2 am

It's almost 2 am in the morning and I have been helping John pack up to go to Iraq. We are currently trying to decide what he will need with him in his carry on since he will be traveling for over 2 days. Figuring out what all needs to go in that little plastic bag of toiletries.
We have packed up his duffel bag and all the stuff on his pack list. He is almost set to go. Still we haven't heard from the company on the Iraq side. We are waiting on an LOA (whatever that means) before they can tell us what day he leaves. We suspect it is Friday, which means that tomorrow is our last day together. It is starting to feel real with all this packing. When we told the kids he would be gone again, it was very intersting their different reactions. Hannah just cried and cried (she is our very sensitive, empathetic one). Bekah gave her daddy a hug and said she would miss him. We asked her how she felt and she paused and said "well"(she says "well" a lot when she is thinking)"sometimes I can't remember what your face looks like". How sad, there daddy has been away so much that she forgets what his face looks like. Keren is only 3. She just doesn't act like it fazes her. That bothers me. She is so used to him being gone it is the norm for her now. I look foward to the end of the year when he is home. Of course, we will always face separations. That seems to be the path we constantly walk down. If he works for the FBI or Secret Service that will be the norm for us. However, it won't be a constant separation like we have been experiencing... we are about to experience. I wonder what life would be like if he had gone into hotel management straight out of college instead of the Army? What if he had gone to OCS instead of gradschool? It seems everything has lead us and prepared us for this. I know God has a plan. Sometimes the plan just seems so weird and I have to wonder where it will lead afer this chapter in life. I don't think we will ever be a "normal" family, where daddy comes home every evening for dinner. I believe we will always have frequent periods of separation. Only God really knows, and I know that what He leads us to her will prepare us for and take care of us in the midst of it. If you are reading this... pray for us. Pray for the path we will walk down and that we will be equipped to travel it. Pray for the children, that they will stay close to their daddy while he is far away. Pray for me. I hold a lot together on my own. I need to constantly be dependent on the one who holds me together. ... I sure wish there was a spell check on here.

John came home... and now he has to leave again.

Well, most of our friends know that John left in August to go to training with the Army for Signal Corps. He was gone for 6 long months but we were fortunate to have him come home about every other weekend since he was stationed in GA. Well, on Jan 13th he graduated from BOLCIII and came home.
We have spent the past 6 months looking for a job for him to come home to and had found nothing. The day we got home from GA, after his graduation, we got a call, his first job offer. After 6 months time we finally recieved a job offer, for a job in Iraq as a civilian contractor.
We had to weigh our options. He could take this job or we could go back active duty (which would certainly include a deployment and a 3 year commitment to active duty.) After prayer and looking at our budget we decided that God had placed this job in our lives. Better to take the job and be able to pay rent and pay off debt accrued while in gradschool, than to not have a job at all. Or, better to do this for one year than lock ourselves into a longer commitment with a sure deployment, maybe two. So, we decided to accept the job offer. The next day, the offer was retracted because John did not have a pasport yet. Our emotions were getting pretty raw. John went ahead and persued getting a pasport expedited with the assurance from the company that he would be next in line for a job.
John's pasport arrived a couple of days ago, and with it another job offer to work in Iraq with the same company. We have accepted the offer and have filled out paper work. Now we are waiting. Waitiing to find out when he flys out. It could be as early as Wednesday, 2 days from today. Or it could be this weekend. It all depends on how fast they can get paper work taken care of. They want him there as soon as possible. We told the girls tonight at dinner that tommorrow may be the last day they have with him before he goes. They understand as we have already told him that he has taken the job. Still, it is not easy. Below is a copy of an email we sent out to our church.

Thanks so much for your support for our family while John has been away at training. We have greatly appreciated it. He returned home last Tuesday the 13th after his graduation from Signal Corps training at Fort Gordon. We have enjoyed him being home! Thank you as well for joining us in prayer as we have looked for a job for John when he returned. After about 6 months of looking for a job we have come across very few opportunities. John has, however, gotten a job offer (the only offer he has received) and has decided to take it.

It is a civilian contract job in Iraq. He will be serving as a security team supervisor at an Army Base south of Baghdad for a company that is contracted with the Army. The girls and I will be staying here while he is gone.

While this is a choice we know most people would not choose to make, we feel like this is the correct direction for our family at this time. I'm sure some of you are asking, "why?!" God has prepared us for this in many ways including our recent separation and a previous deployment. When John enlisted in the Army 7 years ago this is the lifestyle we signed up for. Though he is not deploying as a soldier now, he is still going and serving the same mission that drove us to enlist in the Army in the first place, a mission we still very strongly believe in. Still, this would not have been our first choice of employement, but we fill that God has provided it as a way to provide for our daily needs as well as get out of 100% of the debt we accrued during John's time in Grad School. For this we praise him and thank Him for freeing us up in the future to serve him with our finances instead of being held back in our debt.

We ask for your prayers in these things:
· That John would be safe as he serves in Iraq. He in not going to be in the dangerous situations that he was in while he was deployed in the past, however, Iraq is not the safest place to be and he will be carrying a "big gun" for a reason.
· That he would find Christian fellowship and encouragement while over there.
· That our relationship would stay strong during his absence and we would stay emotionally connected
· That the girls would cope well with his absence (thankfully, they are kinda used to this), they are used to him coming home every other weekend and now he wont be able to come home for 4 months.
- That I would be able to hold down the fort while he is gone
- That I would not get lonely
- That homeschooling would continue to go well as Hannah has recently been diagnosed with a learning disability that has cause problems with her learning to read.
- John has applied for a position with the Secret Service. It is a 6-9 month application process. If he gets the job they will pull him out of Iraq before his year is up. We really would love for him to get this job and we have word from someone who had worked in SS that there is a good possibility. Please join us in praying that he will get this job and will be stationed at the Greenville Branch.
Thanks again for all you support and love.
John and Betsy Clark

Obama says Palin has no experience? Hmm... Let's examine this.

I just have to say that I saw this little compilation and thought it was awesome. These are the facts. When you put away the sweet talking and the charisma they you have the truth. The facts are what we need to look at. You will need to stop or pause the music player at the bottom of the blog while you play this video.

My Ballerinas

Hannah and Rebekah started Ballet today. Hannah took it briefly before when we lived in Colorado, but for Rebekah this was her first time. The looked so pretty all dressed in their black leotards, pink tights, ballet shoes, and hair in buns. I am impressed with thier teacher. She has studied in some major ballet companies and I believe she will be a great teacher. The girls did a good job. I spoke with the teacher briefly after class and she said they did well. She said that though Rebekah was shy when it was her turn to do something by herself that she did well and got over it. I hope it will bring her out of her fear of performance the same way that getting a dog has gotten her over her fear of dogs. They were so excited to tell me all about their class and came home and showed me some of what they learned. I was impressed that in the first class they already learned 3rd position. Before bed tonight Hannah was disapointed to learn that they will not be going to ballet every day but only once a week. Ah well... Keren on the other hand had a fit because she had to leave her "sissys" and couldn't dance with them. She is so used to doing everything ( even "school" ) right along side of them that she doesn't understand why she can't take ballet with them. Co-op on Wednesdays and Ballet on Thrusdays may be wierd for her for a while. It sure is easier for me to run a few errands with only one though :)

School Days, School Days

John left 4 1/2 weeks ago for Ft Benning for some Army Training. He will be gone for almost 6 months all together. We have really missed him but since he has been gone we have been very busy.We started back to school 4 Mondays ago. We have really been enjoying it this year!!! We are using a Charlotte Mason based approach to education and are loving it. We have fun reading, reading, and reading. The kids have really enjoyed reading about various birds in the Burgess Bird Book, and about fairy tales in the Blue Fairy Book. They have learned some great classic information which will help them in the Great Conversation. They learned about the Brave 300 Spartans who held back the Persain invasion of Greece and about Alexander the Great and his horse. They have learned about the coming of the Romans to England and how the Brittans were so brave and feriece that Cesear left with much respect for them. We are learning about Geography through a great Caldecot book named Paddle to the Sea. So far they have learned about the Great Lakes and how the rivers flow from one to the other and thus on to the Ocean.
Poetry is one of their favorites. They love to hear great poetry about children like themselves. Right now Beauty and the Beast stands out as the favorite story by far. At first, as I was reading it, Hannah tried to tell me that that was not how it went (she only knew the disney version), but soon she was very interested and wanted to know how it would end. She told her daddy all about it!
For math we are learning with a great program called Math U See. The kids love playing with the blocks to learn place value and figure out problems.
I am most excited about our new Spell to Write and Read program. So far the kids have learned all of the sounds of all of the letters and have them well memorized. They are currently working on the multiletter phonograms (or blends) and are doing very well memorizing them. We will start our first spelling list of 20 words on Monday. I dictated the word "apron" yesterday to Hannah and she spelled it correctly!!! The emphasis of this program is to learn all of the sounds of letters and multi letter phonograms first, spell second, and learn to write and read as a result of correct spelling. So far I see the benefit and am excited.
On Wednesdays Hannah and Bekah are going to a co-op. They are taking Art, Math, and Spanish there. They spend an hour on each and come home at 12:30. Today was their first day and they had so much fun. We have some Spanish homework to work on for next week.
Hannah and Bekah will be taking Ballet on Thursday afternoon. It is with a Christian fine arts company and has a basis in letting our talents be our worship. The kids are so excited about this! We went and got their ballet shoes on Monday and they have been wanting to wear them.
Fridays are our fun day.
We go on Nature Walks. We usually go to the Roper Mountain Science Center. While there we walk on the nature trails and look for new things to see (bugs, turtles, moss, fungus, etc...), and then head to the butterfly garden and pond. There is lots of great pond life and beautiful flowers to study.
This past friday we went to the Childrens Garden in Downtown Greenville. The kids got to look at the river and see how the water flows. They saw ducks and we discussed how the water flows off of their backs. They identified flowers and smelled some of the more fragrant plants in the herb garden. It was a lot of fun for them. Afterwards we made a trip to the interactive fountain where they had fun playing and getting wet.

Friday evening John came home for Labor Day weekend. We had a great time together as a family. We spent a lot of time just hanging out at home. We went to church together and just spent time being a family.
On Sat night John and I went on a date to Rio Grill. It was sooooooo good!!!!! Oh my word that steak was to die for!!!

Mission Complete!

After 2 years of Grad School, ROTC, Family Responsibilities, and Work. John finally graduated and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army. More details to come. Until then, enjoy the slide show.

It has been 2 months and we are loving it!

At the end of the week we will have been homeschooling for 8 weeks. We LOVE it! I never dreamed it would be this freeing and easy! Hannah has raced ahead in her reading ability as well as math. It is so encouraging. While in school she was struggling to keep up with friends in reading. She often felt defeated and said "I can't do it". Now she skillfully sounds out words and has no problems with phonagrams like sh, ch, th, ck, wh and others. She is also tackling the silent e and double vowels.
In math she is also doing very well and moving into first grade work! She is adding double digit numbers such as 46+9, and is also learning to skip count and some basic algebra.
Today we started the very exciting art of Cursive. I have discovered a wonderful Cursive curriculim called Cursive First. We decided to go with cursive "first" because Hannah took little care with her print. She did not write from left to right and was very sloppy. I had read that often cursive corrected much of these problems as well as reversals. Today we worked on the half upward sloap, the clock stroke, and the connector stroke. Just for fun, john wrote the word apple and explained the parts of the letters using the attic, main floor, and basemment. She copied his cursive "apple" and for a first try it was suprisingly neat and pretty. I was shocked. So I have a very good feeling about this!

We have been busy getting to know friends in the homeschool community and are excited to be starting new things. Hannah and Polly both will be starting social dance classes tomorrow afternoon. They will be learning to waltz, swing, and shag, among other dances. They are very excited and so am I!

We are loving this adventure so much and I wonder why I didn't start this long ago.
Currently we are praying about bringing Polly home next year for homeschooling as well. It will depend on what the future holds.