Almost Vacation Time!

Tomorrow we will be beginning our vacation! We'll drive down to the cities and pick up Sarah before spending the night at a hotel and then catching a plane early tomorrow morning for SeaTac. The last few times we've flown back to visit family on the west coast we flew into Portland, but this time the tickets to SeaTac were significantly cheaper than flying to Portland.

And we're excited as we get to spend some time in Seattle showing it off to Sarah and meeting up with friends (namely godparents for Stephen and Rachel) before heading north to Sedro-Woolley to visit Diane's family for a few days then head down to McMinnville to visit Jeffs's parents for a few days before flying back home.

This will be a fairly quick trip, but we are going to take all three children which probably won't happen again or not very soon. So getting 10 days in which all of us could get off work and clear schedules was something of a miracle.

Looking forward to seeing the west coast soon!
Diane

Completed!

Six months ago I gave Sarah and Rachel a Christmas gift that culminated Friday evening in them participating in a fashion show at Convergence.

Below is the video that Jeff took of the girls modeling in the fashion show. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150220097871160

This was a huge project that was hard work, delightful and very rewarding. I have done a fair amount of sewing and was in 4-H sewing for about 6 years growing up. But I hadn't done much original sewing. The girls and I brainstormed, they drew/sketched what they wanted. We bought fabric (lots and lots of it) and then I set to work to create what they imagined. I worked with five different patterns as well as creating many of my own pieces. Both dresses were made in muslin for fit and to make sure I was heading in the right direction with what they imagined.

Cutting the real fabric was scary. Was this going to work? But as the dresses came together I began to get very excited. It was so much fun to see their imaginings become real.

Here are a few more pictures of their dresses.





You can also check out both Rachel and Sarah's Facebook pages for additional pictures. Once the dresses were basically complete it was time to steampunk them. Sarah is a talented artist and this was her specialty. We visited a number of stores, the best being a watch repair place who let the girls have about 10 broken watches for free that they dismantled and used to create very beautiful jewelry.

This was such a wonderful time to connect with both girls and create works of art that they will (I hope) remember for a lifetime.

And if you are on our visit list in July when we fly back to the west coast then you might get to see these dresses as we are mailing them to my parents house and then will ship them back at the end of the trip.
Diane

St. Paul weekend

Jeff and Stephen left in Stephen's car on Friday about 1:30 pm for the cities. Rachel and Diane followed about 2 hours later as they both had to work. We all met up together at the hotel we were staying at with Sarah and met her friend Rachel for a brief time Friday night, but it had been a long week and we were all very tired (except for Sarah who was hyped that we were visiting).

So Saturday morning we met up to try on the costume I'd made for Sarah and Jeff, Rachel and Stephen ran errands. They went to the apple store for Jeff to get his Father's Day present, a new cable he wanted for his ipod. They also checked out a magic and costume shop for a couple of hats, neither of which they found.

We then went to lunch at the Chatterbox. Lots of laughter, conversation and good food was involved. We walked up to the Teasource so I could stock up on my addiction. I love good tea and needed some summer teas for iced tea.

We followed that up with a trip to the Axman a surplus store to look for gadgets for costumes and I found corks and colored tape for summer craft projects. The girls had also stopped at a watch repair shop to ask if they had any broken watches they could have for their costumes and came away with about ten watches and stopwatches to take apart.

Saturday evening we cooked a dinner at Sarah's house outside in the fire pit then played Arkham horror. Sunday morning we met at 9 at Shish a wonderful restaurant for breakfast. It was marvelous to meet up with the Utters and hear their latest and just spend several hours talking and laughing. This weekend there was lots of laughter, hugs, and talking.
The dogs decided Rachel was pretty special and both wanted to sit with her. We teased her about being a dog person now (as opposed to the cat fanatic she is.)

Stephen headed west to Morris where he will work with faculty this week on a conference presentation and his TA stuff this fall. He'll then fly to Michigan for the conference, when he returns he'll spend about a week with Sarah in the cities before attending Convergence with Jeff, Rachel and Sarah.

Winter's return and prom

After a delightful week of warm weather, snow just about all melted, including a high of 68 on Tuesday, the weather changed and Friday the weather became colder and we woke to snow on Saturday morning with a total of over 6 inches by nightfall with a bit more this morning. Of course this was also prom weekend, so yesterday 74 girls in beautiful long dresses ventured out into the weather with a daytime high of 36 and snow pretty much all day long. It was wet, cold and not very prom-like. It was fun to see the girls coming into the high school for grand march with prom dresses, sweatshirts and mukluk or ugg boots.



The girls attending with Rachel.

Rachel attended with friend Scott Ducharme. They were in speech together and at one point had agreed to go together as the state speech meet is usually the same day as prom and thus difficult for anyone who qualifies for the state speech meet to go to prom as well. Scott ended up dropping speech this year and Rachel didn't qualify, but by that point there weren't many unattached who planned to go.


The group of ten.


Rachel had a wonderful night and enjoyed the experience. She had two women come along side and help her get ready. Debbie Griffith was her Sunday School teacher last year and has always loved Rachel's features. Scott is her nephew and when she found out they were going together, she took charge. She did Rachel's makeup and convinced another woman, Pam Rooney to come and do Rachel's hair. I was grateful as I had to work until 3pm and pictures were at 4. Thank you to both of these women for their assistance.

Rachel and Scott were part of a group of ten who went to dinner together and then after post-prom (at 5am today) went to one of the boys house to watch a movie, doze and have breakfast before she came home at 10am for a bit of sleep.



The theme was Secret Garden. The woman coordintating the decorations went all out. The kids all came out these 'garden gates' for the march.




The bridge the couples posed on during the march. Many of the girls were afraid they would trip and fall. (No one did.)

The last week

Whew! What a week! We were busy all week. Jeff continues to just barely keep up with the writing, recording and editing schedule to get the bi-weekly podcasts out for Icebox Radio Theater. He has some cool plans for the theater for the summer, including a number of live shows around the county. He is also working on a pilot radio show with another radio host for fall.

Rachel is speech captain and the end of season get together was Saturday. She was trying to figure out what to give the team members when she decided to give them all llamas as one member learned a song about llamas at a meet and they ended up singing it regularly the rest of the season. But when we went looking for cheap llamas to buy, we struck out, so being the insane people we are, Rachel and I designed out own and made a dozen llamas this week. They were a hit.







On Monday night, the swim booster club held a meeting and I officially relinquished my position as girls swim team concession coordinator. We also worked on organizing the first of what we hope will become an annual Baby Broncos swim camp.



The weather this past week has been good for the melting of snow this past week, but we had a lot of snow this winter and that means a lot of water now present. But crocus are blooming in the back yard and a bee was visiting the blooms when I tried to photograph them.




This weekend I worked in the junior room on Saturday for one of the part-time employees who wanted some vacation time. I took in the fabric and pattern pieces for the costumes for Sarah and Rachel and got most of the pieces cut out. Now to get sewing.

This morning Rachel and I worked in the sound booth at church and then I went back to the library again. The library was given the chance to offer a second photography workshop for adults by a professional photographer. But the only days available before the end of the fiscal year were weekdays (which wouldn't work for most adults) and Sundays. So we offered the class this afternoon, but that meant I had to open the building and be there during the class. Then tomorrow night we have the opportunity to host author David Housewright, a Minnesota award winning writer of mysteries set in the Midwest.

A busy time at the Adams household, but I don't know if we'd have it any other way.
May God bless your week.
Diane

Emotional End to Speech Season

The speech season is over for Rachel. The section meet was Friday in McGregor. It was moved to Friday afternoon(we think because the state meet for single A is Friday). Rachel felt like she had done fairly well and was confident she had qualified for the finals. But she didn't. She was very emotional when she called to let us know. But she recovered enough to go and support her good friends from other schools who did make finals. (She ended up 9th, top 8 were in finals).

After receiving scores and judges sheets, we decided that she had bad luck and ended up with three judges who didn't get her creativity. They talked about her professionalism, her great enunciation, her poise and confidence and then ranked her 4th, 3rd and 2nd, with percentages in the low 90s. She hasn't been that low all season. She had also beat every contestant who made the final round at least once this season and several she beat more than once. It was a traumatic experience. But has made her stronger and more determined than ever to do better next year. She is already exploring options for doing a different category or at least playing around early in the season in a variety of categories.

Yesterday she laid low most of the day. This afternoon she was able to get together with Trelawney (good friend from across the river) and they filmed to create a short promotional film for a library contest for teens about why they need the library. I was able to go over to the library with them as they spent 4 happy hours creating, shooting, lighting, directing, acting and lots and lots of laughter.

Now they'll both attempt to edit it in the next two weeks to get it submitted.

Jeff also worked on the next radio production with Dave (Trelawney's dad and sound effects director).

We had a yucky weather day. High of 35 with snow, rain, hail, wind and generally damp conditions. The sewer drains are backing up, the lawns are flooded and the bones are cold and creaky. The weather should warm up (to the 40s) and dry up by the end of the week. I'm ready.

I'd hoped to start seeds in the house this weekend, but discovered I didn't still have potting soil leftover from last year, so we got some today. Hopefully I can get tomatoes, herbs and maybe squashes (I'll need to make newspaper pots too) started this week.

Hope your spring is progressing and you are beginning to see new life. We are still trying to melt our snow and thaw the ground.
Diane

Snow Melt

This winter/spring snow melt has been unique in our experience and as I talk with others, they have also expressed the strangeness of the melt. In our experience, the melt happened fairly quickly and usually was accomplished with a rain storm and warm temperatures.

This spring we just finished eleven days of sunshine with highs in the 20 - 30s each day but overnight lows between 0 - 10 degrees. This meant that we melted during the day but refroze and solidified everything each night. Late last week I began noticing the strangeness of the snow. It was melting very differently. Some places or piles were melting more than others and then we began getting these beautiful lacy sculptures of ice on top of the snow piles. I really began looking at them Monday and Tuesday and took a few pictures to try and capture the look. I didn't do the snow and ice justice, but you can get a brief glimpse of the unique look that we saw all over.

I loved the mountain peak looks to the snow covering lawns. But my favorite was the lace ice that seemed to defy gravity and physics to hang at impossible angles and be connected by molecules of ice.

We saw snow flurries most of the day today and are expecting up to an inch of snow tonight. Tomorrow the weather is expected to become more rainish so I imagine the snow will melt quickly. I am ready. I'm hoping to plant my tomato and herb starts on Saturday so I'm beginning to think gardening and that means I want the snow to go and the ground to thaw. But I have thoroughly enjoyed the melt this spring.

Spring on the way!

I think we can safely say spring in on the way. While we continue to have temperatures below normal, the sun is high enough in the sky that even temperatures in the twenties will melt the snow. We've had almost a week of bright sunshine which I've really enjoyed.

Jeff and I celebrated 23 years of wedded bliss yesterday. We had a quiet day with lunch at the local Mexican restaurant then time at Menards picking up the supplies to make me a portable greenhouse. I'm excited to move outside and begin working in the yard. Probably not much work for at least another month, but next weekend I'll start my plants for transplanting. It will be nice to begin growing things again. Although, I wintered in the kitchen rosemary, parsley, marjoram (almost) and oregano.

The speech season is beginning to wind down. Friday, April 1 is the section meet. The state speech meet is Friday afternoon/evening April 15 so they have put the section meet on Friday afternoon as well. This will be a new experience for Rachel. But she ended the regular season on a high note. Saturday the team went to Hermantown and many of the schools participating in the meet were AA schools. Falls High School is only a single A school. She placed 5th at the meet and was very pleased.

Sarah had spring break this past week and on Friday moved to her new residence. We are very excited for her and hope the second half of the semester goes smoothly.

Have a great week.
Diane

Family pictures

We have had a couple of requests for a new family photo. We tried a couple of times this weekend to get a decent one. Not very successful. Just as we don't remember to take photos, we don't seem to photograph well either. But here are a few photos of our family together.

Diane

St. Paul weekend

On Friday morning, Jeff and I along with Stephen and Rachel headed down to St. Paul to meet up with Sarah and spend the weekend playing together. We stayed at the Best Western Bandana Square. We stayed there in November and enjoyed the location and was the closest to where most of our activities were.

We picked Sarah up and checked out a surplus store and used book store. Only our family would be equally excited by gears, sprockets, wire, leather and used books. It was fun to wander through both stores and just enjoy laughing together. For dinner Friday night we had dinner at Osaka a sushi and hibachi restaurant. We sat at a hibachi grill and watched our dinner be cooked. It was marvelous. Jeff had chicken, Diane had salmon, Stephen steak, Sarah swordfish, and Rachel tuna. We all tried a bit of each others and had fun comparing and sharing.

Saturday we had a lazy morning then headed to the Source, the comic and game store that no trip to the cities would be complete with. We spent almost two hours wandering the store, reading game boxes, comic books. We also purchased two new games for the family. "Who Would Win?" is an argument game. Two players draw an action then each draws a character. Each then has 20 seconds to argue their case for why their character would be better at the activity. Then each gets a 5 sec. rebuttal. We had a lot of fun playing that one Sat. evening. "Fluxx" is the other game we got. It is a card game with changing rules depending on the cards drawn and played. Rachel and I really enjoyed that one.

After the source we went to India Palace for a buffet lunch. Stephen has spent very little time in the cities and didn't have many ideas about what he wanted to do. But he did want Indian food. We all enjoyed the experience.

After lunch we took a trip to Sarah's new lodgings. She will be moving next Friday to a house in north Minneapolis with 5 other students from International Falls, most of whom are students at the Art Institute. She will have her own room and we are excited for the change for her.

We then went back to the hotel and settled in. Several swam and sat in the hot tub. Some played games and we all talked and laughed. We had planned to go for ice cream but were still full from the India Palace and were tired, so we just settled in for the evening.

Sunday morning we were out of the hotel by about 9:45 and went to Robert Street Keys cafe for a wonderful Sunday brunch. We again enjoyed the time together talking about summer plans and goals for the next few months. Stephen then headed west to Morris and Jeff, Diane and Rachel headed back to International Falls.

We aren't very good at remembering to use a camera and then when we do remember don't always get very good photos but here are a few from our weekend.

Enjoy.

Spring Break

Stephen has been home this week from school. Tomorrow we take two cars and head to St. Paul to spend the weekend with Sarah. Stephen will drive from there back to Morris and Rachel, Jeff and I will return to International Falls.

It has been good to have Stephen home. I was able to take a few hours each day off and enjoy time with him. I was also able to do some special cooking and baking for him.

It is looking like he will be home for the summer. We hadn't counted on having him home again for any extended period of time so this will be a blessing.

It has been a wild week at the library as the computer catalog system housed at the Arrowhead Library System headquarters in Mt. Iron malfunctioned on Wednesday morning. We spent two days with no catalog or ability to check books in and use a remote system to check books out. Supposedly the system will be available tomorrow and my staff will have to deal with uploading the items checked out, checking in all the piles of books returned in the last two days with no way to check them in. I am going to go play in St. Paul with the family.

Rachel is at work tonight, covering the boys' basketball playoff game. At last update they were losing and so this might be her last game for a while. She is now working for the radio station three afternoons a week, recording weathers and community events and a few commercials.

Jeff is trying to stay on schedule and get a podcast up every two weeks. It has been a stretch this year because he is also trying to add in additional promotional activities and take the theater to the next level.

We have been warm this past week which has helped melt lots of snow. We are looking awful brown and muddy at the moment, but we have to go through this stage to get to the green stage. I just hope it doesn't last very long. Last year we had two full months of brown before the green arrived.

Have a wonderful day and count your blessings.
Diane

Spring?

Not yet. We are finally creeping up to almost normal temperatures (daytime highs about 32) but we have also had snow flurries the last couple of days.

All of us have agreed that this has been a long week. Not entirely sure why, we were busy, but we are busy most weeks. And we started the week with a spectacular Oscar party, if I do say so myself. We had 11 people here and 3 participating remotely. We served parmesan puffs, spinach dip, lil smokies and a hot crab dip. And then for dessert we served a gingerbread lemon curd trifle with blackberry syrup. It was marvelous. We put together swag bags for all the local participants and most of us dressed up in our finery. We also created a red carpet for those arriving to walk on. This has become one of our favorite events of the year.

Speech season is in full swing and Rachel heads to Ely tomorrow. Sections are in four weeks. She continues to tweak her speech which if you haven't heard can be heard on her Facebook page. We'll try and get a new video produced and placed up here on the blog for your viewing pleasure.

Jeff is staying very busy with IBRT writing, producing and planning for summer. He continues to dream of a limited touring schedule in the county during the summer.

Have a wonderful week and give thanks to God for everything big and small in your life.

Diane

Adventurous day!

What a day. Today was the library's annual edible car contest so this morning I planned on shopping for that. Originally I wasn't going to go into work but decided to stop in and the phone rang. After debating whether or not to answer, I did and boy am I glad. It was the truck driver for the new movie screen and he wanted to warn me that the screen was coming and that I'd need help unloading it from the truck because it was long and heavy. I got on the phone and made a few calls, but it wasn't enough. Turns out it was 1000 pounds heavy and six guys helping wasn't enough, we made a fewnphone calls and got Northern Lumber to come down with a forkliftnand help. I was very grateful. The screen and projector arennownhere and we'll begin the process of finding people to install them in time for the film festival May 5 and 6. I'm really beginning to get excited about this.

I did get the shopping done for the dibble car contest and had 37 excited kids and adults attempting to make cars entirely out of food stuff. Great Fun!

Overall, a fun, exciting, yet long day. These twelve hour work days seem longer than they used to.

I worked this past weekend, but still managed to get mock-ups of the costumes I'm creating for Sarah and Rachel completed. Now to make sure they fit before moving to the real fabric and working on those dresses. I really think the dresses will be marvelous.

Hope most of you are beginning to see signs of spring. We're still looking at wintry weather but have had a few days of melting which has cleared roads and roofs.

Have a great week.
Diane

We're still alive and kicking!

It has been way too long since we posted here. Sorry for the absence. Hopefully we can turn things around and begin to keep family and friends up to date on what we're up to.

We are staying very busy and that is my excuse. We have a very involved daughter in life. She likes staying busy and doing things with and for friends and family.

Yesterday afternoon she texted me to ask when Ben Franklin closed because she wanted to stop by after work and buy fabric to make a hat for a friend. I told her and then I discovered she wanted to make a hat that night (and we had no pattern.) So last night she (with a bit of assistance from mom) created an absolutely darling bunny hat for a friend whose birthday is today.

I also had the opportunity last night to have a bigger role in an IBRT show than I think I'd ever had. It stretched me tremendously. I played an old woman and had to create a voice for her. I've never done any kind of voice work but enjoyed the experience and the creative outlet (that was different from anything else creative I was doing.)

Tuesday night, Rachel worked, but Jeff and I were at the library hosting a 100th birthday party for the library. This was a small, simple production acknowledging the creation of the library on February 15, 1911. We (library staff and board) are planning a larger, more elaborate production on June 15, 2011 to recognize the 100th anniversary of the opening of the first library in International Falls and Koochiching county.

Speech season is well underway and Rachel has written another speech this year. She has placed 3rd in the last two meets and is thoroughly frustrated (long story, but basically placed first in 2 rounds and then had a judge (each week, no less) who didn't like her suspense piece, not humorous) but determined to end up on top of the heap.

We have enjoyed a week of warm weather (highs between 35 - 45) and began the melt, which is vital after the amount of snow we've already had this winter. We're now expecting to cool off and return to seasonable temperatures of highs in the low 20s with a storm moving in tonight.

Hope this finds any and all of you healthy and enjoying life. Remember it is our attitude in the little things that will enable us to meet the big things in life with joy.

Blessings,
Diane