Jeff's take on UM-Morris

Hi Everyone

Jeff writing here. Stephen and I are freshly back from his first college visit to the University of Minnesota – Morris, so I thought I would jot down a few thoughts and encourage Stephen to do the same when he gets a moment. Morris, first of all, is in the west-central quarter of the state, about five and a half hours from I-Falls. The drive takes you from the North Woods down into farm country, and it’s pretty easy going. I think both of us were very impressed with the campus. It has about 1,800 students, offers a solid liberal arts curriculum and has done a lot of construction in the last five years to beef up their science facilities.

One of the things that really impressed me is that Morris is a dedicated undergraduate campus. The Minnesota University system is a little different than the schools on the West Coast. There doesn’t appear to be as much direct competition between campuses, with a lot of central authority residing at the main campus in the twin cities. Practically every class at Morris is taught by full professors. Undergraduates get the chance to work in research and as T.A.s One point of pride for the campus is their ability to place students in undergraduate programs. For students going into medicine like Stephen, 80% are accepted at their first-choice graduate program coming out of Morris.

It’s a remarkable campus in other ways too. The entire campus is dedicated to ‘Going Green’. A wind turbine provides about 50% of their power, a bio mass plant is in the works, and they recently built their own water tower to build self-sufficiency. Now we saw the place at its best: no students on campus, a beautiful spring day, etc, but I think we were both favorably impressed. I got the distinct impression that Stephen wasn’t sure he wanted to come back to the Falls for his Senior Year. But back we came, and we both arrived safe by Saturday night. I’ll leave the rest up to Stephen.

Things are good here. School year is winding down, Icebox continues to chug along. Diane could use some prayers for her allergies, however, so keep that in mind. Talk to you all soon.

College visit

Well, I ended up posting the spring entry before the pictures loaded without realizing how this whole picture thing worked. So, here are the pictures that went with the previous post.









Jeff and Stephen drove to Morris, Minnesota on Thursday night for a college visit a the University of Minnesota at Morris on Friday morning. They had a tour of the campus, met with an admissions counselor and had lunch on the campus. Jeff was impressed and I believe Stephen was as well. (He is being rather uncommunicative at the moment and we aren't getting much in the way of details.)


Only eight more days of school here. Five days this week and three the next. I have finished summer reading promotional visits to classes and will work on details for summer reading prizes this next week.

Well, laundry awaits being hung outside to dry so I will close now. Let us hear from you. We love to know we're not alone in this great big world.

Spring?

Well, we thought spring had arrived. Here are a few photos of our front yard with green grass, blooming tulips, very pretty bush pie cherry bush and two baskets on either side of the door. The one on the left was created by the nursery, I bought plants and planted the one on the right myself and the plants were pretty little and will need to grow into the pot.

This morning we had a low of 34 and light snow falling for about an hour. It was windy and cold. Currently we are at 57 degrees which is seven degrees warmer than we made yesterday which was 30 degrees cooler than the high on Friday.

Spring has Sprung!

Spring has definitely arrived in the Borderlands. We had three days of 80 plus weather. Today we are a much more comfortable 65. The trees are leafing, the grass is green and tomorrow is the opening of fishing season. It sometimes seems like every other vehicle is towing a boat. The lake will be full tomorrow.

Tomorrow night the kids will be presenting their speech pieces to whoever shows up at the community college stage at 7. The speech team has done some advertising and hopes they have a respectable crowd. Jeff is going to video the event, so maybe we can get copies to interested parties.

I start class visits for summer reading next week so will be more incommunicado than I normally am as I will be out of the building for most of the week. The kids have next Friday off and Thursday evening Jeff and Stephen will be taking off and heading for Morris, MN and a visit to the University of Minnesota, Morris campus. That is his first choice college and he took two online classes from them this past year. Friday night Jeff will drive Stephen to Stillwater to join the track team who will be competing in the True Team state championships on Saturday. Stephen is an alternate but wants to be there and Morris is only about 3 hours from Stillwater and then Jeff will drive home alone.

Rachel and I will hold down the homefront and make dinner for the youth pastor and his wife who had a baby in early March. Anna is Rachel's small group leader on Wednesday nights and Rachel has really enjoyed getting to know Anna.

Take care and have a great weekend.
Diane

Soccer

I have finaly started soccer and I am so happy. It is so nice to get out and excercise.
I started out on the yellow team but none of my friends were on the same team, and I reamemberd putting on of my friends name on a request list so we called the organiser of the whole leage and asked if I could swich teams she said she couldn't see why not I moved to the Orange team and am having alot more fun. We havn't won a game yet but we are having fun together trying to get the ball. our last game the team we were playing against didn't have any girls and this is a coed league, also almost all of them were 10th graders (the oldest you can be in this soccer league) so we got crushed but had fun trying to out run the 8 foot tall guys and laughing at the same time because we were having so much fun losing!

It's the Weekend (for Diane at least)!

Yeah! I worked last Saturday and so have the day off. Well, most of it anyways. I had to go in this morning for a couple of hours and have a meeting with prospective contractors to do some work in the library creating a space to house the collection we are creating with a donation we received in December.

I am spending the day lazing. I am going to bake bread, work in the yard (and try and get the last five feet or so of sod removed) plant peas and make snacks to take to the Kentucky derby party we are attending tomorrow afternoon. We have been invited for the second year in a row to the Gees house for an afternoon of fun. We will be betting candy on the horses and Rachel is hoping to come out on top as she did last year.

It has been a long week but I think I have the majority of my computer problems handled. I have moved the junior room circulation computer to another circuit and restarted the entire system a couple of times in an effort to get two of our new computers to communicate with it. But yesterday morning I hooked the new junior room circulation computer up and put it in its permanent spot. Hoping for the best. Now to focus on shifting data and files to my new computer, a laptop which I am very excited about and actually typing on here at home. I am looking forward to being able to handle home and personal matters at home on the laptop and maybe do a better job of staying on top of communicating with friends and family.

Have a great weekend and enjoy spring. I know it is old hat to those of you on the west coast but it is finally here for us in International Falls. A final note. Feel free to check out the International Falls Public Library blog at www.ifallslibrary.blogspot.com and enjoy Poetry Friday, which is something I've found a number of the blogs I follow participate in and I enjoy so I thought I would do as well for the community.

Spring is Here!

Hello All:

So much has happened for all four of us, it’s not surprising that we’ve a little remiss at updating this blog.

Spring is well and truly underway in the Borderland. The grass is finally greening up, and the trees are beginning to show buds. Spring activities are in full bloom as well. Stephen is running track, but has had to take some time off to catch up on some English AP. There is plenty of essay writing going on at all hours at the moment. Rachel started soccer this week. She was initially assigned to a team of strangers even though we had requested she be placed on a team with a lot of Falls kids, including several she knew from school. International Falls has no youth soccer, so falls kids cross the border twice a week to play in Fort Frances. The league generally groups all the Falls kids together for car pooling, and other reasons. We got her traded to the ‘Falls’ team for her second game, and she had a great time. She smiled more in the first five minutes than she did the entire first game.

Diane is up to her neck in summer reading prep, school visits, and several new computers. Be prayer for the computers. I’m serious. They are not cooperating. I’ll leave this space blank for Diane to fill in more.

I’m caught up with the Icebox Radio Theater, as usual. Our board is meeting again for the first time in a year, the theater’s tax exempt paperwork has finally been filed with the IRS, and we have a writer’s workshop is scheduled to start next week. This on top of a new relationship with Rainy River Community College, but all this is better left for the IBRT blog.

Cheers!
Jeff