Camping with Friends!

So this is overdue and Doreen, I have some more funny pictures of Matt doing charades if you want them...

Charades with the gang...quite hilarious, especially Doreen's "Sounds like Baton" instead of trying to act out a swan...she always started out standing tall then would end up almost sitting on the floor cuz she couldn't stop laughing.  Marianne would get her team to finally guess what she was acting out, just in time for the card to slip between her fingers before she could grab it. I'm not sure how well you can see it, but I love the bottom left picture in this set.  Ben is competitive.  VERY competitive, in this picture he looks like he's giving all the blame to Derek for losing the game.  It's ok guys, better luck next time;)  Go team, Vampires!

Ben & Kristin, it took him a minute of convincing her she wouldn't fall before

she looked down to see we were down there!

A spider on the bridge, there were TONS of spiders, this doesn't look too intense, my lens kept fogging up:(

the bridge to get to the campsite, I was a little irritated with Carleton for swinging it while I was carrying way too many things

Thanks Ali and Josh for planning and organizing the whole thing, we had a great time!  I'm feeling a bonfire in the not too distant future!

Break-in

My day started off with a good morning, great actually.  I woke up on the right side of the bed feeling well-rested, got my hair to do EXACTLY what I wanted it to do (for once), ate breakfast with my handsome husband.  All the things that make for a good morning and the start to a great day, and it being Friday, a great weekend!

Well then I stepped outside at 8:13 so I would be a few minutes early to work.  As I walked to my car I got a funny feeling, as I got closer I wondered why on earth I would put a lens bag on my seat and some other junk from my center console there.  Then I realized my lock looked funny as I tried putting my key in.  As I put my key in I realized that not only were all my doors unlocked, but the lock in my driver's side door was missing completely.  I tried pulling my door open.  Not even a budge.  Great.  I went to the other side and opened it, my gps was sitting right there on my seat.  Hey thanks guys for opening up every single compartment in my car, deciding to leave my gps on the seat, and then not locking the doors, I'm surprised someone else didn't steal it with all my doors unlocked and it sitting there in plain sight!  Anyway, long story short.  I got upset, stood outside and waited for the officer to get there (making my mascara run from me crying and my hair turn into a frizzy mane from the humidity), Carleton came home instead of going golfing (see my husband is the best), I cursed Durham (ok I called it ghetto) but my dad said that this kind of thing was happening everywhere, then I called work to tell them I'd be late.  

Although I called the police before Carleton left, he still was able to get from Duke to me before they got there.  The officer was very nice though, he dusted my car for prints, found none and confirmed that they must've used a screwdriver and/or drill on my key hole and parts surrounding the handle.  I just love paying for things that aren't my fault.  

So I thought, ok maybe they were looking for drugs...but do I look like the drug-dealer type? Baby pictures in the back windshield, a tube of mascara and the ensign magazine on the floor of my passenger seat...

I asked Carleton if he did this to get me to clean out my car, because it SURE worked, now that my car doesn't really lock, NOTHING is going in there.  

On a lighter note, I talked to my mom for a few minutes when I finally got on my way to work and got to thinking about all the blessings I do have and how lucky I am.  Sure Carleton doesn't have a job yet for when he graduates, sometimes my job drives me crazy, who knows where we'll be a year from now, and I get easily irritated with some things (like putting off getting a new passport after we got married because I didn't want to pay the money to change my name on it since I JUST got it, only to find out that if I'd done it within a year it would've been free and now I have to pay $75 for it)...but I have a wonderful husband who would do anything for me, a family who loves and supports me in whatever I pursue, a job with great benefits, a nice place to come home to at night, great health, and fabulous friends.  The list goes on and on, but hearing of other people's trials made me realize that I'm so blessed and so happy with what I have.  

So take that, car-breaking-into thugs!  You will not make me have a bad day, my glass is half full:)  And thank you to those who helped make it that way.  

Bummin' at the Beach!

Hi, we're the Clausses, and this Monday we had no school or work, so we went to the beach!

We played in the sand and Carleton wrote me love notes with shells:)

Our friends, the Gochnours, joined us!

Did we mention we love this family and they have the cutest boys!

We left a tiny bit redder than we arrived there but we had a BLAST!  

Later that night when we got home from the beach and a round of foosball and some delicious pineapple upside down cake at the VanDrimmelen's house we both looked at each other and were like man, what an awesome day, it was just so fun!  So thank you to all those that made our day great!

Campout at Duke

A very small portion of the campers

Carleton loves taking pictures...as you can probably tell I wasn't really in the mood either, but we had to document it!

A little pinch of Carleton being inappropriate and he's all smiles...this picture has been slightly cropped for everyone's viewing pleasure. 

It was that time of year again...campout.  Every year the Duke grad students camp out for the weekend in hopes that their name will be drawn so they can have the privilege of buying tickets to the basketball games.  This year 6 of the 11 people in their pool won the chance to buy tickets.  How it works is they get into groups to better their chances of going to at least a few games, then the people in charge sound the alarm (it's completely unpredictable and goes off at all hours of the day and night).  We decided to not even get into our tent until 3am because we figured the alarm would sound at least a few times between 1 and 3 and it's really annoying to try to fall asleep with music blaring around you, and if you are lucky enough to fall asleep, to then get woken up by an alarm.  Anyway, back from the tangent... so after the alarm sounds, everyone races to sign in, if you miss more than one you're out, hence the reason people pin signs to their shirts that say "I'm drunk, if the alarm sounds put me in this line" or some people who share a pool go ahead and put their passed out friends right next to the sign-in table.  Sunday morning you go wait in line again (most of the LDS students got religious exemptions so they got to leave at midnight on Saturday, but someone still has to be there to see if you won the next morning!).  Carleton went back at 6:30am found out that about half of his group (but I think he's the only 3L that didn't win) won tickets and came home at 9:30 to get ready for church.  Now they put all the tickets in a pool, those who won get first draw (so it looks like Carleton won't be going to the UNC game this year) and then it goes around and around among the 11 of them.  Then they split the cost of the tickets so that nobody ends up paying the whole $150.  Not a bad set-up.  

These dukies are crazy, they bring tents with bathrooms in them, RVs, trailers, and play every alcohol related game you can (and probably wouldn't) think of.  The Uhaul and other moving companies must make bank on these weekends because parking lots are full of them.  

Other than people trying to pee right next to our spot, several people succeeding at it, and me throwing bottles and yelling at people that wouldn't stop, it wasn't any worse than expected.  

Belated Birthdays!

Kaylee's bday 

Mom's bday dinner

someone in our family likes chocolate cake

ok we all do, but none of us get as messy eating it as this little miss!

Karl's bday, Lana made DELICIOUS, thick, and moist brownies, but the candles were put in Elsa's (non dairy) ice cream sandwhich

she was quite content with it!

Caroline

There have been a lot of birthdays in the family recently so I'm gonna do a quick catch up.  Kaylee turned 5 in July, then my mom turned 50 in August!  August has always been a busy month (as far as birthdays go) for me.  My mom, and several good friends have birthdays in August, and now there's a few more...Caroline was born in August, hence the reason we went to Tennessee a few weeks ago, as an added bonus we got to celebrate Karl's 30th birthday with him while there!

And this is not a family member, but she had a birthday in August as well.  On Monday I took her pictures and she was just too cute to pass up posting a picture:)

Welcome home, honey.

Carleton is officially back home, and I couldn't be happier:)  Everyday with him is like a day at the beach.  I love you, husband.