Winter!

Winter has arrived in the borderlands. We have 8-10 inches of snow and have been cold for the last week. We had a couple of days with the high the single digits above zero. Jeff and I went skiing yesterday afternoon. We haven't been skiing before Christmas since we've been here. It was great. Hopefully this will be a winter with adequate amounts of snow to ski all winter long.

In about ten days we head out for our Christmas travel. We will drive to Grand Forks, North Dakota and catch the empire builder west to Portland where we will rent a car and spend three days with Jeff's folks then drive to Sedro-Woolley and spend three days with my folks then drive back to Portland and catch the train back to Grand Forks and drive home on January 1st so the kids can start school again on January 2nd. A wild busy trip but one we wanted to make before Stephen leaves home.

Speaking of which, he has confirmed with the University of Minnesota, Morris that he will be attending their school beginning Fall 2008 (of course, dependent on his graduating, which shouldn't be a problem). In January, we begin the financial piece of figuring out how to pay for having a child in college.

Rachel completed a successful swim season and is doing a variety of things this winter to stay busy. She will again (with her brother) be competing on the school speech team. Stephen is swimming and participating on the knowledge bowl team and swimming. Rachel and Jeff are beginning a pick up soccer game at the church and are very excited.

Have a wonderful winter and enjoy the season.
Diane

Time Flies!

It appears time really does fly when you are having fun, or at least busy. I don't know where the last three weeks have gone. We have celebrated two birthdays, finished a swim season, produced the next show as well as all the normal stuff of work and school and home and church. Rachel swam in the 500 yard freestyle at senior high sections yesterday. She didn't do as well as she wanted to do, but we are so proud of her for making it to the section meet as an 8th grader. Jeff and I had not been able to attend the junior high section meet so were delighted we could go yesterday. We drove down to Grand Rapids, watching closely for deer both ways, and enjoyed dinner together and watching Rachel swim. We will enjoy watching her in future years as well.

Stephen celebrated his 18th birthday with a trip to Virginia Minnesota with his parents and lunch at a Chinese buffet that we all enjoy. He also went with a friend and bought a lottery ticket. (He said he had to do something that showed he was an adult.)

This morning I woke to snow falling and about 1 inch on the ground. Not much and it is expected to rain tomorrow but we are all (our family at least, and we don't say it too loudly around here as most people seem to not want snow in the winter) hoping for more snow than last winter.

It is the middle of hunting season around here and the kids have Thursday and Friday off for hunting season. It is actually because the teachers work several evenings for conferences and get the time off in one chunk for hunting.

Have a wonderful weekend.
Diane

Job Interviews and Updates

I just got off the phone with the National Audio Theater Festivals' search committee who took me through my paces in the first interview. This is for the position of Executive Director, which sounds more impressive than it is. It's a part time position, but it would give me the chance to be part of a national organization for audio theater. As of now, NATF (as it's known) is basically one conference held in Missouri every May. What I'd like to see it become is a national academy similar to the motion picture academy which runs the Oscars each year. And though I wouldn't be 'in charge' as an executive director (I would answer to the board of directors) I would have a lot of practical power. I figure I need to pick up another job for the next decade or so while the kids are in college. What better job than this one?

Everyone is doing fine, though we are a little snuffly. The kids have the rest of the week off school and are going on a church retreat Friday afternoon. I'm getting ready for the Halloween show on Oct 26, and Diane has Family night next week and teens pizza and games tomorrow. All is well. We have all our reservations for train, hotel and car rental, and are looking forward to Christmas.

Family Update

It hasn't even been a week since I last posted but what a week it has been. We thought Stephen had gotten a bug bite on the back of his neck but by Sunday night when it was spreading down his neck we decided we'd better take him to the doctor. He has shingles and has had a long week of dealing with phantom stabbings in his neck and shoulder and a nasty rash that itches and burns.

Rachel and I spent Saturday at the pool. It was Shiverland, the annual junior high swim meet. Nine schools, about 150 girls spent six hours swimming. Rachel did very well in her first and last races. The middle two races were not her best. We continue trying to figure out how to keep her energy levels up for an entire day. I helped sell programs and concessions and cheer Rachel on.
She has another meet tonight and will get home about 10 and have to be at school tomorrow, so the dual meets on school nights are always hard to adjust to, but when you live two hours from everywhere that is what we do.

Hope everyone is enjoying fall and staying healthy. Let us know how you are doing and what you are doing.

Diane

September 14th - Winter, right?!

Well, we may be in for a snowy winter. But it may also be too early to tell. But what it isn't too early to tell is that we had snow flakes in the air this morning. We had a frost and killed a few plants earlier in the week. I have harvested all my tomatoes (green as well) and beans. The growing season is over here this year.

This has been a very busy week for the Adams family, but find me one that hasn't been recently and I'll be amazed. Rachel has had two swim meets and another one tomorrow. Jeff is working and volunteering and doing sound jobs and more. Stephen is keeping up with school work and not much work at this time. I am working and baking and dealing with preparing the yard for winter.

Enjoy your fall wherever you are.
Diane

Madeline L'Engle

I know this is our family blog but Stephen let me know this afternoon when he stopped by to fax in his calculus assignment that my favorite author died yesterday at 88. Madeline L'Engle died of natural causes in her home in Connecticut.

I have read almost everything she has written and own about 75% of her works. She is the inspiration of one of my Advent readers' theaters. A great author with a very wide range of stories and non-fiction. She will be missed.

Diane

Swimming

Hello, I am doing alright except for some first term worries. my note books won't get here till tomorrow and I highly doubt that They will get her before 8:00Am when I leave for school so if we do anything at all I have to write it all down in one notebook so when I do get my real notebook I can copy it all down again. I am a little nervous that they will check supplies the first day of school. But it most likely won't happen.

Swimming is going okay we just had our first real meet a couple of days ago I won the 200 meters and the 300 meters races. My team didn't win the meet but it was one of the nicer pools and we had fun. I have another meet the first day of school, but thankfully it isn't an away meet and I have to miss some of my classes.

That's all for now
Love Rachel

School Year

The new school year officially begins on Tuesday, September 5th yet Rachel has had swim practice for the last two weeks and a meet again today so she is in the school mode and getting back on a schedule. She has found all her classes and lamented the fact that she seems to need to go from one end of the building to the other and back again between classes.

Stephen is taking one online class and began that on Monday, August 20th so he has been back in the school mode for over a week now and is still working each day at the beach life guarding. But summer is definitely winding down. We are beginning to see trees change color (part of that might be the drought conditions more than the seasons) and the mornings have definitely been cooler this past week.

We received our school calendar for the year and wanted to let everyone know that graduation is Thursday, May 29th at 7:00 p.m. and anyone who is interested is welcome to join us. We will be having a graduation party as well. When is still be figured out. If you would like to come, please let us know and we will work on making room for you. We will be renting the neighbor's second floor for some people to sleep and she is a dear retired music teacher who goes to our church and loves having people stay with her. We have three floors of space and as long as you don't mind being somewhat squished we can probably accommodate three sets of adults and various children tucked in at our house and one set of adults at the neighbors.

Swimming

Swimming has started!
we have a new coach this year ( Mr. Reed retired) the new coach is Kylie Mr.'s daughter she is doing okay so far but we ( me and my friends) and swimming Varsity for the first time and so we are really far behind everyone so we finish after everyone else has had a long break then Kylie immediately jumps up to tell up how many laps to swim next so we don't get any rest! We are very tired after swimming as you could imagine.

Other than that I ma waiting for school to start in a couple of weeks, and to get my schedule. they come out on Monday and after swimming that morning I am going to go and get it with one of my friends on the swim team.

That's all
Rachel

Wow! Time really does fly!

Time is passing by so quickly, yet I think Rachel would also say sometimes it seems to not move at all. I guess it is just all relative.

I thought August was going to be a slower month. Hasn't happened so far and we are half way through it. Rachel started swim practice two weeks ago. She had a week of captain's practice and on Monday the coach began running practice. It is a new coach, the old coach (the only one the team had ever had) retired after 33 years of coaching. The new coach is the old coaches daughter but things are different. Rachel and her group of half a dozen or so 8th graders have all been asked to do the varsity practice and she is coming home exhausted every day. She is amazed at how hard she is being asked to work. They are the slowest lane and that means that the faster girls get longer rest periods because as soon as Rachel's lane finishes the coach starts the next set of laps.

Stephen is working, working working. He works 4 1/2 hours shifts each day. I believe that in August he is getting 3 days off. He had most of July off while he went to visit family out west, but it is making for a very swift moving month. He is ready for school to start. Monday he will start his college class for the fall. He will be taking Calculus II via the Univ. of Colo. at Colorado Springs. It is an online class with full lectures, white boards, discussion, Q&A sessions and all assignments submitted online. On one of his rare days off this month (next Monday) he will have senior pictures taken.

Icebox Radio Theater had their end of Summer live show bash on Wed. August 15th in Smokey Bear Park. Close to 200 people came out and listened to songs, skits, ads and a first, a feature length script by someone other than Jeff. Kenna Clayton, a local writer who attended one of the writer's workshops, completed a script and with Jeff's help got it edited and finished in time to produce it for the live show. It was called "Icebox Property" and was a fun story of local interests and intrigue. The show went very well and was well received. The first weekend in August IBRT recorded another new show, the pilot episode of "The Scoop Sisters" a hopeful serial series about a woman who owns a small town newspaper and her daughter and granddaughter who come to help out.

Diane works, helps out, and gardens. I have been harvesting beans, cucumbers and should be about ready to harvest zucchini. The tomatoes are very slow this year, but the first cherry tomatoes are beginning to turn red so we will be able to get a few tomatoes before the snow flies.
A group has started a local farmers' market so we have been able to enjoy local tomatoes already and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

We have spent several evenings or afternoons playing games as a family. On the return trip from picking up the kids, from visiting family out west, we stopped at a Twin cities game and comics store. We all had a wonderful time browsing and making a number of new game purchases. That has motivated us to get the games back out and enjoy as many moments as we can together. Time is definitely running down on the family nights together. We will have to make the most of the time this coming year.

Let us know what you are up to and know that you are in our thoughts and prayers.
Diane

Happy Friday!

It is Friday afternoon with the temperature at 75 degrees and only a light breeze. The Adams family is all back home again. We are very glad to be all together again. Jeff and I drove down to the cities on Monday to pick up the kids at the airport. Their plane landed at 3:46 and by the time they taxied to one gate, which malfunctioned, were towed to another gate and then disembarked after all the other passengers (which is standard operating procedure for unaccompanied minors who have to still have an escort) it was 4:40 when they got off the plane. We had their luggage and were in the car heading away from the airport at 5:15.

We stopped at the Source comic and game shop in Falcon Heights. Stephen had heard of them earlier, Rachel and I were introduced to them at Convergence and wanted to stop in and see what they had. It was a wonderful store. We purchased several new games for our families enjoyment.

The weather on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was HOT! We made it though. We spent the night at Alan and Elaine Johnson's with Elaine (Alan being in Chicago for the week) and had a wonderful evening catching up with their lives and sharing ours.

Tuesday and Thursday evenings we played games. It was great to settle in and enjoy one another's company. Stephen had Wednesday off and then started back lifeguarding on Thursday. He will be busy this month. I believe he only has three of the next 29 off.

Thursday was the summer reading finale picnic and the weather was cooler than the previous three or four days, but very windy. We had steady wind and gusts to probably 30 -35 mph. It made for an interesting picnic. Kool-aid cups would blow over, hot dogs were flying and I'm sure that more than one napkin or paper plate escaped the park for parts elsewhere. Rachel and a number of other teens came and helped serve banana splits. We celebrated the end of "Go Bananas @ Your Library" with what else but bananas!

Icebox Radio Theater is recording the pilot episode of what he hopes will be a serial story about the Scoop Sisters. He has a great cast and will rehearse tonight and record tomorrow. Then he dives into the live show in the bandshell in Smokey Bear Park on Wednesday, August 15th as part of the Concert in the Park series.

Rachel starts swim practice on Monday and is looking forward to the season. School is not far off and we will have a busy August getting ready.

Enjoy your summer and the weekend.
Diane

Mud Runs

Well, I learned a bit about myself and my community yesterday. I don't know if I will ever fit in completely. Jeff was asked to provide sound for two events during the Minnesota Northern District Fair held at the Littlefork fairgrounds this weekend. As we have been so busy while the kids are visiting grandparents and I hadn't had a chance to see much of Jeff, I told him I would accompany him on Saturday and serve as his roadie. I watched the 100 meter dash for cars and such yesterday. It is called the mud run and involved about 100 meters of deep mud for cars and trucks to drive through as quickly as they can. Times over the day varied from just over 2 seconds to over 22 seconds. The first vehicle to travel the course flew over the mud and seemed to barely notice it was there. But about the fourth or fifth vehicle struggled down the course and took out the end timing device and then hit a water spigot covered with a tire and rolled. The driver, a female, ended up going to the hospital with (as someone said) only a broken leg. I was unable to enjoy most of the rest of the event. If any of the vehicles started to jerk or slide I tensed up. I came home exhausted and very stiff from being so uptight. Today Jeff went alone to cover the oval races. I decided I couldn't handle another day of potential crashes and had stuff to do around the house.

Take care everyone and enjoy summer.
Love,
Diane

Home from CONvergence

Hi Everyone:

I’m writing the family’s ‘Post-Con’ blog because we have just returned from CONvergence 2007, the sci-fi convention that I’ve now attended for five years. It’s a strange choice for a family vacation, but this year, that is exactly what it was. All four of us attended for the first time. And, for the first time, some of us went in costume. This picture is of me dressed as Carl Kolchak from the old Night Stalker TV series, and Rachel dressed as River from Firefly.

This was Diane’s first con, and she had a good time too, spending her time in quality Mother-Daughter with Rachel, and attended more of the book themed panel discussions. Next year, she said she’d spend more time a musical events as she really likes the Celtic bands who always seem to attend these events.

Now, the kids are off to Oregon/Washington to spend a few weeks with grandparents. Diane and I will have the house to ourselves. Diane still has summer reading to manage, and I’m going to try and get a show recorded in studio. Oh, for more info about ‘our’ convention, this is the offical website: http://www.convergence-con.org

Happy Canada Day!

Being here on the border we walked over and watched the Canada Day parade in Fort Frances and then Rachel rode with a friend to Emo and was playing with the community band in their celebration. Stephen is working out at city beach this afternoon. We hadn't had a chance to see their parade yet as since we have been here we have had to work or been involved in other activities. It was very similar to our small town parades.

We have all had a very busy week. Stephen worked at the pool teaching swimming in the morning and then four days worked out at city beach lifeguarding.

Rachel had band practice four days and spent part of the day on Tuesday with a group of Swedish teens in the country singing and were hosted by our church on Monday and Tuesday. She went to open swim and spent some time swimming laps on Wednesday - Friday to see how out of shape she was before participating in a fun swim meet on Saturday morning. This weekend the third All-Class reunion at Falls High school took place. In honor of the retirement of the only swim coach Falls high school has ever known, a swim meet was held for any former swimmers as well as any current swimmers. It was a lot of fun. Friday and Saturday she also spent time in the park helping man the Espresso Lane smoothie booth. Espresso Lane was also selling IBRT discs and playing a sampling of the shows available for sale.

Jeff helped out with the Swedish concert on Monday night and had rehearsal for the Old Koochiching play in which he had a part and had two performances on Saturday. He prepared discs for the booth at the park during the all-class reunion and during the fourth of July. He worked at the Christian radio station four days this week and kept the family running.

Diane was missing her main desk employee this week. Summer reading is in full swing and had stories in the park and a program on Thursday. Friday the library had a book sale and open house for people returning to town for the reunion. Then Friday morning the library lost Internet connectivity for almost two hours. That created some additional stress as we had lots of extra people looking to check email and deal with Internet business. But by 11:30 we were back on Internet and the open house was a success with almost 1,000 people coming through the library in four hours. She attended the swim meet with Rachel and then helped at the smoothie booth during and after the parade Saturday afternoon.

This next week will be busy as we celebrate Independence day with community celebrations and then prepare to vacation in the cities for a science fiction convention and send the kids to the west coast for three weeks with relatives. We hope your summer has been good and you are busy and healthy.

Friday!

My goodness. How did we get to June 22nd, the second official day of summer. It seems like not that long ago we were in the depths of winter and waiting for warmer weather. Well, the warmer weather is here and I know some of us are looking forward to cooler weather.

Stephen is working many hours this week. He is teaching two swim classes at the pool and worked at city beach Monday - Wednesday afternoon/evenings and then early today. He is becoming quite the social butterfly and attending a party this evening with a number of friends.

Rachel just got home from camp and is speaking very highly of the speaker and the food. She is tired and may take a day or two to recover and respond to emails.

Jeff is working hard for church this weekend. The church has two funerals (he did one this morning and one tomorrow afternoon), sound booth training tomorrow morning and we have a pastor candidating at church this weekend and the Swedish singers performing Monday night.

Diane is very involved in summer reading. Lots of kids have come in and begun keeping track of how much time they spend reading and listening to others read to them. The library also began a teen summer reading program this year and has had a good response. She is also spending time in the garden and hoping that the warm weather will stay until she can get some tomatoes and beans ripe. Things seem to be growing slowly at the moment.

Next week will be an interesting week here in town. The 3rd All-Class Reunion for Falls High School will be held on Thursday - Sunday with many activities and events all over town. The latest is to expect about 5,000 additional people in town next weekend. It should be interesting.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the summer weather wherever you are!
Diane

Weather Fun?!

Well, the Adams family experienced a first yesterday. Koochiching county was under a tornado watch from 10 am - 6 pm on Wednesday and from 4 - 4:30 pm we were under a tornado warning and had all the emergency sirens of town doing their warning sound. No tornado though! For which we are very grateful. I guess in the history of the town only one tornado has ever touched down. Littlefork, a town about 20 miles southwest and Ray, a town about 25 miles south east have both seen tornadoes, in fact we heard about a house being destroyed the first summer we were here in Littlefork.

Wednesday night was a wild weather night. We received almost 2 inches of rain and had two lightning storms, one from 12 - 2 am and the other from 5 - 5:30 am. Needless to say, I was very glad that Thursday I was scheduled to work until 8 pm and didn't have to get up at 6.

Today is beautiful and my garden is beginning to sprout. I will be glad of a few more plants. The new hanging basket I received for Mother's Day from my family became too waterlogged and pulled the hook out of the wall, fell and broke. I am trying to save as many of the plants as I can, but they took quite a beating between the rain, the wind, and being dropped.

Enjoy your summer and let us know how you're doing.
Diane

Public Radio Talent Quest

Well, that looks like about it.

For those of you that hadn’t heard, I recently entered a contest created by an NPR distributor called ‘the Public Radio Talent Quest’. It will be an American Idol-style competition with a prize of $10,000 toward becoming the next Car Talk or Garrison Keilor. Along the way, I began to get some very kind comments from folks in the contest about my entry. You can listen to the entry and read those comments here: http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/413

Well the deadline for the end of Round 1 has come and gone, and I still haven’t heard anything. They asked that everyone stay close to the phone yesterday (June 4) so they could call the semi finalists. There were over 1,400 entries, and the first cut trimmed that down to 10. I have not heard yet, either via email or phone, and the contest has not posted an official list of the semi-finalists, but I have to assume at this point that I didn’t make the cut.

On the positive side, they did post two lists yesterday to try and appease the anxious entrants who were nearly-crashing their website. One list was of the 100 entrants with the most popular votes (votes from listeners was part of the judging criteria) and I was on that list. They also listed the entrants who received one or more nominations by one of the official judges, and I was on that list as well. So it’s fair to say I’m in the top 100, just not (apparently) the top ten. I think this is analogous to being a pro ball player, just not a major league one.

There is still hope, of course. Until they post the final list, there is a chance that I could squeak in there, but I figure that logically, I didn’t make it.

Thanks to everyone who listened and voted over the past month. It was a very positive experience, and I have contacted everyone who posted on my page with a thank you note. Plus, I think I got a potential professional contact out of that bunch. So over all, very positive.

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

A Rainy Saturday Night

Hi everyone!

Just checking in with a picture and a bit of new about the Adams family. The picture above is Stephen's gang on their way to the murder mystery party. It's prom night in the Falls and for this group, it's Anti-Prom night. I don't if it's because they're mostly sophomores and juniors, or they're just different. Most of these kids are on the speech team.

Stephen and Anna's time the state speech meet was good, though they didn't meet their goal of making finals. They were judged the best team in one of there rounds, however, and that's a positive thing.

While in the Twin Cities, the team visited the Mall of America and Stephen came back with a video game called Guitar Hero II which we are all now addicted to. Well, that's how it works these days.

Diane's busy at work, and I'm busy getting the IBRT business end of things going. Check out the IBRT, you're learn that we got picked up by our first station outside of Minnesota - this one in Alaska. God bless and talk to ya'll soon.

Jeff

Speech Results

Well, none of the Falls kids made the final round. Stephen and Anna were tied for 9th place with about four other teams. The top eight teams compete in the championship round. I haven't spoken with Stephen yet, but we went on line and were able to view the results of the meet at the Minnesota State High School League web site.

I know Stephen and Anna had hoped to make final round so I am sure they will be disappointed. We however are very proud of them. I believe that on May 12th the team is hosting a fundraiser and performing their pieces for the public. I am hoping that we can get an audio recording of the evening to post as a podcast.

Stay tuned for more details.

We are enjoying a very nice spring day of partly sunny and temperatures in the upper 60's, spring is definitely feeling like it is coming. No green yet, but it will come.

Thanks for checking in.
Diane

Some Icebox Radio news

I have some really, really wonderful news for everyone.

About a month ago, after the theater received a very generous and unexpected donation, I made the decision to join a service called PRX.ORG - a kind of online warehouse for community and NPR radio stations. And I just got the word that

WE'VE MADE A SALE!!!!

KTNA, a radio station in Alaska has licensed 'The Cabin Next Door'. No word on schedule yet, but this a big day for the IBRT.

WE ARE ON THE AIR IN ALASKA!!

And here is a link to the station

http://www.ktna.org/

Speech Results

I just got off the phone with Stephen (10:30pm). And he and his partner have won our section for the second year in a row!

They are frankly confused as they don't feel they did all that good, but I told him judges - like audiences - like what they like. There's no accounting for it.

Stephen and Anna are going to State once again!!

Spring?

Just when you think spring has arrived and we might begin to see some color our hopes are dashed. We are having one cold week with 5 - 6 inches of snow on Tuesday and a high the last two days in the low 20's. It was a cold 3 degrees when I got up this morning. It is hard to be hopeful and suddenly find yourself back in winter. But hope is again in sight. We are supposed to reach the mid 30's on Easter.

(picture is of my parents old yard, this was the background that came up on my computer this morning and I found myself pining for green and more! I am tired of brown and white.)

And of course last weekend I planted my starter plants. Tomatoes, basil and rosemary seeds are sitting in cold dirt in my living room window wishing they felt like growing, but it is too cold to think so positively. This is what happened last year when I started my seeds as well. Oh well, I have eight weeks before I can safely think about putting them in the ground outside so they can take their sweet time starting.

Have a blessed Easter and enjoy time with family. We will be spending the afternoon with the families in our Bible Study group. The three oldest kids will be hiding eggs for the three youngest kids. It should be fun.

Diane

I AM SO COLD!!!!!

it is so cold! my mother keeps trying to trouch me with her COLD hands, because she says I am warm but I don't feel that way!

As I am sure you have all heard I didn't do such a great job at sub-sections for speech.
I don't know what happend! I would get up on the stage all ready with my speech the judge would give me the okay. and every single thing I had been going over for the half-hour befor went zizzing out the window and I was left looking very foolish in front of alot of people that I don't know but will probaly see again next year!
also I had the worst luck of judges! I got this one lady who thought I was blowing out her eardrums and that she was hearing impaired and how bad she felt for every one else in the room! also she said my intro was too depressing! and storytelling was supposed to be fun! when half of he stories that give us are really depressing! this judge is also known for being really
slow.
But I am looking forward to next year I am going to try creative expression that is where you write your own piece. I have a idea, and I have started it, but right now I am stuck. and my m,om says it's okay that I am stuck because I have not quite a year before I have before speech starts again so I will keep blundering on with it.

- Rachel

Speech Results

Two very tired kids arrived home at 2 am this morning after a very long car ride on bad road conditions. I was a nervous wreck. I had watched the news before going to bed and wished I hadn't as the weather forecasters talked about how awful things were right in the area the kids were coming from and it was moving north.

Stephen and Anna placed third in the duos and will be moving on to sections. They have room for improvement which I think they both knew as Thursday night they were still deciding exactly what the piece would include to make sure it was under the 8 minute time limit. They can now spend the next two weeks working on the specifics of the piece and making each as good as they can make it.

Rachel and her friend Hannah (the only two 7th graders on the team) did not qualify for sections. Rachel was pretty disappointed. Everyone on the team said they were shocked at the number of participants in the category. Several of the kids who have been in speech for five and six years said there had never been even 12 kids in the category and 12 qualify for sections, so in previous years she would have qualified just by being in the Storytelling category. This year there were 16 storytellers at subsections and only 12 move on. Storytelling was tied with dramatic duo (Stephen and Anna's category) for the most entries. Technically duo had 19 but 3 didn't reach the ending round (I didn't understand last night, if they were no-shows who had signed up and gotten sick or something or if they were disqualified during one of the rounds.)

I'm sure Stephen will post something on his blog at some point this weekend about his reactions to the meet and I will encourage Rachel to post her thoughts and reflections on her first season competing in speech. She said she was really thrown by the timers in the room, all three showed the time remaining differently and she was very conscious of the time and felt like she kept forgetting her place in the story. That will be something for the team to work on next year, will be to help kids adjust to being timed, as none of the meets up to this point have worried about the time component of the categories.

Diane under attack!!

Just checking out how to add a photo to our blog. I'm not even sure when this picture taken, but it is a good one. She was feeding PeeCee and Tucker (the gray one) healthy cat treats.

Rehearsal

As I write this, Anna and Stephen are practicing their piece for speech. Sub-sections are tomorrow afternoon. They will leave school about noon. The meet starts at four, awards are scheduled for 9 pm and they should get home about 1 am on Saturday. We have found a ride home for them as both Jeff and I have to work on Saturday.

We will have the kids wake us up when they get in and get the results from them. We will head to work and one of us will post the results right here Saturday morning.

It is difficult to write as their piece is very entertaining. They are behind me, our backs are to each other. I hope I'm not distracting them as much as they are distracting me, but they seem to be doing fine.

Rachel is upstairs watching the movie Zoom. She is nervous about tomorrow and is distracting herself watching movies.

It has been a long week even though I had Monday off. I took it off for a day I worked earlier in March and Monday was our 19th anniversary. It is amazing to think that we have been married almost 20 years.

Well, dinner is almost ready so I will close for now.

Diane

Welcome to the first posting of the Adams Family Blog

Rachel
welcome I have been wanting to do a blog for some time now and I am hoping that having a family blog will help me remember to post more often.

I am looking forward to starting soccer a getting in shape again ( I hate running one lap around the track in gym and then being out of breath)

I am also looking forward to subsections in speech this Friday I did really well for a 7th grader this last saterday I got last in the first round ( that isn't that good) but I got 2nd in the 2nd round and I got 3rd in the 3rd round. normaly I get 5th or 4th in my rounds so I was really excited for the 2nd and the 3rd. But the school had really small classrooms so trying to fit 6 or 7 people in one room was really hard! So as I was saying I am really excited and hoping to do well this Friday.


Mom:

Welcome! We have been meaning to start a family blog for some time now and Rachel and I decided that this afternoon was the time. We will attempt to post photos, news and other information about the Adams family doings on a regular basis.

Jeff and I celebrated 19 years of marriage today. It is hard to imagine that so many years have passed since the day we vowed to love one another in front of so many friends and family.

Be sure to check out Stephen's blog at Tales from the Northwoods - http://talesfromthenorthwoods.blogspot.com/index.html

He hasn't updated recently but has been rather busy with speech season and now track. Sub-sections for speech are this Friday. Rachel is hoping to qualify for sections in storytelling as a 7th grader, especially after her wonderful job this past Saturday in Hermantown. She was one point from Honorable mention. Stephen and Anna are hoping to win the duo competition. They went to state last year and are definitely counting on a return trip this year, but would also like to win the sub-sections tournament, if not sections.