THINGS BE HAPPENING!

I'm slow about posting anything and everything, so here is an unorganized, illustrated list of stuff we've been up to since I posted last:

*Lark is all big and old and graduated from college! Whaaaat?!!!

Photo by Steven Hamm .

Big Lark was actually the one who graduated, but who could resist posting that picture?! What a cutie-patootie.

Lark's lovely parents flew in from New York for the ceremony.

Photo by Steven Hamm.

Aren't they cute?! They threw him a kick butt graduation party. Lark's mom actually transported a whole roasted duck from New York in a bag for the occasion. That's true motherly dedication and love. They are both suuuper fun and really sweet! Like the duck. It was tasty. (Can't wait to see you guys in August!)


*Lark's really good buddy from high school, Andrew Forsthoefel came and visited us for a week....on foot. He is walking across America right now. No, really. He is. You can check out his blog here. He's a real sweetheart who has dedicated 9 months of his life, so far, to walking across the nation to hear tons of different peoples stories.

(He tried to steal our baby.

 Check it out in the video section of his blog)

*Our house got fleas. It's been awful. Evidently this past winter in Texas didn't get cold enough to kill any of the bugs or the bug eggs or something and then Elmo brought them in. Either way, there's lots of bugs. Lots of bugs IN our house. Even though we vacuumed and sprayed and put down powder and anything else we could think of. We went on a trip after doing all that, thinking they would be gone when we got back. Haha! Silly us. They were still there. Just waiting.

We're staying in hotel right now while setting off loads of flea bombs. Those buggers better DIE DIE DIE!

The culprit. He looks so sad.

*Lark got his braces off!!! AAaaaand he has a mouthful of b-e-a-utiful teeth.

                               

 We haven't taken a real picture yet.

*We went on a road trip to Phoenix, Arizona.

What can I say? He's an advanced little baby.

IT WAS AAAAWESOME!!! We stopped at fun little small town restaurants,

a museum with lots of Native American artifacts,

and explored Carlsbad Caverns. It was a biiit out of the way, but well worth the trip.

While we were in Phoenix, we got to hang out with Lark's Aunt Carla, and Matt, and his [grandpa] Phil. (I recently did a painting of him. Check it out in the Art section of our blog).

Little Larkin got to ride Aunt Carla's pony, Yark  (with a just a little assistance from us). We went to the Musical Instrument Musuem and got to play on and just check out a whole lot of instruments from all over the place. We got to see Aunt Carla do a Shaman ceremony (I'm sure I'm using the wrong terms here. Sorry!). Phil took us out to dinner at Super Dragon (So good!) and we just had a general blast hanging out with his family. 

It was so nice getting to spend more time with you all and get to know you a little bit better. Thank you for having us!

For some reason that I can't explain, we have no pictures of our time in Phoenix with Lark's family. Super bummer. So here's what we looked like the whole time:

I labeled it in case you couldn't guess. And yeah, we pretty much walked around like this the whole time. People couldn't pass us on the sidewalk. Cars had to swerve. It was crazy. Crazy cool!

*I finally finished a website that I started making about three years ago as a networking tool to use if I wanted to make connections for myself outside of what my agency was doing for me. Aaaand now that I'm done I'm convinced that's it's all together too slow and am just generally not that into it. I'm thinking about not buying the URL or getting rid of the ads and just starting over. We'll see.

                                                             Check It Here.

I'm working on a little travel video right now of all our exploits and a new cartoon (that I actually put some time into!) that I'll hopefully get up in a couple of days.

Ta ta!

Love you all!

~Izzy~

I LUV YOU DADDY!

Hello there Padre!!! Good morning! Here's a little bit of silliness. Just my attempt to brighten up your day a little bit.

You're the best.

Peoples of the interweb out there: If you know my daddy, if you could leave a comment saying just one of the many somethings that's awesome about him or just a little note of encouragement if you don't know him, that would be bomb. Love makes the world go round and I thought it'd be nice to collect a little of it to spin my Dad's head around a couple times (in a non possessed way). Thank you!!

I LUV YOU DADDY! You're going to kick cancer's butt!

It's related. Right? A little bit?

~Izzy~

That One Really Big Country To The East

CHINA!!

CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA!!! 

I've always wanted to go to China.

Growing up, the majority of my friends in elementary and middle school were Chinese. Because of this I must say, I became fascinated with their culture pretty early on in life. Actually, to be more accurate, I became a culture mooch.

My poor friends. After all that all I can say in Chinese to this day is, "I put pepper on your pancakes," and, "Hi! My name is Lauren Mason and I like cats and dogs."

Not for long though!!!

Lark and I are moving to China for a year in September!!!

Well, most likely we're going. If all of the paperwork details, shot getting, and passport/visa setting up goes as planned.

We got accepted to a program called China Calls and have requesting that we be set up with a school in Hangzhou. They told us that this shouldn't be much of a problem since they have ties with over 24 schools in Hangzhou. Sooooo inevitably we should be able to find at least one that would work for us. 

Things are still in the works, but it's looking like Lark is going to get to teach a university class English and I (fingers crossed) might get to do some modeling over there! Everything seems beyond ideal. God is great.

We are waaaaaay beyond excited. This has been a dream of both of ours since...forever.

Actually, the second time I ever talked to Lark was about China. We were both in the Library and I used my super-sight to spot him from across the room.

I promptly sent him a text alerting him to the fact.

Lark skipped across the room and joined me at my table. 

What if it had been my diary Lark? What. If. It. Had. Been. My. Diary?

Rude.

I had been pasting a card about applying to teach English in China into my scrapbook-style notebook and that sparked a China themed conversation between us.

"You want to go to China?" said Lark

"Yeah! I've always wanted to go to China" I said.

"I'VE always wanted to go to China!" Lark said.

THAT riveting dialogue was obviously the emotionally charged moment that changed the way our relationship path was pointing towards marriage. 

Till this day I still wonder what would have happened had my notebook been shut….Just kidding.

Anyways, we've been scrambling to get ready for this new adventure. Getting documents, working our way through readings, trying to figure out local customs and just generally what it's going to be like living there. 

We've been told by multiple people that we're going to stand out with us being foreigners and me being 6 foot 1. I figured as much but evidently it's going to be more than the few stares I expected.

My sister, Kara, taught English in China for some months and while she was there,  the Olympics were held in China. She was actually able to stand by, with the crowd, when the Olympic torch was being run through the city. As it was passing, she says that all of the people near her were staring at HER and taking pictures of HER instead of the torch. She got it on video. 

Pretty crazy.

We've been warned that little Larkin, being a baby, and white with blue eyes, is going to have an admiring following wherever he goes. 

We're going to try our best to keep up with the little celebrity.


On a side-note, this Easter Lark, Larkin, and I went to the Abilene Country Club for lunch and this happened:

The Easter Bunny evidently frequents the country club, which is totally 
alright with me. He came up and asked to hold Larkin. Pretty cute. However when I asked for him back, the rabbit turned his back to me and continued hugging my kid. His human escort had to chide him and make him give Larkin back and move on.


I'm not surprised there are sights like this now. Check it out. Bunnies are frightening. Who knew?


Larkin knew. Just take a gander at that face. Poor little man.


Also Erica over at Touch of Embellishment . Her most recent post actually has an awesome story about the little creepers. Click on that link.
 

Love you guys!

More updates coming soon!

~Izzy~