formal dance..... poor Angela :)

But after finally convincing a not happy Caleb, he dressed up, and looked very handsome. And Angela was beautiful as always!

Here they are in what has been named the "nice picture" location of our house:

Caleb putting on her corsage, which he picked out himself, and was beautiful:

Angela trying to put on the boutineer:

And then me AND Clark trying to put on the boutineer:

We FINALLY got it!

They had a great time, the girls made the boys dinner at one of their houses, then they went to the dance which was held at one of Caleb's favorite locations, the Springville art museum, and then went back to another girl's house for dessert.

Stress Fracture.....

As some of you might know, I am addicted to running. I has been my Prozac for the last few years. Unfortunately, as hard as I have tried to avoid it, injuries sometimes happen. A couple of weeks ago I started having some pain in my lower right leg, and even though I knew better, I continued to run on it. The pain was fairly moderate at first, but then I ran 18 miles. A few hours after the pain had gotten worse to the point that I could only put a little weight on that leg. I decided to take a break from running for about 10 days and then assumed I would resume training for my marathon on April 17th. So last Monday I suited up and headed out, ran about 10 steps and had to stop because of the pain. I finally made an appointment with a sport's medicine physician, thinking he would tell me to cowboy up, there is nothing wrong. Well... I was wrong. After a couple of x-rays the doctor pointed out 2 small black lines, which happen to be stress fractures. So I guess my running has to be put on hold for the next 6-8 weeks, and the Salt Lake marathon will have to wait until next year. As frustrating as it is, it just makes me realize that I may need to take it a bit slower, and lose these last 20 pounds that have been hanging on the past year or so. Luckily I have a few smaller races planned that will keep me occupied until I can train for a marathon again.

On the bright side, Clark has started running on our treadmill and is doing awesome! He is already starting to understand my running addiction!

And she's a teenager.......

Today is Aryn's 13th birthday! I know it's said all the time, but I can't believe how time flies! It seems like just yesterday that Clark and I were bringing her home from the hospital. I can't imagine my life without her, she is growing up to be such an amazing girl, and we are so proud of her!

This past year has brought a lot of firsts. She made her first Jr High honor roll, had her first babysitting job,

Made new friends,

Went to her first Jr High formal dance,

Had her first boyfriend,


And her second..... :)


And discovered a whole new sense of fashion



Happy birthday sweetie, you will always be our baby bear!