Two Months in Thirty Seconds or Less

You know when you get way behind on your blog, and it seems like you'll never get caught up? Hah! I say! That never happens to me. So I haven't posted since Halloween phhhbbbbbbbbbthhh! So here's what has happened since then all in 30 seconds or less. (or more if you're a slow reader!).

# 1: Beth got a new camera for a very early Christmas present. I love it. It's awesome. Hubby you're the best!!

#2: We went to Montana for Thanksgiving and had a really fun time.

#3: Beth got to take ALL the santa pictures at our ward party. Here's Matt sitting on Santa's lap. Anna is wise beyond her years and refuses to talk to people with stupid costumes.

#4: This week it was soooooo cold! and it snowed! The kids had fun playing in the snow while I shoveled, and then shoveled some more later. If you look at Matt's legs you can see the plastic wrap I put on his pants because I haven't gotten him any snow pants yet. Actually, the plastic wrap worked really well!

#5: The in laws are here visiting Salt Lake this week, and Grandpa McLean took the kids sledding. See, no plastic wrap this time and he came back soaked!

Okay, times up! not too shabby eh? Whew! I'm never going to get so behind again!

Swine Flu (almost) Ate Our Halloween

It's been a long time since I've posted anything, so I'm going to make it up to you today by giving you...the swine flu! Yeah! Well, actually not, but I am giving you a lot of pictures to look at! Yeah! We have had a lot of really fun, and not so fun stuff happening around here ranging from Grandparents visiting to Anna having the swine flu (you decide which was the really fun part)(just kidding in-laws!! we love you!).

We had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa McLean which was really fun. We went to Salt Lake to have lunch at the Lion House pantry which is were we had our wedding luncheon. The food was super good, Grandpa and Kent each ate a piece of prime rib the size of a Frisbee, and we all got lion house rolls-yum!

Grandpa giving Matt a ride up the hill after lunch.

We also celebrated Scotch Christmas while the grandparents were here. For those of you lucky enough to know what scotch Christmas is you know how awesome it is. For the rest of you, Scotch Christmas is a holiday that Kent's Dad made up many years ago when he needed a holiday. Our family celebrates Scotch Christmas by opening gifts of argyle socks and butterscotch candies, listening to bagpipe music (once a year won't kill ya) and last year we added mini golf to the festivities.

The kids playing golf in their pj's.

Scotch Christmas breakfast and presents. What you can't see in this photo is the lovely bagpipe music that is playing.

Last Sunday, October 25th was Kent and my 7th wedding anniversary. I love ya more than ever Hubby!
While the Grandparents were here Anna and Matt came down with what I thought were colds. Matt was better by Monday, but Anna continued to have a fever, sore throat, head aches etc. I took her to the Dr. to be tested for strep on Tuesday, but he said it was most likely the swine flu. She continued to have a fever all week until Thursday night, and she really felt horrible. But after her fever quit she improved rapidly. It was pretty disappointing to miss a whole week of school including the class Halloween party and parade (I think I was more disappointed than Anna!). Matt also missed preschool this week just in case. I am so glad my girl is almost well again! Kent and I haven't been sick at all, we've been taking a lot of vitamin C, so hopefully we will stay healthy.Matthew wasn't a big fan of touching the pumpkin guts, but he helped me decide how to carve the jack o' lantern.

Anna didn't want to carve her pumpkin, so she drew a face on him.

After Anna was feeling better one of Anna's friend's Mom and I organized a little Halloween party for some of the kids from the neighborhood. This was a game where they had to wrap their teammate up like a mummy. We had two teams, girls against boys. Anna is the pink Tinkerbell fairy on the right.

Here's the boys team. They were a little out numbered, but luckily they had spiderman Matt to lend a hand.

Pre trick or treating. This was the only good picture we got because the camera battery died right after we took the photo. The kids had a great time trick or treating this year, and made it all around the whole neighborhood! We had a ton of trick or treaters come to our house, we gave out almost 10 bags of candy!Anna has been a busy girl this week, not only did she get the infamous swine flu, but she also got glasses. She can see just fine with one eye but the other eye is significantly weaker, so the eye Dr. prescribed glasses. I let her pick out her own frames, and I think she picked the cutest pair!

Whew! that was a really long post! One last item. Kent received his offer letter from Adobe, so he is still gainfully employed, Phew! So just to recap, unlike the big foot monster and the world ending in 2012 swine flu is real people, so wash your hands! okay that's it, I'm outta here.

Kent's Activity Report

So, Bethany posts every so often and I post only every so often. It's my turn to post evidently.

One thing that I've been doing the past little while is tinkering with the network and computing devices at my house in an effort to consolidate and awesome-ate. Here are the (minor) problems I've been trying to solve:

- different computers having different documents on them
- no backup being done
- A DVD player, a separate Blu-Ray player, and an Xbox 360 which we stream Hulu through
- a couple hundred DVD, HD DVD and Blu-Ray movie boxes and discs
- a change in furniture arrangement that moved the TV and associated network-connected devices to a location with no network jack

So, with these issues, I've been working on an overall solution.


My first desire was to consolidate our media libraries in one place. I killed a few birds with one large stone in the form of a Home Server. I chose a product made by HP that has space for 4 internal hard drives and runs Windows Home Server software. I put four 1.5 terrabyte drives in this baby for a total of 6 terrabytes of unadulterated space and it runs great. This is plugged into the wireless router that you can see in the photo, and that hard drive space is shared with any computer connected to the network.

From the picture, you can see that it isn't a large computer. It's just over a foot high. You can see the four hard drive enclosures on the front of it. It's size is misleading as there's a lot of birds that this little computer kills. The software included out of the box manages all of that hard drive space, it automates the scheduled backup of any computer that's connected to the network, it automatically copies and sorts any files (documents, videos, pictures, etc.) from locations on computers I specify, and it has a built in web service that lets me log in from a any remote location to grab a file, watch a movie, etc.

It's a nice, compact solution to a few of the problems I described. My plan is to back up all of the movies on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-Ray we have to this central server. That will let us eliminate two pieces of equipment we currently have: a dedicated Blu-Ray player and a 400-disc DVD player. I should mention that the 400-disc DVD player is awesome in that it took care of one of my aforementioned problems, that of a bunch of movies and a bunch of unsightly cases. We actually have had all of our DVD movies in this one device for awhile now and it's been great. Moving the discs into digital format is the next step. So, the 400-disc DVD player and the Blu-Ray player are up for sale! So is the 60" TV!

So, my house was built with ethernet cabling running from a central location in the basement to each room in the other two upper floors (except the bathrooms...). For some cases, that works great since, in general, a hard line is better than a wireless signal. However, for a long time now I've had a wireless router broadcasting a wireless signal all over my house. But for the TV we had a networking jack right behind the TV stand up until recently when we decided to try something new with the furniture arrangment in our living room. We moved things around and the TV is now on the opposite wall where there is no jack to speak of. Here enters a problem for solving, and a problem which had posed the greatest challenge until yesterday.

As already mentioned, we've had a wireless networking signal in our house for a long, long time, but the devices connected to our television have always been hardwired through a simple hub connected to the wall jack (which ultimately connects to the router in the basement). With the TV having moved across the room it may as well have moved to the other side of the world. We could run wires behind the floorboards or up through the wall from the basement. I didn't want to do either of those. It would be way cooler to do it the hard way. So, I bought another wireless router exactly like the one in the basement. There is a feature of this router that lets it act as a repeater when paired with another router. This is meant to essentially extend the range of your existing network. Sounds good, eh? Not so much. I wrestled with that for a few days trying to get the functionality work. It did work... kind of. It had really bad hiccups, it burped all the time, and it was always saying that other devices couldn't come in its room to play. It just wasn't solid.

So, yesterday I took it back and got a dedicated networking Bridge device to take its place. Now this was a pleasant experience! It was up and running in 15 or so minutes without all the mess.

This is a snap of the wireless bridge on the left and a simple hub on the right. The bridge connects wirelessly to the router in the basement. The hub connects to the wireless bridge, and the Xbox 360, the Blu-Ray player and another so-far-unannounced device all connect through the hub. And it all works! Woot!

The other device is a new addition to the McLean computer family; it's a computer I assembled over the last few weeks that doesn't serve quite the same purpose as the traditional server or home computer. It's a home theater PC whose primary function is to pull all this together.

You see, the dream is to sit down on the couch, turn on the TV, select a movie or TV show to watch and have it go. No fussing with different TV input settings, no fussing with DVD cases and discs, no searching for *something* to be on -- none of that. And even better, to be able to pull up a browser if something comes to mind -- all without *having* to get up. There's a few other nifty things that one can do with a computer connected to their TV which is connected to all your media and a fountain of knowledge over the internet, but the consolidation is what I've been after with this solution. A universal remote goes a long way, but this is better.

As you can see, this doesn't look like a traditional computer. That's the point I think. We're looking for a good stand that fits with our other furniture, but the goal is that you don't walk into the room and see your desktop next to your TV. It's meant to blend in (a little bit at least). It's still a computer and you can do everything you do with a computer. The difference is that this computer has an HDMI port and is capable of outputting 7.1 surround sound and HD video in addition to everything else your desktop is capable of.

So, with the current setup I can sit down and browse my music and movie collections, see what shows are available for watching on Hulu or other internet sites, stream any of the movies from Netflix, go and do anything else on the internet, and so on.

Other things that have been going on for me are mostly work related. There's a promotion in the works, although I still don't know the timing. And the elephant in the room right now is the announcement that the software/media corporation Adobe has offered to purchase Omniture, the company I work for. That's interesting for us because we haven't had this experience before -- where a bigger fish comes and swallows you up. And it was out of the blue for most of us lay employees. If all goes according to plan, that transaction will be complete during the upcoming week. Perhaps I'll post again with an update after the supposed day.


Bethany bought Matthew a tie yesterday which he has sported with aplomb most of the day today. he even posed for some shots.

Underwear on Head, Matt's 1st Day of Preschool, Top of Utah 1/2

Welcome to September! Here's a few highlights from the past couple of weeks.
I think this first picture is self explanatory.

Today was Matt's first day of preschool. One of my friends has a preschool at her house, and she asked me if I wanted to help out this year, so Matt doesn't get to get rid of me yet! There are 15 kids in the class, so it was a little crazy today! I actually didn't get any pictures of Matt, but some of these kids are in my sunbeam class too!

Last weekend was the Top of Utah 1/2 marathon up in Logan. I wasn't planning on running it, but at the last minute a girl in the ward who was already registered for it decided not to run, so I took her spot.

The race is down blacksmith fork canyon. It was absolutely beautiful and the fact that there weren't any big hills to run up didn't hurt my feelings at all! A couple of my running friends and I drove up to Logan the night before and at a ton of pasta, and stayed in a hotel (and no, Kent, there were no pillow fights!).

This is us waiting at the start line. That's me second from left wearing my lucky pink sweat band.

Me and Darla on the bus to the start line! It was a really fun race, not my best time (2 hrs 15 min) but I had a good time, and didn't loose any toe nails!

Anna's First Day of Kindergarten

Kindergarten is finally here! Anna has been really excited to start school. Here's a few photos I took this morning.

Her teacher's name is Miss Gurney and she seems really nice. Anna's best friend Eliza is in the same class-yeah!

I think it's gonna be an awesome year!

How a Utah Girl Ended Up With a Montana Geek

For this blog entry I am going to take a break from the usual birthday party, vacation, and cute kid themed posts. Instead, come with me on a journey through time and space and I shall recount how a Utah girl (moi) ended up with a Montana geek (Kent, naturally). The answer to that question is: somewhere in the middle. Idaho, actually. Kent was in my ward at Ricks College and was assigned to be a home teacher to my apartment, Birch plaza #115. I don't remember much about him being my home teacher except that he always asked how our love lives were going. In fact I remember one occasion where he spent about an hour listening to a problem I was having with some shmoe I was dating at the time. The point is we didn't know each other very well at that time and certainly never dated. In the picture below you can see Kent in the background but not for long...

After Ricks we both transferred to BYU, Kent in September 2001 and I in January 2002. On my very first day at BYU I was walking through the Wilkinson center and ran into none other than Kent McLean. I was so excited to see someone (anyone!) familiar in that big unfamiliar place, we exchanged phone numbers and I called him that night. Our first date we doubled with Kent's brother Scott. On the way to some girl's house to play games Kent asked me if I was hungry, I said I was so we went to the Taco bell drive through (classy choice!). Kent asked me what I wanted and ordered it, but nobody else in the car wanted anything. I felt like an idiot sitting there crunching my taco all by myself! The rest of the date was pretty fun, but he didn't call me for a couple of months(!!) after that to ask me out again. When we started dating for real we dated for about 3-4 months before we got engaged. This is a picture taken on one of our dates when we roasted marshmallows on the stove to make s'mores. (That other dude is Kent's roommate, Rob)

This picture was taken on my first trip to Montana to meet Kent's parents. When we announced that we were engaged, Kent's Dad shaved off his moustache! I loved meeting his family, they were all so welcoming and have always made me feel like I belong.

Kent and I were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on October 25th 2002. It was a beautiful fall day, and I'll never forget how happy I felt to have finally found such a handsome, kind and smart man to spend eternity with.

We went to Disneyland on our honeymoon-of course!

We added one more to our family in 2004 when our Anna girl came along.

Matthew boy rounded out our family to four in 2006.

And that brings us to 2009. Kent and I have been married for almost seven years and I think we have both helped each other to be better people. We make a great team, kinda like the A-team.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Happy 5th Birthday Anna!

There's been a whole lotta partying going on at our house the past few weeks. We had Anna's birthday party for her friends last week so that her cousin Kaylee and aunt Sarah could come.

Anna wanted a princess party theme, so I got a little crazy with the crepe paper streamers and balloons!

We asked all the girls to wear their finest princess attire to the party, and they all looked beautiful!

One of the games we played was "kiss the frog prince", although no one was able to turn the frog into Prince Charming (or Prince unCharming for that matter).


Taking a whack at the pinata!

Cupcakes!! Yum!


The day after the party I got to go up to Rexburg to visit some of my best friends from Ricks College. We had a really great time hanging out, going to movies, checking out all the new stuff on campus and of course, visiting our favorite restaurants. Meanwhile Kent and the kids had a great time at home eating corn dogs for every meal and playing xbox.

Anna's actual birthday way this last Thursday, I can't believe my first baby girl is already 5! She is such a sweet, helpful and smart girl, plus she gives the tightest hugs! I didn't make the Cinderella cake (I'm good, but not that good!), which we had for lunch that day-it was a pretty awesome day!

Happy Birthday Anna girl!