A Girl and A Geek

2011 Wrap Up

2012-01-04T12:00:00.002-07:00

Hi Guys! Welcome to 2012. Before we get started with new stuff, I thought I had better get caught up on the last couple of weeks. We had so much family festive fun! Probably the best Christmas yet. I loved that we got to spend time with ALL our family as well as a lot of time just our little family.
First up was the annual Davis gingerbread-a-palooza.

Anna built her house with frosting-no hot glue here!

Everyone stayed the night at the Chalet in Midway. It was cold, but no snow.

My Mom and I made matching T-shirts for everyone!

We all know I'm the REAL favorite.

There is nothing odd about this picture.

My Mom & Dad with all their grandchildren.

Bill making (overflowing) wassail

Sarah and I really loved the wassail!

If you have a fireplace you must have s'mores.

The talented Bryan and Brenda

Kent and Matt are building a Go-Kart.

For Christmas Eve, I got this idea from my sister in law to make tickets for a Christmas light tour of the neighborhood. The kids loved it. We saw a lot of beautiful lights and drank hot chocolate while listening to Christmas music in the car. I think this may become a tradition for every Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning!

On the way to Rexburg to hang out with Kent's family we stopped at an Arby's for lunch. We all thought this sign on the door was hilarious!

New Year's Eve bowling at Fat Cat's!

This is my "I got a strike!!" dance.

These kids are gingerbread house experts!

All the McLeans

That's it! A pictoral account of our last couple of weeks. It has been such am awesome year, we have so much to be thankful for. Cheers!

November Zoo

2011-11-29T20:54:00.001-07:00

The kids had an extra early day at school a few weeks ago, so we went to the zoo. I love going to the zoo in the fall because it is nice and cool, and there's hardly anyone else there.

We Finally got to see the baby elephant!

Anna and Matt were the only kids on the carosel.

We had such a fun time, and it was such a beautiful day!

Friday Field Trip

2011-11-12T16:01:00.001-07:00

I got to go with Matt's kidergarten class to cornbelly's on an "educational" field trip. It was my job to make sure these four boys didn't get lost.

Or put in the stocks. Oops.

I think they all had fun and no one was lost/hurt/eaten by a snake-phew!

Halloween Stuff

2011-11-12T15:49:00.001-07:00

Sorry so late on these. I have had a couple of projects for church that have been occupying my time, and blogger has been not so nice to me lately. So this first set is from Anna's 2nd grade program. It was held a few days before Halloween. Anna wanted to be a tiger for Halloween and this is what I came up with, and she loved it! (phew).

Matt saw this penguin costume in the hand-me-down box and he was set.

I love this picture taken right before the program started. Anna is looking cute, but check out the other kids-ha!

Grandpa and Grandma Mclean happened to be here that night, so they got to come to the program too!

We had second row seats, but I pretty much couldn't see any thing because of this guy and his need to record THE WHOLE program. Seriously? Who watches those videos?

Anna and her best friend Eliza the butterfly.

Super Anniversary Fun Times

2011-10-25T10:56:00.000-06:00

Today is Kent any my 9th wedding anniversary! I asked him this morning if he really remembers much about the actual wedding day, and he said "yeah, some". Very cryptic. One thing that stands out in my own memory is being very relived that he showed up. Ha ha! I mean, why would I worry about that? Look how cute I am! Plus I know about Baz Lurhmann.

Since the big anniversary is on a Tuesday, we went out last week to celebrate. We went to this new museum called the "Leonardo". They have all kinds of cool art, and science-y stuff.

This is Kent trying out a prosthetic hand that worked by sensing muscle movements in your arm. Either that, or he's practicing his Dr. Frankenstein. "It's Alive!!".

Hey! I was there!

The Leonardo is right next to the Salt Lake Library, and you can walk up this stair case to the roof of the building.

Of course we had to finish up the date by eating much meat at Tucanos. Yum!

Conference Weekend in Eden

2011-10-16T09:28:00.001-06:00

The McLean's had a condo in beautiful Eden for the week and we spent the weekend up there watching conference, and enjoying the beautiful scenery-and some giant carrots.

R.S. General Meeting

2011-09-26T08:59:00.000-06:00

My Mom, Sister, Sister in Law and I went to the R.S broadcast on Saturday. I loved having so much company for such a wonderful meeting!

2011-09-23T12:29:00.002-06:00

Red Rock Relay

2011-09-12T21:31:00.000-06:00

Curse you blogger!I thought I had you all figured out, then you went and changed. All these pictures are in reverse order. So with out further ado here's what I did last weekend starting with the end.

Our "kill" tally. This is where we kept track of all the people we passed. We ended up 56th out of 200 teams. Not too shabby.

We did it!

Running to the finish as a team.

After each completed leg you got a stripe.

My friend Julie had to run up this huge hill.

Two guys from my team. The runner is getting sprayed with water-so nice!

Came across this funky statue in the middle of the night.

This is my friend Darla running in the dark.

I was the team tattoo artist.

Hail on the highway.

One of the runner exchange points

We got to ride the ski lift to the start line at the top of the mountain.

Waiting to start.

Hanging out by the fire the night before the race.

Packing up the van and checking out the shirts.

That's it. Sorry it was backwards.

Scotch Christmas

2011-08-24T09:25:00.006-06:00

Not only was Tuesday the first day of school, it was also Scotch Christmas. We decied to have Scotch Christmas because we had an extra McLean visiting us.

I don't know what brazillian bbq has to do with Scotch Christmas, but we went to Tucano's and ate much meat.

Then we opened our scotch presents. Argyle socks, scotch tape, and a roll of scotch bubble wrap which we rolled out and danced on. Sorry, there isn't any pictoral evidence of said dancing. Just imagine 5 people wearing argyle socks jumping on bubble wrap to bagpipe music, and you've got it.
Cheers everyone!

U2 Can Time Travel

2011-08-04T14:06:00.009-06:00

Come with me on a journey through time and space...back to May 2011. Actually, let me break it down for you timeline style. March 2010: Kent buys Beth amazing birthday gift-U2 tickets!! yeah! April 2010: U2 postpones tour due to Bono's back problems-Boo! A year passes....May 2011 Beth shoots two weddings two weekends in a row, deals with end of school year hoopla, runs a marathon, and finally, as a reward for patience and perserverance gets to go to her first concert ever with her true love. Whew! Wow! that sounds like a great movie plotline eh?
Kent took all these photos with this phone, since I didn't take mine.
We took the train up to rice-eccles stadium, and found that we had great seats! It was a little bit cold but a beatiful evening. The stage is called "the claw" and it was pretty amazing. I won't try to describe all the cool things it could do, but if you're interested check youtube.

The opening act was "The Fray". They were really good. I was surprised that all the seats weren't filled by the time they came on.

After "The Fray" was done the stage crew started getting the stage ready for U2. We had to wait about an hour and a half! But we had fun watching everything get set up and people watching people in the crowd.

When U2 finally came on it was awesome--and LOUD! Our home teacher had suggested we take ear plugs to the concert- and I was glad we did! It was so loud you couldn't really hear the music and the words unless you had the earplugs in. I know that doesn't make sense!

The concert lived up to high expectatioins and the year long wait, and we had a great time! When it was over it was crazy trying to take the train back home. We were crammed right in the door way of the trian so that every time the door opened we would fall out! What a great night! Thanks for the birthday present Hubby, and thanks for going with me! Love you.

Family Reunion

2011-07-09T11:44:00.015-06:00

We spent this past weekend in Montana for the Christensen family reunion. I took A LOT of pictures!
The kids and Kent went to test Grandpa's treasure hunt.

Cutting hotdog roasting sticks.

Group effort putting up the teepee.

I tried to take their picture, but they ran away.

The comedic entertainment.

Summer Stuff

2011-06-23T08:49:00.004-06:00

Just a few pictures of what our summer has been like so far:

Matt and Anna rode ponies at the Saratoga Splash.
And they got some fancy balloons. We love the Saratoga Splash because all this fun stuff is in the park right behind our house!

Frisbee!

The weather is just starting to heat up here so there should be lots more summery stuff to come!

Playing Catch Up

2011-06-05T20:24:00.004-06:00

Whew! It has been a non-lazy crazy month of May! Here's a few highlights:

Matthew turned 5! It was a great day. Grandpa and Grandma Davis came over as well as some aunts an uncles to eat his dinosaur birthday cake.

I ran my third Ogden marathon. While I was disappointed in my time, it was a beautiful day and I was so glad my cheering squad came to support me-thanks guys!
Anna and Matt participated in the kids K race. That's my sister Sarah running with them since I was NOT running one more step that day!
We did it!
Friday was Anna's last day of 1st grade. She has done so well this year and has really loved her teacher, Mrs. Penrod.

Matt's 5th Birthday Party

2011-05-15T20:32:00.005-06:00

We had Matt's 5th birthday party yesterday, and I think everyone had fun!
Probably the coolest part was making the erupting volcano's! Yeah for baking soda and vinegar!

We also had a dino egg hunt, dinosaur freeze tag and a pinata which I did not get any pictures of because they smashed it so fast! (You'd think if you spend ten bucks on something it could entertain 8 kids longer than three minutes!) Anna was the only girl at the party, and as you can see, she's really excited about that.
Presents!!

"Happy Bir-th-day tooooo YOOOOUUUU!"

Bridals&Groomals

2011-04-25T12:54:00.004-06:00

My little bro Danny and his fiance Carissa are getting married in a little under 2 weeks! They wanted to take a few pre-wedding pictures so they could enjoy the actual wedding day.

Spring Break in MT

2011-04-17T19:40:00.006-06:00

We had a really fun week in Montana with the "far away Grandma and Grandpa". Here's a few pictures from the trip. The kids helped Grandpa plant some onions in his garden.

We visited some pet buffalo.

And fed some ducks at the duck pond.

Playing at the park.

Dying Easter eggs.

Kasey's Bridals

2011-04-04T08:36:00.004-06:00

I shot these bridals last week at the state capitol building. Pretty fun. What do you guys think, do you like the look, or do they look too photoshopped?

Wedding Quilt

2011-03-14T23:22:00.002-06:00

For my birthday this year my Mom gave me my completed wedding quilt! I picked the pattern and fabrics out years ago, and she did a beautiful job on it! I am so happy to have it, and am amazed at all the work that went into making it.

Check out the quilting! She did this on her sewing machine. This quilt is so huge, it must have taken forever!
The back. I love the stars!
I love it! Thanks Mom!

Engagements

2011-03-08T21:59:00.002-07:00

Sorry, I haven't been blogging very much lately. It's been busy around here! One of the things taking up my time lately is taking these engagement pictures. They were a lot of fun to do, and I think they turned out pretty good!

My Hubby

2011-02-18T22:49:00.001-07:00

Bustin' Through

2011-02-14T12:00:00.004-07:00

This is one of Matt's favorite pastimes lately: pillow demolition.

Granny's Gravy Update

2010-11-08T21:09:00.004-07:00

Here's answer some of the questions I got about the Thanksgiving day race.

1. The race will be before the feast. I was thinking around 8:00, but probably whenever people are awake.

2. Yes, I will mark the course.

3. I think a shorter race for kids is a great idea! I was thinking maybe we could do that on the track. I just get nervous about kids running on the road. If anybody wants to join in for just part of it, Grandma suggested having a sag-wagon to pick up people or you could just pick a point near the end and start there.

4. I think I may be too lazy/cheap to design and print shirts, so I have an idea for some medals at the end.

Okay, that's it. If anyone has any other questions or ideas let me know-it's going to be fun!

1st Annual Granny's Gravy 5K

2010-11-01T21:03:00.003-06:00

Hey everyone. Kent and I were planning on running the local turky trot on Thanksgiving morning. But we decided to go up to Montana for Thanksgiving instead. And since there isn't a local 5k in Hamilton that day, I have devised my own race route which you can check out here: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/mt/hamilton/683128866394656082 . Anyone is welcome to run it with us. It starts at Granny McLean's house up on Weber Drive and ends at the other McLean's house on Ravalli street. I think I'm going to make shirts, so let me know if you want to run it!

Peeved

2010-08-08T21:40:00.003-06:00

Why are there so many jerks in the Walmart parking lot? Why can't people JUST take their empty cart to the cart corral thingy? It seems that as soon as a person exits the store with a cart, they immediately turn into the laziest person on earth. This has been bugging me ever since we had a Walmart built only a few blocks from our house. I have seen people drive their cart up to their car, unload their foodstuffs, get in their car and drive away while their cart is still sitting there in the same spot. Gosh!

Post

2010-08-08T15:58:00.002-06:00

Only 334 Days to Go...

2010-01-31T16:44:00.007-07:00

Phew! it's finally January 31st! Is it just me or does it seem like January takes forever?!

Well, I have managed to keep McLean365 going for the whole month, and I have to say it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. Usually the hardest part is choosing which picture to post for the day. So I thought it would be fun to post some of the pictures that didn't make McLean365 here.

This picture totally cracks me up. I don't know if it's the grumpy face or the Star Trek shirt.

Matt "in the zone" while playing xbox.

This is an outtake from the taco night post. I have ended up using the timer on my camera a lot so I can be in the photo. This was a long exposure shot, and it took a couple of tries because the kids had a hard time holding still long enough!

Anna loves playing with the pink lego set she got for Christmas.

This is another outtake, trying to get everyone in place before the camera takes the picture.

Well, that's it. Happy February everyone!

Christmas Jammies

2010-01-03T21:44:00.003-07:00

This is us on Christmas Eve in our PJ's. We had a really great, relaxing Christmas which involved a lot of xbox, watching movies and eating treats. Happy new year everyone!
p.s. I started a new blog http://mclean365.blogspot.com, where I have challenged myself to post a new picture everyday.

Two Months in Thirty Seconds or Less

2009-12-13T16:21:00.005-07:00

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

2009-11-01T14:23:00.008-07:00

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

2009-10-18T17:48:00.011-06:00

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

2009-08-30T15:47:00.006-06:00

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

2009-08-27T09:59:00.004-06:00

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

2009-07-30T10:51:00.006-06:00

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!

2009-07-19T14:31:00.007-06:00

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!

Happy Canada Day?!

2009-07-05T14:07:00.002-06:00

Hey Everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I updated this blog, but I've been waaay too busy eating otter pops and crashing the neighbors pool parties. Aaaaahhhh summer...
Did you know our neighbors to the north, AKA America's Hat, AKA The Great White North, AKA Canada celebrates it's Independence day on July 1st? We do since for the past couple of years we have had our very own Canada day parade in our neighborhood.
It's pretty awesome since it comes right past our house and they throw LOTS of candy!

It's a fairly short parade, but they did have horses, a fire truck (which is why Matt is covering his ears), floats and convertibles containing minor celebrities.

The official mascot of Canada Day: Mister Maple Leaf.

Who knows who's behind those tinted windows!

Random, non-Canada Day related photo taken by Anna.

Anna and Matt watching a video on my ipod.

We had a good 4th of July too, mostly just stayed home and did projects around the house, but Kent managed to make Beth crazy with his firework shenanigans. My brother and his family came to hang out for the evening which was pretty cool, although we couldn't get the sparklers to light-it must have been the "extra safe" model of sparklers. Happy Independence Day!

Mr. Funny Face Goes on Vacation

2009-05-31T14:41:00.006-06:00

This past week our family and Kent's parents went on a trip to California, and we had a great time! As I was looking through the photos of the trip I noticed how many featured Kent making a face. So here's a pictorial log of our trip, count how many faces Kent made and post in the comments.

Cruising in the van with Grandma and Grandpa McLean

Playing "Old Maid".

At the fabulous Jelly Belly factory

Ye olde Golden Gate bridge.

This one's for you, Kaylynn.

Yeah, Disneyland!

M&M world in Las Vegas.

Bellagio Fountain.

It was a really great week, I'm glad we got to go. So how many crazy Kent faces did you count?

Set Phasers To Stun: Beth Finished the Marathon & Matt Turned 3

2009-05-17T19:09:00.005-06:00

Yep, Kent and I finally got to see the new Star Trek movie this past week. It was awesome! Really a fun movie, it had action, comedy, and nerdiness galore!
Saturday was the day I have been training for since the end of December, the big one-the marathon. It was a really fun and beautiful race down Ogden canyon. I did really awesome until about mile 15 when I realized I was very, very tired! I did manage to run/walk the last 11 miles and finish in 5 hrs and 15 min-not too bad for my first time.

Me at mile 23, only 3.2 more to go!

While waiting for me to get to the finish line Matt stuck his head through the barrier to get a better view! It meant everything to me to know that Kent, the kids, and my parents would be waiting for me at the end-you guys are awesome!

Finally crossing the finish line!

Smiling.

Not smiling anymore. About 15 min after I finished I started feeling very nausous,and dizzy. Kent took me to the medical tent where some very nice nurses and doctors gave me an IV of electolytes. I felt much better after that-elecrtolytes are the best!

Today was Matthew's 3rd birthday! I can't belive it-the time has gone by so fast! He is such a cute, helpful, and all around awesome kid.

Matt requested a Darth Vader birthday cake, I think it turned out delicious!

"Everybody remember where we parked."-Capitan Kirk

Still Haven't Seen Star Trek

2009-05-10T21:07:00.004-06:00

Kent and I still haven't seen the new Star Trek movie, but here's some other stuff we have been doing in the mean time...

Lately the kids think the most fun thing to do is to take everything they own and shove it into their play tent. This would not be a problem, except they never wanted to help clean up. So I finally got fed up with this routine and repo'd all their toys and the tent. Aaaahhh... the play room was nice and clean for about a day and then they discovered that it was just as much fun to pile up all their bedding and pull all their clothes out of their dressers and pile those up too! Who needs toys! (insert huge sigh here).

Speaking of hairy situations, I got a new haircut! I haven't had bangs since 1991-we're talking waaay back to the first war in Iraq, the super NES was tops, and Arnold was still the Terminator. Anna took this picture of me-not too shabby!

We went kite flying yesterday to test out the rhomboid box kite my parents made, the kids flew some little kites too.

We went up to the top of this hill that is popular with hang gliders-definitely some good wind there!

Anna and my sister Sarah

Matt and Grandpa Davis

View from the top of the hill.

My Dad winding the string to his kite. I didn't get a picture of the kite, but it is pretty cool!

Until next time remember, "I signed aboard this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget." -- McCoy

Birthday Bonanza

2009-04-19T13:49:00.004-06:00

Howdy y'all. Friday was Kent's Birthday (35 whatup!)and we have been celebrating all week. He got to choose one present each day this week to open. The only present worth mentioning is the bologna bubble gum I got him. Instead of a birthday cake I constructed this awesome tower of rice crispy treats and chocolate!

So delicious!

The other event of the week was that I ran in the Salt Lake half marathon on Saturday. It was a perfect day for it! It was really fun running with so many people and I finally know how it feels to grab a Gatorade, chug it down and then toss the cup like those guys in the Olympics! I finished in 2 hours and 5 min, which is faster than my goal so I was pretty happy about that. My parents came to cheer at the half way point, and my Mom made this awesome sign-it really helped to have someone cheering for me!
By far the coolest souvenir I got from the race was a bloody shoe! I didn't even notice it until after when we were walking around, it didn't hurt at all, but it turns out I a lost a toenail. (aaaakk!! that is so gross even typing that!)

Kent and the kids met me after the race. They actually missed watching me finish because they stopped to get doughnuts (as per our Saturday tradition). I was really glad to see them, it meant a lot to me that everyone was there. An awesome day. I can't walk down stairs now because my legs are sore, but it was an awesome day!

No! That Means You

2009-04-12T13:35:00.002-06:00

We had a wonderful conference weekend. It was really fun to have Grandpa and Grandma McLean, and the Derricott cousins visiting us! We have had a mostly normal week-but a couple of cool things and a couple of funny/frustrating things happened. And oh yeah, somebody won something!

I'll start with the funny. Anna has had this thing lately with not wanting Matthew in her room. So the other day, she was coloring and she starts asking me how to spell "that", and "means", and "you". After I spelled all the words out I walked over to see what she was drawing, and I saw that she had drawn a boy with a circle around him that was crossed out, and then written,"No that means you" around it. I just busted up laughing-I thought it was so funny that she had made her first "no boys allowed" sign. Here's a picture of her after she taped the sign to her bedroom door. And yes, she is wearing a swim suit.

The funny/frustrating thing that happened this week involves our car tires. On Monday Kent had the day off, and when we got in the car to go do some errands we noticed that the tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS), that little light on the dash was alerting us that one of our tires was a little low. No problem, we swung down to the local Top Stop and put some air in the offending tire. At this point Kent declares that the tire pressure gauge that we have is no good, so we went next door to the handy dandy auto parts store to get a new gauge. When Kent came out of the store he had a new gauge and a new gadget. Little did we know that this new gadget would be the down fall of two tires. The new gadget was a new set of tire valve caps that could indicate if the tire pressure was was low just by looking at the cap! No more having to test each tire to see which one was the low one making the TPMS light come on-perfect! So he puts the new caps on and we are on our way... first stop, the car wash. As we are going through the car was the TPMS light comes on AGAIN! When we got out of the car wash the tire was completely flat. The new tire caps are bigger than the regular old non-gadget type and it had caught on the car wash track and pulled the entire valve off the tire! No problem, change to spare tire, go to tire shop yada yada yada...good to go. Fast forward to Friday I was going to pick up Kent and stopped to get a beverage at a McDonald's drive through, when I got a little too close to the drive through curb and...yep, you guessed it, the same thing happened to another tire. Luckily there was a tire place right across the street from McDonald's and they put my spare on for free. When I picked up Kent he was checking out the tires and noticed that there was a NAIL in one of our other tires!!! I couldn't help laughing at this point-it was so crazy! Three tires in one week! We have now gone back to the regular old Amish type tire valve caps.

And the winner is...Kent! There was a biggest loser contest at his work and Friday was the final weigh-in. He lost 6.9% body fat, making him the winner(or loser). I think that is so awesome! Way to go hubby!

Happy Easter everyone!

Book, Shots, and Snow

2009-03-29T14:00:00.005-06:00

This Week I took Anna for her 5yr pre-kindergarten check up and shots. She passed all the tests: eye test, jumping on one leg, and spelling her own name. She was then rewarded with four shots -ouch! The Doc says she's really healthy, she weighs 33 lbs and is 39 inches tall which is in the 10th percentile. I can't believe my Anna is going to school so soon, but we're all really excited for her!
In other news, I actually did something crafty! My running partner is getting married in a few weeks and I made this book for her to use as her guest book. It has an exposed spine with coptic stitching. It was really fun to make and I think it turned out really well.

And now on to the weather...Scott thanks for those beautiful spring photos, it makes me really glad that it's spring somewhere, because it sure isn't spring here! Today when we went to church we didn't wear coats because it was pretty warm, but when we came out of church it was a BLIZZARD! I felt like a frozen idiot scraping my windows with no coat on.
"Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart."-- Victor Hugo

A Slow Week

2009-03-22T14:27:00.003-06:00

Not much going on around here this week, but I did happen to capture one moment in time when Anna and Matt were being nice to each other.

Big Kid Bike

2009-03-15T13:00:00.002-06:00

It has been such a crazy weather week! On Monday we had a full on blizzard, but by Saturday it was beautiful and (almost) warm. I have been wanting to get Anna a two-wheel bike for a couple of months, and yesterday she and I picked one out together. I was probably way more excited about it than she was! Kent and I decided to try to get a neutral color bike so that Matt can have it in a year or two, but we did pick out a girly basket and bell!

28 is Great!

2009-03-08T16:28:00.003-06:00

It's been a week since my B-day and I'm finally getting around to posting about my awesome birthday weekend. So here goes. It started Thursday night at midnight when I went to the Jonas Brothers 3D movie with my sister Sarah. Now, I hadn't even ever heard any of the Jonas Brothers music before, but I thought it would be fun to go with Sarah. There were maybe about 30 teenage girls (and some sleeping parents) in the theater and everyone was dancing and singing the whole time during the movie-it was pretty crazy and fun! We did not get home until 3:00 a.m. luckily I was revived later by a McDonald's breakfast.

Here's me and Sarah with our stylish 3D glasses.

Friday evening Kent took me out to dinner at the Chef's Table, which is a shmancy fancy restaurant in Orem. The food was excellent and the service was great, a really fun date! (hey, that rhymes!)

Saturday morning I got to run 14 miles (more than half way to the marathon -woohooo!).It was a really beautiful day, and my running partner and I have discovered a secret weapon for endurance-gummy bears. We eat those things and just keep on going!

On Sunday afternoon my whole family including my brother Bryan's family came over for cake-it was really fun, everyone enjoyed the cake-especially Kent an Matt. So, a really busy, crazy weekend-so far 28 is the oldest I've ever been.

Nothing to Do With Snakes

2009-02-26T10:08:00.007-07:00

I had an "Amish" moment the other day. I have been pining for a new digital SLR camera for sometime now, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. So in the mean time I have been using my nice film camera-no big deal. So I finally used up the roll of film that was in my camera and took it to walmart for the 1-hour treatment. When the lady saw that I had film, she said, "Oh, we don't do film anymore! So you better just jump back into your horse-drawn buggy, and get on down to the piggly wiggly!" Okay, so I made that last part up. But the point is-it made me feel old. I have to say though, I had no trouble getting it developed somewhere else (so pbbbbbth!-walmart!). So here are a few pictures taken with my Amish camera.

Anna Loves this dancing outfit,(despite that look on her face)and would wear it everywhere if I let her.

We were experimenting with using all kinds of things for blowing bubbles-some worked, and a few were duds.

A great picture of my cute hubby.

More Snake Stuff

2009-02-19T09:17:00.003-07:00

I must have snakes on the brain or something.

Pros: No messy fur on the furniture,and no annoying barking. Cons: What(or who) does it eat?

Awesome Giant Snake!

2009-02-10T11:57:00.002-07:00

I don't know about you guys, but my favorite thing to see at the zoo is the huge boa constrictor they have there. So when I heard this story about the "Titanoboa" on the radio the other day I was totally intrigued! The record for the largest living snake is the reticulated python at 20 ft long, but this Titanoboa was 45 ft long and could eat crocodiles--Awesome! go check out the full article. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5662915.ece

2009-02-01T11:15:00.007-07:00

I joined Facebook this week. I have resisted joining for awhile now. It has just screamed out "Look at me, I'm the popular thing right now!" And I chafe against that sort of thing. Even writing on this blog is a leap. But Facebook comes into play in relation to my occupation. I went to lunch as part of the process of interviewing a job candidate, and part of the discussion went to social media, and subsequently to Facebook. I had to ask the question, "What's the big deal?" The answers from the others in attendance weren't anything new -- it helps you keep in touch with people; it aggregates some aspects of online communication; it's fun, etc. We also talked about some potential for the industry I work in at the moment and how social media networks like the ones we had been talking about could have a place in this industry.

So, later in the day I went to the site and created an account.

It's been OK. The thing that's amazing about it is the ease with which you can find people and they can find you. Now I have a very straightforward philosophy about things in this regard. That is, after I walk through a door, I shut the door and keep walking. The space I walk through is interesting while I move through it. Then at the close of that time, I generally think "Well, that was interesting -- what's next?" So, you can see why something like Facebook is difficult for me. I don't necessarily want to be friends with everyone I've ever known. Cold as it is, I don't really care about most people I was acquainted with years ago. Those chapters of my life have been closed.

Twitter bugs me for similar but different reasons. Do people really feel that their instantaneous thought broadcasts are interesting? It reminds me of a scene which I have seen played out over and over. Class gets out at a nondescript school. As quickly as is possible, cellphones are out and numbers dialed. With one voice, everyone says "Hey! How are you? Yeah, just got out of class. What are you doing? Yeah, me too, I'm headed to my next class. Well, OK, I'll talk to you after my next class." How useless is that? What a pathetic need for validation.

While I'm on one, the other thing about social media systems is that my time is already taxed and at a premium. Do I want to open another channel and accept yet another stream of consciousness? Do I have time to spare to devote to this? The short answer is, No. I don't.

Now on to the positive. There are a scant few out there that I either already do keep in touch with or would enjoy getting in touch with again. For whatever reason some people rise above the herd of homogeneous livestock and make themselves interesting, at least to me. I have seen one or two on Facebook. Maybe there are others that I haven't seen on there yet. I look forward to seeing them and hope they send an invitation. It's also somewhat fascinating in a voyeuristic way to see what all these other people are doing and thinking. But that doesn't make them any more a friend than before. They wouldn't even recognize me on the street.

And that leads to me to my philosophy on this type of social media. I don't send invitations. I refuse to believe that linking to everyone I've ever known adds to any notion of worth on either side. The benefit is virtual just as the medium is virtual. I'd rather talk face to face with someone than see that they wrote on my wall, or IMed, emailed, or even phoned me. I am happy to get invitations, though. If someone wants to open that door that I've closed in my mind then they can. I may not respond. I may not be interested, or I may be more involved in something else at the moment. I believe in approving the things I take in, that's all.

Completely changing subjects, my Xbox 360 died yesterday with the "Red Ring of Death", heretofore called the RRoD. I've had this happen once before with my first Xbox 360. I have to say that despite the feeling of loss and withdrawal caused by its failure, the support experience is great. Both times I've seen a failure MS has footed the shipping bill and the repair bill. They've been knocked for the underlying problem, but their support effort has been stellar in my eyes. So, now I'm left for the time being with my PS3 and the original PlayStation/PS2's Metal Gear Solid games (1, 2, and 3). I have used the PS3 as a BluRay player to this point due to the lack of a compelling PS3 exclusive game (Drake's Fortune excluded... it was good). I should have my 360 back by the end of the week though.

Everyday Stuff

2009-01-18T20:49:00.004-07:00

I have already broken my new years resolution to update this blog every week-but hey!
Here's a few pictures that I took this past week!

Check This Out

2008-12-22T19:14:00.002-07:00

Hey everyone, I just came across this video done by the BYU college of fine arts and communications (my alma mater-yeah!), it's a really cool song and beautiful photos.
http://joytoeveryone.com

Christmas Photo Outtakes

2008-12-19T14:28:00.001-07:00

I tried to get a cute picture of the kids for Christmas cards, and I think I did get ONE cute one. You don't get to see the cute one, but here are all the other ones, and yes Anna and Matt took those pictures of me so I can't be held responsible.

Snowed In

2008-12-13T11:04:00.002-07:00

The weather outside is very frightful today. Snowing and windy-perfect for staying in and finally getting around to writing a blog post! A couple of weeks ago my Dad was cleaning out his garage and found a whole box filled with my old middle school and high school papers. I had a fun time going through it, but ended up chucking almost everything except two papers I wrote. I thought it might be fun to share one of them I wrote when I was a junior in high school (almost 11 years ago!). So without further ado, I give you "The Great Eclair Heist"

Weddings are nothing but trouble. My cousin Philip was in the army and was only home on leave for a few days when he decided to get married. That's when the trouble started.

Because of the very short notice, the whole affair was thrown together. The reception was only twenty minutes after the actual wedding. At the time I was eleven and my brother Bryan was sixteen and my cousin Drew was fifteen, and when you get two teenage boys together with eclairs-you have two hungry boys with a plan. These two Einsteins decided that wouldn't be able to eat all the eclairs they wanted during the reception and it was only logical that they would have to save some for future hunger attacks. When they said "save" they actually meant "steal".

At first the plan was to sneak the eclairs two by two right out the front door-it was to be the crime of the century, but it was spoiled by a large crowd of adults gathering in the hallway.

Plan B: go with bulk. The head genius said to me, the official guinea pig, "Hey, Beth! why don't you go outside and stand by the window, and we'll hand the whole box out to you." Glad to be included in the plan, I said, "Okay, sure."

I was standing outside the kitchen window shivering when the widow creaked open, and the pink bakery box came sliding out. Bryan whispered, "You got it Beth?"

"Yep", I said.

There was about a one inch space between the top of the box and the bottom of the window where I could see Bryan carefully coaxing the loot out the window. All of a sudden I saw my two conspirators disappear. I felt some evil presence enter the kitchen. Then I saw IT--The mother of the bride...we were toast.

IT was looking around the kitchen for an explanation to the box of baked goods sticking half way out the window. This lady just happened to have one glass eye, and I am not making this up, only one eye slowly turned and met mine--there was fire in that eye!

It was February, but I started to sweat. I ditched the eclairs and did the only thing a kid in my situation could do--I ran.

When IT finally found me hiding behind a bush, I got the lecture of my life. I mean I was blamed for everything from ruining the whole wedding to her dog Sparky's recent death. My partners in crime denied everything. As for me I humbly gave up the eclairs and was sentenced to dish duty.

Well there you have it, I hope it brought back some fond memories of your own youthful pranks!

Happy snow day!

Long Time No Blog

2008-11-23T23:02:00.003-07:00

Hey Everybody! It's been a while since we posted anything. Not too much has been going on outside the normal wash-rinse-dry-repeat cycle, but here's what we have been up to the past couple of weeks.

Kent: Has been kicking butt and takin' out the trash at work as usual, and was rewarded with a pay raise (yeah!). He has also been playing a game on the 360 called "Fallout 3" which is pretty cool (even I think so).

Anna: Is a very good helper, she loves to wash dishes. She has also been painting a lot lately and is quite creative. I have been teaching her to read, she is a quick learner, but she hasn't had that "A-Ha!" moment yet where it all comes together.

Matt: Gets funnier by the day. He came up to me the other day and said, "why am I so weird?" He has so much energy and is a really fun little guy.

Beth: I recently joined a gym and hired a personal trainer to help me get more in shape for running. It has been a lot of fun (and a little painful!). Other than that I do lots of laundry, and cleaning and fall asleep on the couch every night while Kent is playing xbox (aahhh the soothing sounds of machine gun fire!) It's a pretty good life.

Don't Make Him Angry...

2008-11-06T14:14:00.005-07:00

This photochop was produced by one of the members of the team Kent works with after he expressed some frustration with a persistent sales engineer. Evidently, it was the most frustrated anyone had seen him get. Kent doesn't get angry, and is mostly sedate, so...

Snow Day!

2008-11-05T10:40:00.003-07:00

We had our first snow of the season today! It was very exciting to wake up to a beautiful white world. The kids and I had a great time making snowballs and stomping through all that fresh powder. We even made a mini snowman family! And now the results you have all been waiting for... the winners of the caption contest. The overall winner was Grandpa McLean for the funniest, and an honorable mention goes to Brenda for the longest caption-Great work guys!

Saturday Stuff

2008-10-26T19:55:00.006-06:00

Yesterday was a really fun day. Our ward primary had a Halloween carnival, which I had forgotten about, so I had to hurry and finish Matt's spider costume. Luckily Anna wanted to be Cinderella again so her costume was no problem! Here's a few before and after shots.

Spider Huggged!

Since yesterday was our wedding anniversary we all went up to temple square to have lunch at the Lion House Pantry, which is where we had our wedding lunch 6 years ago (aaahhhh!). After lunch we walked around temple square and enjoyed the beautiful day.

Later that night we had dinner with my family, my oldest brother Bill was visiting from Georgia-it was really fun to see him! All in all it was a really great, beautiful day!

This and That (and that other thing!)

2008-10-19T21:51:00.003-06:00

It has been awhile since I have updated our blog, so I thought I would just write a mish-mash post. First a few words about the title. I have decided to rename our blog to "The Whistling McLeans" at least for now for a couple of reasons. The first being that my first choice of title namely, "THE BIBLE", was already taken. The second is that the name "Stickly Speaking" doesn't make sense without the adorable stick figures of all us that was supposed to appear with the title. So I am going to stop feeling guilty because I haven't gotten around to redesigning our blog with stick figures and just rename the darn thing. That being said, "The Whistling McLeans" is a very fitting name because we all are very talented whistlers (except Matt, but he's learning). Even Anna who just turned 4 can whistle, and especially likes to show off her skills when we are at the check out at the store.
They split our ward again today, this makes the third and hopefully last time we will have split since we moved here. I was relived that we stayed in the same ward, but I did loose a couple of kids from my primary class, which is a little sad.
Boy, are we sick of being sick! first I had a nasty cold with extra sinus congestion, and then last tues/wed Kent had the flu-urg! So now we are all well and will hopefully stay that way for a while!
This Saturday will be our 6th wedding anniversary. I think we have built a nice cozy life together in these past six years. Kent is a good Hubby and a good Dad too-and I sure love him!
Recently I have started running with a friend because it's too dark/scary/boring to run by myself all the time, and she has talked me into training for the Salt Lake half marathon. It's not until next April, so we have plenty of time to get ready, but I have to admit that anything with the word "marathon" attached to it makes me a little nervous! That being said, I think it will be a great goal to work towards.
Well, I think that's about it! phew! oh yeah, that is a picture of my bike, isn't it great? Have a great week everyone!

The challenge is complete

2008-10-11T19:20:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, Bethany and I completed the last day of the hundred push up challenge. It's great motivation to do something hard like that with a committed partner. It is a lot of fun, too! Our routine over the last 6+ weeks of driving through the challenge has been to watch a show (we've been catching up on the newer Battlestar Galactica via Netflix) and do the pushups during the commercial breaks (or at least where they would be...). This provides a nice break betwixt sets.

Now I'm thinking we'll start the program over so that we can maintain the strength that we've gained this first time through the program. Then on top of the maintenance on our upper bodies we'll convert the program to a simultaneous hundred sit up challenge to whittle away at our flabby torsos.

It's nice to see the comments and see that all this technology can attract long lost family and friends like c.l. It gets me remembering lots of latent, good memories that make up who I am today. It also makes me wonder how people find our little, tiny plot in cyberspace. It will be interesting to see who we can (re)connect with over time.

Bethany has had a cold the past couple of days, but she continues to keep the house and the kids in shape. She's great. :D

Aren't You a Little Short For a Stormtrooper?

2008-10-07T09:45:00.002-06:00

Sorry we haven't updated in a while. Not too much has been going on. We had a wonderful(if rainy) conference weekend. Kent's parents were here and we had a really nice time. The kids put the grandparents to work reading stories and playing games-so a good time was had by all.

Picnic at the Park

2008-09-24T08:58:00.005-06:00

Kent had to work late last night so the kids and I took our dinner down to the park. It was a beautiful evening and we had a lot of fun picnicking and playing.
P.S. Thank you for all your kind condolences for the untimely death of my mac.

R.I.P Mac 2003-2008

2008-09-15T21:06:00.000-06:00

"Ode to Mac"
My little computer died last week.
although you did your job
a replacement I soon will seek.

You could talk and tell jokes too,
oh, mac you were so cute
But your screen is black, and now I'm blue.

Free of power cords, keyboards and mice,
now to computer heaven you will go,
where all old macs and PC's meet-and it's nice.

Saturday Morning Run

2008-09-13T23:45:00.005-06:00

I hate to be a bore and have two fitness related posts in a row, but I couldn't resist sharing these pictures. Last week a friend invited me to go running with her on this trail that is in the hills just above our neighborhood. We went at about 6:00 a.m. so it was dark and the lights down in the valley were pretty awesome, but I wondered what it looked like during the day. So I ran the same trail last Saturday morning by myself and was just loving the landscape--I decided I had to come back again and bring my camera (which was kind of a pain-but hey, what's a photographer to do?).
This first one is on the uphill side and as you can see, having the trail lined with lovely sunflowers makes running up this hill only slightly more pleasant.

These two are the view from the top (that's Utah Lake on the very left).
The last one is evidence that the native hillbillies have been here. All in all it's about a 3.5 mile run, and with some good music on my ipod it makes for a beautiful workout.

100 Pushups or Bust!

2008-09-11T10:49:00.007-06:00

A couple weeks ago Kent and I started the hundred push up challenge. It's a 6 week program, and at the end of it you should be able to do 100 pushups, hence the name. Kent and I are about half way through week three, and it's getting kind of tough! Last night after all our sets were compleate Kent had done a total of 105 pushups and I did 71-woot! So I'm calling you guys out to join us in the pushup challenge. You can find the program at www.hundredpushups.com. Everyone starts at a different level, so no excuses!

Back in Time

2008-09-07T21:53:00.003-06:00

Lately I have decided to start taking more pictures with my "real" camera--my big SLR. In my camera bag I found a roll of film that I took last September when we were visiting the in laws in Hamilton, Montana. There are a few pictures of the parade we went to that was celebrating the opening of the Ravalli County fair. The great thing about small town parades are that they are A)short. B)you can always find a good spot. C)everything is considered a "float" from tractors to truck beds. D)you get lots of candy. and last but not least, they are E)short. There are a couple of other photos of the kids playing at the park etc.

Where there's smoke, there's...

2008-09-02T21:44:00.018-06:00

Well, we were going to keep the suspense up for another day, but we have to share. The picture in the last post is a parked fire engine. Parked right outside our house. You don't see the ambulance that is also parked outside our house. Nothing to worry about, so don't get your heart rate up.

Late Sunday night there was a storm with a LOT of wind and a LOT of rain. Bethany and I were watching a bit of TV before we went to sleep. Beth said that she smelled smoke. I retorted that her nose was broken, and kept on lounging in true pre-Labor Day fashion.

And then I started to smell something funny, too. It smelled just like a campfire. I inquired if Beth's feet had been washed with soap lately, and she didn't reply. Plus Beth's feet don't smell like they're on fire usually, so... We sniffed around and thought that the smell was coming from the basement area. Our basement is unfinished, and all concrete-y, not very combustible. But, the smell was definitely stronger in the basement than upstairs. (Don't worry Scott, your stuff is still safely tucked away under your drop cloths.)

We couldn't see anything smoking or on fire, and did the rounds of the inside of our house a few times. Nothing.

So, we decided to get the right people involved -- we called the police. Yep. And they sent the fire department as well as an ambulance just in case something exciting was actually happening. We could hear the sirens coming even though I distinctly remember telling the dispatcher on the other end of the phone line that nothing was on fire. The big, noisy trucks with the flashing lights drove past our house, down to the end of the street (we live on one end of Pumpkin Patch Drive) and started backing up to find the right house. Bethany called our next door neighbors to try to mitigate the panic and inevitable heart attack that would follow. I flagged the fire truck down and the crew unloaded in full regalia -- oxygen tanks, fire axes, etc.

To make a long story slightly shorter, the fire crew (in full fire gear, mind you) swept our house from top to bottom, inside and out, to find the source of the woodsy smell that we though was coming from our basement. And the best part? With 3 firemen in full gear walking around our house, the basement, the attic -- it didn't wake the kids!

Well, they smelled it, but they couldn't come up with anything more than Beth and I had. So they went back to their firehouse and commenced to play poker and smoke cigars. Probably not. Beth says that the firemen were "hunky". and more than likely, they went back to the firehouse and commenced watching "My Turn on Earth". It IS Utah, after all.

And with the firemen's assurance that our house was in no apparent danger, we went to sleep.

Then Monday, we made the last post, still not knowing what had caused the smell, but having an experience to share.

Fast forward to today (Tuesday), and I came home from work early because Norm, whom I car pool with each day to work, was having some severe allergies and went home early from work. My family was gone to the in laws in Sandy, so I strolled around the grounds to see how many of my newly spread wood chips had blown into my neighbors' planter beds during the weekend storms. More than a few.

Sorry for the length of this post. I should write a novel.

In the course of my inspection, I found this:

This is just under the eave of our deck, right next to the house. That's an electrical transformer that plugs into the outside power outlet, some wire, and a joiner (can't think of the real term just now) right in the middle of the charred area. These components used to run the landscaping lights in the southwest portion of our yard. What I imagine happened is that with the heavy rain, the joiner/junction got wet enough that it shorted out and super-heated the wire coming from the transformer to the joiner. An electrical fire erupted around the wire, and was then put out by the continuing rain. Here are some more photos that show more of the damaged components.

As the photos show, the wiring was charred right into the transformer box and just past the joiner thing. I'm not sure whether the transformer box is still functional. Those things that I'm holding are some of the wiring that is fused with the wood chips it was on and what's left of the joiner that was in the middle of the charred, burned area by the house.

Before the firemen were at our house, the fire must have gone out. Plus, with it dark, wet everywhere, and windy, you wouldn't see this spot at all.

Now you know what almost went down Sunday night. As my mother would say, we thank our lucky stars that we have a house that isn't black, smoky and mostly open air.

Wake Up the Neighborhood

2008-09-01T20:06:00.003-06:00

This photo was taken last night at around 11:00 p.m. Leave a comment and tell us what you think happened!

Haircuts All Around

2008-08-28T17:32:00.004-06:00

For a couple of weeks now we have been trying to talk Anna into getting a haircut. I wasn't thinking anything drastic, just a trim, because everytime I bring the hairbrush near her head she starts complaining and screaming (If she knew any swear words she would probably use them!). I heard about this place called "Cookie Cutters", it's a hair cut place for kids. I have been talking it up to Anna for a few days, and this morning I showed her pictures on their website, and she was finally sold. I took both the kids in this afternoon and it was so awesome! They let each kid pick a movie to watch and they got to sit in these cute cars and airplanes while they got their hairs cut.

Anna loved it! Her stylist was super nice and even blow dried and styled her hair. After their cuts they got balloons and a sucker so of course they were in heaven. This is was Anna's first real hair cut and she got about 3 inches trimmed off. As for Matt, this is probably his 50th haircut-so no big deal-but he does look handsome!

Following the Rules

2008-08-27T21:02:00.003-06:00

This is Anna eating breakfast while watching cartoons. She is not allowed to eat in the living room, so she scooted her chair as close to the living room as possible while still technically in the kitchen. That girl is great!
Summer is coming to a close. You can tell because just when it has finally cooled down enough to allow our lawn to be green again, the kids (not our kids, the neighborhood kids) have resumed trampling our lawn on thier way to and from school. Not only are we on a corner lot near the elementary school so lazy 5th graders cut across the lawn, we are lucky enough to be the bus stop for the middle and high schoolers who shuffle off the bus each day with their slouchy pants and cell phones. I never thought I'd turn into that old person who is always yelling at kids to get off their lawn-but I have been seriously contemplating purchasing some water ballons and putting them to good use!

Bear Lake & Back

2008-08-25T07:31:00.008-06:00

This past week the kids and I drove up to Bear Lake to go camping with my family. My brother Bryan and his family drove down from Washington and Anna and Matt had a great time playing with some of their cousins. Bear Lake is a really fun place to take kids because it has a sand beach and the water is shallow. So we spent the first day at the beach playing in the water and building sand castles.
The next day my sister, Sarah, and I made a treasure hunt for the kids, and they had a great time finding the treasure-they had so much fun that after they found their treasure they made another treasure hunt for the grown-ups to do!
Later that day we all went on a hike on the limber pine trail. On Thursday we were going to go to the beach again, but it was so windy! So we drove home to find...a giant pile of wood chips in the driveway! Oi! So I spent Friday and Saturday shoveling wood chips and doing laundry! But we had a great time on our camping trip-It was great to see everybody.
This last picture is the view of the lake from our campground.

Bachelor days have come and gone again

2008-08-24T08:00:00.005-06:00

This past week, Bethany and the kids drove through Wyoming and back to Northern Utah to get to Bear Lake. The in laws had a big whooptie-doo together on the shores of the lake. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I took time off from work and partied by myself at home. By partied, I mean I did back-breaking work in the yard and under the clothes washer.

So they went to the in law infestation Tuesday and got back Thursday evening. They brought with them a car full of sand, and a week's worth of laundry. They must have had fun.

Since they took the car, I was left defenseless and immobile, much like a newly born kangaroo. It is nice, though, to have the opportunity to not have to go anywhere.

As I mentioned, while they were away, I had plenty to do. I painted a section of wall behind the clothes washer that was just drywall. We had replaced a section of wall that had been damaged when one of our pipes started leaking last year and just hadn't finished the job. I also replaced the floorboard on the other side of the wall (through the wall). I mowed and trimmed the lawn.

But the big project for this week started when we had 7 yards of shredded bark dumped on our driveway Tuesday morning just after I was left to myself. We started a project last year that entailed spreading shredded bark over the planter beds in our yard. At that time we didn't have enough shredded bark to finish the job, and we didn't really do it right. We didn't put weed block down under the bark, so we still had to pull weeds every Saturday. Not this time. Tuesday morning through Thursday, I moved the existing bark out of the beds where it was, put down weed block, and then put that bark back.

When Beth and the kids got back, they couldn't park in the garage due to the huge pile of shredded bark in the driveway blocking the entrance. So the car had to stay on the street for a few nights. Friday and Saturday, Beth and I tackled the two big planter areas, I putting down weed block and she hauling the shredded bark from the driveway to the planter beds where I handily spread it about in a uniform pattern of random barkiness.

We'll get some pictures up of the end result. Sometimes it's hard to comprehend that this is my house and my yard. Most of the time it feels like I work as part of the maintenance crew at somebody else's home while the owner is away.

I should mention that shredded bark dust gets everywhere. I've been blowing shredded bark out of my nose this whole week. And sneezing all over the place.

Out For A Walk

2008-08-06T23:08:00.002-06:00

I thought Anna looked so cute with her boots on when we took our strollers out for a walk.

Licked and Loving it

2008-08-06T23:00:00.002-06:00

On Tuesday I took the kids to the Thanksgiving Point farm. They had some really cute baby goats and we went for a hayride and Matt got licked by this cow-he thought it was great!

The Dark Knight Followed By a Dark Night

2008-07-28T20:39:00.003-06:00

On Friday night Kent and I saw the new Batman movie. In IMAX. The movie was big, it was dark, it was scary and most of all it was AWESOME! The villian in this batman movie is the Joker-and let me just say that he was so good at being phsyco, unpredicable, downright frightening, and even hilarious that I had nightmares about him the night after we saw it. Now I'm going to gush a little--I pretty much love all the guys in this move: Christian Bale, Gary Oldman (the mustache!), Michael Caine (I could use someone like Alfred to clean my mansion!)--They are all just fantastic. The story was good, the stunts were sweet, and I can't wait to watch it on blu-ray along with all the special features.

The biggest loser?

2008-07-27T15:00:00.003-06:00

At work last year, the engineering department had an informal 'Biggest Loser' competition for anyone that wanted to participate. For those not in the know with bad "reality" television, The Biggest Loser is a show where a bunch of fat people compete to see who can lose the most overall weight and win the grand prize -- money to spend on food...

But anyway, they decided to do it again this year, except that this year it's company-wide and sponsored. So, this year, they can afford a scale that can measure a person's body fat index, and hopefully offer a better prize than last year. I don't even know what the prize was last year, so it couldn't have been terribly enticing. Also this year, the competition will go from August to April of next year. What this means to me is that there's a chance for those that are serious to make some lifestyle changes rather than binge dieting then binge eating.

While I don't think I'm FAT, I recognize that I'm a tad on the pudgy side (or both sides, really). So, I've decided that I'm going to participate in this Biggest Loser competition. I probably won't win, because I've seen the competition and they're going to be much bigger losers than I am by virtue of them being much BIGGER losers already. Uh Huh. I'll be cutting out some of my basic food groups: soda pop, M&Ms, etc. To do that, I'm going to keep a daily food diary to record everything that ends up in my stomach via my mouth. We'll see how it goes.

The Kids Enjoy Some Juice and Some Shade at Payson Lake

2008-07-21T21:49:00.001-06:00

2008-07-21T08:44:00.004-06:00

We took the opportunity to go to Payson Lake with a friend from work and his wife. It was nice. It's a long, winding drive up Payson Canyon. I was surprised by the volume of people that were there. They just kept coming. We stayed long enough for the kids to get a little wet, eat a few hot dogs, and each have a s'more.

I was also surprised to realize that I had been there before. I believe it was when Bethany and I were dating. Her family went up on a weekend, and I tagged along.

After returning from the lake, we made a quick couple of stops in town and headed home. I replaced some sprinkler nozzles, pulled some weeds, and trimmed the lawn edges while Bethany mowed the lawn. She's awesome like that.

We also watched Batman Begins on our El Largo TV on HD-DVD. We're excited to go see The Dark Knight, but didn't go this weekend. We've become addicted to seeing movies on the IMAX screen when they're available in that format. It's awesome to see a movie in the theater when the heads on the screen are bigger than your car. All you can see is the movie, and that experience is much more immersive than the "normal" movie-going experience.

We're hoping to get tickets this weekend to TheDark Knight, and we'll be taking my brother and the same friend/wife combo that we went to the lake with.

The jibblies

2008-06-30T23:12:00.003-06:00

This gigantic wolf spider lives on our patio and as of today is still alive...somewhere.

I don't know what kind of spider this is, but I think he must have spent some time in the navy if the heart tatoo on his back is any indication. He was on my window today and I had a terrible time getting up the guts to smash him on account of his hairy hugeness. So I went to the basement and got some snowboots on, but then I thought "thats no good, he's probably waiting to jump on me!". So plan "B" was to get a log and smash him from a safe distance-which worked brilliantly, but I am telling you the sound of his hairy heiny being crushed was horrible!

I Can't Take It Anymore!

2008-06-30T17:03:00.002-06:00

I think blogs are cool. That said, I haven't wanted to start my own blog (until now) for two reasons: 1) there's something weird about me that makes me resist doing the same thing that others are doing (i.e. watching "Titanic", wearing flip-flops, and owning a futon) and 2) I don't want to feel guilty about not doing one more thing.
Today I decided to just do it! Hey, I know the Grandma's will appreciate it if nothing else! Plus as an added bonus if I blog I can stop feeling guilty about not scrapbooking and/or keeping a journal! Who knows what's next? maybe I'll even catch "Titanic" on cable sometime! The futon, however, is definatly NEVER going to happen!