Fourth Day of Christmas

It is the fourth day of Christmas and the family is mostly dug out from the Christmas storm that saw us get about 2 feet of new snow between Dec. 24th and Dec. 26th. I am back at work and writing this post between helping patrons so if it becomes a bit disjointed you'll know why.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We were incredibly blessed by good food, good company (a family that enjoys spending time together is a precious gift of it's own) and generosity of friends and family in plenty of gifts.

Yesterday, Rachel and I got out to the ski trail and I skied my classic ski and Rachel tried out her new skate skis. She is going to have to continue learning. She looks a bit awkward yet. We are looking into finding someone to give her a brief lesson. Our goal is to get out at least every Thursday evening, even if it is just for 1 km.

We have had a terrific time with Stephen, Sarah and Rachel this Christmas. Jeff and I appreciate our children so much and marvel at the adults they are becoming.

Hopefully our Christmas letter will get written tonight and in the mail by the end of the week.

Our love and prays for a joyous end to 2009 and blessings in 2010.
Love,
Diane

Advent

I enjoy the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is time to prepare. I stay busy baking, buying, wrapping and all but have time to enjoy the process. December has also been cold, helping motivate me to stay in and get things done.

The week has been full but at the moment I'm not remembering much of note. This coming week will be a bit different. Jeff has the business fundraiser for Icebox Radio Theater this week. Calls to Santa will be each evening this coming week from 6 -8 pm. You can call and talk to Santa and listen to the show by going to the icebox radio theater website. It will be a busy week for Jeff.

I am hosting a library holiday open house on Wednesday afternoon for staff, board members and city staff. Then Thursday afternoon I will pick Rachel up at school and she and I will drive to Morris to pick up Stephen. We'll spend the night in Morris then all of us come up to Bemidji to finish up our Christmas shopping.

Take care. Hope everyone is staying healthy and enjoying the holidays.
Love,
Diane

December

It is December and the snow has finally arrived. It began snowing the evening of November 28th and has snowed some each day since. The temperature has also begun dropping. So this morning I believe we hit 0 for the first time this winter.

But we have a nice warm house and the outside is pretty white with the trees flocked more beautifully than any human job I've ever seen.

The main news here is that Rachel is now employed. She was asked by one of the local radio stations to man the station during live broadcasts of local sports. She spent two days earlier this week learning the system and last night was in alone at the station for the first time. She is also hoping to get on at a local coffee shop after the holidays as she really wants to learn to make coffee drinks. (I think she also wants smoothies and I believe you get one free drink a shift. :)

Jeff and I were talking and commented on the fact that the first job of both our kids was at radio stations. Obviously they are known in the community for their ability to learn technological equipment and speak (although Rachel isn't speaking on the radio at this point.)

We have begun holiday preparations. We'll pick up Stephen on the 17th and I believe Sarah will come home on the 20th. We aren't traveling this year and will enjoy a quiet Christmas here at home. We will order our traditional (to International Falls) smoked turkey and salmon for Christmas day.

Hope everyone's holiday plans are coming together and that the spirit of the season is present in your homes. We miss all our relatives and friends on the west coast but sure have come to enjoy white Christmases. So anyone is welcome to join us.

Love,
Diane

Happy Thanksgiving! (Belated)

Hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday. We did. We enjoyed a wonderful meal with family and friends. I cooked turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans and rolls and took it all over to a family friends' house that don't have cats. We shared a meal with 18 people. A smaller group than we've had some years but we were in a smaller house.

We played some games, talked and enjoyed one another's company. It has been a very good month with an exciting finish to Rachel's swim season. She participated in 3 relay races and the 50 freestyle. She qualified on Thursday for the Saturday finals in each race and the 200 freestyle relay was one place away from the state meet. They were very excited about the results and hope to do better next year.

We have had a very good week with Stephen. He wasn't feeling well and Jeff was in Duluth at the end of last week so instead of coming straight home from Duluth he came home via Morris and brought Stephen home a few days early. After the summer without him, it was terrific to have a few extra days to play, talk and just be with him. We will treasure these days for years to come.

While Stephen was here, he heard that he had moved beyond the first cuts in a summer internship with the NSA. While nervous and having a hard time remaining hopeful, he would really like to receive a job like that this coming summer. So we are doubtful he will be coming home again for an extended period. It makes us focus on the time we have and enjoy the moment.

Have a blessed advent season. May you use the season to prepare your hearts and minds for the coming of our Lord.
Love,
Diane

Fall 2009 with the Adams family

I was going to try and be more regular about posting on this blog this fall but time seemed to get away from me as it seems to do most every fall. There are only three of us living at our house now, but that doesn't seem to make it any less busy.

I think there are several things that contribute to the busyness. At the library, fall activities and the planning for the rest of the year keep me busy. Then for the third year, I was in charge of the concessions for the girls swim team home meets. We have to adjust back to the school year routine. Rachel and I getting up and ready for the day and out of the house by about 7:45 (and 7:25 two mornings a week). Jeff switching from a focus of writing for the upcoming theater season to rehearsing, performing and putting together the shows (and all the logistics involved in working everyone's schedules together to put a show together). We also have three birthdays between Oct. 2 and Nov. 2. Then this year we added a trip to Colorado Springs to visit my Oma (grandmother) one last time before she died on Oct. 26th.

And the Lord has blessed us with a new teenage daughter. Sarah has been placed in our lives and we are thankful for her presence in our lives. She spent a good part of the summer with us before heading off for her first year of college. Since then she has been home to visit twice, always bringing her bright smile and sense of fun.

But, I think things are beginning to slow. Birthdays are past, swim season is wrapping up and we are looking forward to the holidays and the arrival of snow and the chance to get out and start skiing.

So I thank you for your patience if you've been looking for news from us and don't give up. I hope to be more regular at posting.

Diane

WOW! It is the middle of September

Time is flying! I can't believe we've already had two home swim meets. School has started and we're finally harvesting a few red tomatoes. Yum! All the fall scheduling is in full swing and we've begun planning a sweet sixteen party. It is hard to imagine that Rachel will be sixteen in less than three weeks. We are throwing a chocolate and games party on Sunday afternoon, October 4th. The one thing she really wanted was a chocolate fountain. So we'll be celebrating in style.

We are enjoying the weather which has decided to be summery at last. I've put up beans and carrots and have ordered some apples to make sauce and pies to put in the freezer for this winter. Of course we'll also eat and bake with many of them.

Stephen is working and playing hard during his second year of school. The University of Minnesota Morris has been a really good fit for him. He is president of the Assoc. of Computing Machines chapter at UMM this year and will be helping plan computing contests.

Jeff has been very busy getting ready for the next podcast season of Icebox Radio Theater. And the theater has their own office and recording space this year and he has been working on creating the perfect sound space.

Have a wonderful fall and let us know what you are doing.
Love,
Diane

Fall and Back to School

Stephen was returned to Morris last Sunday and Jeff and I made the round trip. We spent about 30 minutes in Morris. We unloaded the car and said our good-byes. Stephen was settling in very quickly. We were no longer needed and I think he is the only one of his apt. mates without a car so they arrived on their own.

Rachel and I went clothes shopping last week. She is such a thrifty, bargain hunter. We had fun spending her money and finding some great deals. Here are a couple of her new outfits.




Official swim practice has begun and she'll have her first meet of the season this coming Thursday. Both of our cats are attracted to the smell of chlorine and Tucker decided to use her swim bag as a sleeping bag this past week. It was a strange sight.



The weather is definitely feeling as if it has shifted to a more fall pattern. The leaves are beginning to change and we are harvesting beans, lots of beans. I have lots of green tomatoes and hope that we can have enough sun and non-freezing weather to get at least a few of them to turn red. (We've had a couple of very nice cherry tomatoes but that is all so far.) Hopefully we'll also have a few potatoes. I planted some yukon gold for the first time and am excited to see what grew. That is a project yet for tonight.

I'm currently making peach butter with part of the box of beautiful peaches we bought last week. We've had peach crisp, peach blueberry pie and lots of fresh peaches this week. Yum!

Enjoy the closing days of summer (at least if you are a student) and let us know if you ever get within 5 hours of us and we'll see if we can't arrange to meet you somewhere.

Diane

Weekend in Morris

At 12:30 on Friday, Jeff, Rachel and I left International Falls and drove down to Morris Minnesota to spend the weekend with Stephen. We arrived at his house at 6:15 pm and took him to dinner at Jose's burritos. It was a place he'd talked about as having really good Mexican food. It was delicious and Jose took a liking to Rachel and felt sorry that he couldn't make her the item she requested because he was out, so he said he'd surprise her. He made her a chicken dish that she thoroughly enjoyed.

We enjoyed a walk around town and then relaxed and talk back at his house. We had decided to just sleep on the floor at the house he is renting this summer, both to save money and to be able to play board games with him. Saturday morning I got up and fixed pancakes for breakfast. We then played Catan Germany, Ticket to Ride and Arkham Horror. All told we spent about 8 hours playing board games on Saturday. I made zucchini egg foo yung with rice for dinner.

Sunday morning we slept in and had a leisurely breakfast about 10am. I made eggs in a nest. Rachel wanted to continue playing Portal on Stephen's x-box so the rest of us went for a walk through his neighborhood (including seeing his bosses house, one of the oldest in town). It is a very interesting neighborhood with lots of fascinating architecture and variety.

We had planned on bbqing before we left to come home, but after the late breakfast we weren't hungry and Jeff was beginning to get antsy to head home. He had a rehearsal at 7 for the show this week. So we left to come home about 12:30 and arrived home in time for Jeff to prepare for rehearsal and me to work on laundry (which by the way is very difficult to get dry without a dryer when it is raining every day).

I took a few pictures and will work on loading them soon. Overall, a great weekend and I think we were able to take Stephen's mind off of his fretting for a few hours anyway.

Diane

Oregon adventures

Here are a few of the pictures from the 50th anniversary party for Laurel and Janet Adams (Jeff's parents) at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.

Then I included a couple from the beach. One includes para-kiters out on the ocean in 50 mile per hour winds and high waves. Looked like the kind of thing I wouldn't enjoy.

Rachel and Jeff went toe dipping in the waves.


Check out my Facebook page for more images.
Diane

Spring in International Falls

It has been a wild couple of months. We have been colder than normal and I think most residents of International Falls are ready for some nice warm weather. I know I am and my garden is as well. The second summer we lived here we bought two apple trees. They bloomed that first year and haven't since. This spring both trees developed a few blooms, they were just beginning to come out when we've had three nights of frost warnings. I didn't want the blooms to freeze before they had a chance to become pollinated so we cut small plastic bags and attached them to the trees around the blooms. They didn't freeze so I am hopeful we will get a few apples this year.

I have also covered my tomato plants each night this week. We are supposed to only drop to 40 tonight so I'm not covering stuff. Here are a few pictures of the apple blooms.







I am home alone tonight and enjoying the house to myself. I'm doing some catch up work and enjoying some peace and quiet. Jeff is at a guys night in movie at Steve Sinclair's over in Fr. Frances and Rachel is helping at a friends dance recital in Ft. Frances.

Hope everyone is enjoying life and making the most of each moment.
Diane

Spring Rush

My goodness but we are busy. Rachel had her spring band concert last Thursday. I helped organize and serve at the reception following the concert to thank the community for their support of the band and its fundraising efforts for the students trip to New York.

Jeff is neck deep in preparations for the Spring Fling Icebox Radio show next week. I am trying to get summer reading ready to go as I am taking most of the first week of May off to spend time with my parents visiting from Washington. But of course we have been very busy at the library and short staffed with illnesses and vacations.

We are beginning to see the grass green up and my tulips are pushing through the leaves I covered all my beds with last fall. Yesterday I spent time outside raking in the front yard and uncovering plants, just in time for snow this weekend :(

Rachel is helping with the baby broncos swim program after school for three weeks and is in the IBRT show as well. She is hoping to play soccer following the show over in Ft. Frances again. This will be her last year in the youth league.

The little we hear from Stephen sounds like he is busy but basically happy to be where he is, doing what he is doing. He has come down with a cold and is struggling to maintain energy and keep going. He spent last weekend in Park Rapids South Dakota at a computing conference and participated in a contest Friday night. His team placed third at the competition and won $100 for the school and $100 to split among the team of three. He was pretty excited.

We still don't know what he will be doing this summer. He has looked for jobs all over the state and elsewhere as well. He would really like to be doing something in his field.

Take care and enjoy your spring.
Diane

State Speech Meet

We had an eventful weekend with a trip to Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota where the State Speech tournament was held on Saturday. Rachel drove down with the team on Friday morning and Jeff and I followed Friday afternoon. It was great to see the camaraderie among the teens. Many have known each other for years. As someone commented to me, they were speech bff (best friends forever).

Here are a few photos from the State Speech meet as we were waiting for the list of students who made finals to be posted. It was an agonizing wait. They said they would be posted by 2:15 and at that point only the three categories with draws were posted. The remaining categories weren't posted until 2:35 with the first speeches to be starting at 2:45 all over campus.

By the time they posted the list of those participating in final round the room was packed wall to wall with people. The results were posted on a computer that was projected on a large screen. We all could watch as the guy came up to the computer and loaded the file and opened it and set the parameters. The tension in the room was palpable. Then as each list came up, cheers, clapping, screams of delight or groans of frustration could be heard.

Rachel was excited to be at state. She watched and learned and began gaining experience that will stand her in good stead in future years. She has already begun thinking and planning next year's speech. She is tossing around ideas and keeping her eyes open to possibilities and stories.







The trip home was uneventful and we are glad for a slow day today. Hope this finds you all enjoying spring and looking forward to summer.
Diane

New York/ State speech

Hey everybody,
I know I haven't been on here in a while sorry about that. but here is a little update about what my life has been life for the past few months. for all of you who didn't know I got ans amazing opportunity to go to New York City with the high school band! I had lots of fun and loved seeing the big apple. Madam Tussuad's wax museum was probably my favorite thing in the city. If you are going to New York any time soon I would definitely go there.



My other exciting piece of news lately was me qualifying to go to state speech, I didn't do very well but it was still really cool to go and be one of the younger competitors there. I got fifth in my first two rounds and sixth in my last one (there were six people in each round). One of the seniors on our team (Anna Remus for those who know her) got first, so we now have a state champion!
Me getting second at Section Finals and moving on to State

A Week of Just Two

Jeff and I have had the week to ourselves. Rachel has been in New York having a wonderful time (we have talked to her a couple of times). So Jeff and I worked, played and had a delicious dinner at The Spot on 53 restaurant on Thursday evening to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. Rachel will return late tomorrow evening.

This afternoon we entered the living room and our two cats were sitting in Jeff and I's chairs and looking pretty smug at us. So I used our new digital camera and snapped a picture of the cats.



Hope your spring is beginning to look like spring. We are very slowly losing our snow coverage although more may be on the way.

Take care.
Diane

Rachel ready for New York!

Look out New York City. Rachel is ready to leave with the high school band for a week in New York City. She is very excited and ready for Tuesday morning to come. Here are a couple of pictures of her empty suitcase (now filled) and the bed with stuff to go in the suitcase. Then there are a couple of pictures of Rachel in her new dress for the theater and symphony in New York. Sometimes it is hard to believe I have such a grownup daughter.

Globe Theater

One of the big projects for ninth grade English class students is to create a model of the Globe Theater. Rachel completed hers but we didn't get pictures before we took it to school. She brought it home on Tuesday and before we disposed of it, I took a few photos to show it off.





The photo with the cat head in the background was because our male cat took a liking to the theater when we brought it home. He like to sit on either side and curl up to sleep. He also discovered he like shredded wheat (the roof). We will be finding shredded wheat all over the house for weeks to come.

Revised description of photos

Well, the photos loaded in the opposite direction I thought they would. The top photo is looking out my window towards our house, the next is looking south east from library.

Snow pictures

Well, the snow is definitely melting fast. I had hoped to get some pictures of the maze around our house when we got 19 inches last week. But both our digital cameras chose that time to be temperamental and neither would work. Earlier in the day I had taken some pictures at work, most of windows with snow on the ledges. The work camera is working again so I'm going to share those photos with you. The first picture is looking out my office window. The second picture is the windows on the south side of the library, the bottom of the windows is about 5 feet off the ground. We had a lot of wind with this storm. The third image is looking out my office window towards our house and the fourth is looking out the doors on the east side of the building before the sidewalks or stairs had been cleared.





Hope your spring is looking up.
Diane

Spring?

I know the calendar still says spring is six days away and we have 2 plus feet of snow on the ground but today the sun is shining, it is already above freezing and chunks of snow are falling off the roof scaring the cats.

Last night we drove to and from Northome to pick up Stephen. He got a ride as far as that to come home for spring break. He has a full plate scheduled for the week. He is planning to sleep, do homework, go to the movies, sleep, eat, sleep, do homework, look for a summer job, sleep, eat and oh did I mention sleep.

Today Rachel is in Eveleth with the speech team. Hopefully she can do as well this week as she did last week. I think I am going to cut out the pattern to make her River dress today. I have made a mock-up and we're fairly happy with it.

Jeff is working on the next podcast for IBRT this weekend. He still has to mix all the parts together.

Rachel is getting very excited about her trip to New York. She leaves in 10 days. We are glad that fund-raising is done and we've paid our portion of the trip and can now focus on getting her ready to go.

Hope you are experiencing some spring weather. Enjoy.
Love,
Diane

YEAH!!!

Rachel and the speech team were in Ely, Minnesota today for a smaller speech meet. The team is fairly young this year and it was a good chance for them to gain some confidence. And it was a good confidence booster for Rachel.

She is again competing in the creative category, which means she writes her own piece. Today she placed second!! She was very excited. That gives her a good chance of placing well at sections. She will continue to work hard on the piece and the week after returning from New York will compete at state.

She has improved so much since she began competing in seventh grade. She is really enjoying this speech season.

I have had a good weekend as well. I am working on a River costume for Rachel and creating a dress almost from scratch. It is finally coming together and I'm enjoying the process. I also planted tomato seeds today. It is about 12 weeks until we can plant outside but I haven't given plants long enough to get established so am trying to start earlier this year. I am looking forward to seeing some green.

Have a good weekend.

Diane

OSCAR PARTY RESULTS

The results are in from the annual Adams Family Oscar party! A good time had by all as we watched the 81st Academy Awards go down without the obvious oversight of a Dark Knight Best Picture Nomination. The Clayton Family bracketed our competition this year, with Kenna taking top honors with a total of 27 points, and husband Tom taking home the Booby Prize (a K-Mart Double Feature DVD featuring Space Mutiny and Firehead) with a total of only 1.

The competition heated up early when Beth Nelson ran off four of the first five awards by using her 'Last Minute' strategy of picking the winners only after all the nominations had been read. This would eventually backfire, however, when Nelson had to exit the competition early to take care of some sleepy girls at home. Her subsequent picks, all done in advance, did not fare as well. Vicki Olson came on strong late to finish second with 26 points while Rachel Adams took third with 23.   All three top finishers batted 1000 on the major categories of Best Picture, Actress, Actor, and Director.

Two categories stumped the field this year. No one came up with the right answer for Sound Editing, nor Documentary Feature. Wall-E's victory in Animated Feature was the lone category the entire field picked right, though all but Tom did peg Health Ledger's performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight as the winner in the best supporting actor race.

FINAL SCORES
Kenna Clayton 27
Vicki Olson 26
Rachel Adams 23
Beth Nelson 21
Jeff Adams 15
Kirsty Sinclair 15
Steve Sinclair 12
Phoebe Marx 12
Eric Marz 5
Justin Kapla 5
Tom Clayton 1

(Scoring: Best Picture was worth 5 points; Best Actor, Actress, & Director 3 points; Best Supporting Actor & Actress 2 points; all other categories 1 point each.)

End of January already?

Wow! The month has both crept along and flown by. We have been very busy with band fundraising efforts as well as spending time with Stephen before taking him back to Morris for his second semester of school.

January has been cold until today. We had a high of 29 predicted and hit 38 (the first time above freezing since Nov. 14). We haven't had much snow this month, just dustings and an inch or two once or twice.

Rachel has finished her piece for speech season and is working on memorizing it. Next Saturday will be a local practice meet as the team has grown exponentially in size this year and most of the kids have never competed.

Rachel and I found fabric and yarn in Bemidji on our way to Morris to make her next costume for Convergence. I am designing the dress and jacket so am being stretched creatively in the coming months. I am planning on making a mock out of a sheet and have started on the knit jacket (a shrug with long sleeves).

Rachel is working on music for her movie and completed a small project for a class project. She has another idea for a short movie to potentially enter in a regional film festival.

And Jeff just keeps plugging along. He is doing a lot of writing and recording in the studio and is beginning prepartions for a live show at the end of April/early May. He is posting new podcasts every other week and is seeing an increase in those numbers.

I hope this finds everyone looking for warmer weather and staying healthy this winter. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

Diane