Office Max understands viral marketing. Less-so this year since they’ve dropped about nine-tenths of their holiday marketing site. Nonetheless, neighbor Staci pointed out this deliciously fun site last year (unfortunately we only have a screen-grab to show for it) and we loved creating our own elf’s…ahem…elves. We only wish they would

[Read more →]

Despite the recent movement to promote kids who aren’t perfect (there’s even a book), Lisa and I will sit back and glow with pride after our parenting skills paid off last week. Emily came home Sunday night and received a phone call that she had been selected for

[Read more →]

Emily breezed into her school’s honor roll for outstanding grades for the second consecutive trimester. She missed the Principle’s Honor Roll–a distinction for “straight-A” students–by only one grade. It would have been the second consecutive trimester for

[Read more →]

Picasa is a free software download from Google that helps you:
* Locate and organize all the photos on your computer.
* Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.
* Share your photos with others through email, prints, and on the web: it’s fast, easy and free.

Plus I can create albums directly from iPhoto on my Mac. Sounds great, right? Well I’m not 100% sold. I may have a new method of posting photo albums on the web. Click on the photo on the left to see one of my first Picasa albums. It may not be quite as slick as the ones I’ve been serving up at McClellandfamily.com, but I spent quite a bit of time on those, and this one took me all of about 5 minutes. Using Picasa to create some pretty vanilla albums I should be able to get these babies up a lot more often.

Picasa is a free software download from

[Read more →]

We opened gifts leasurely and then made our way to Grandma Mary’s grave to pay our respects. From there is was off to church so we wouldn’t have to listen to Les call us heathens, and then we spent the rest of the day at his house. Here’s a small photo album from Christmas morning. (Click the photo to the left.) We were awakened early Christmas morning with the kids’ discovery that Santa had made it down the

[Read more →]

Things can get a bit chaotic with a decent-size crowd in our smallish house on Christmas eve, and we might be forgiven if we don’t manage to take a kazillion pictures. We only took a few, but we did want to share them here. Click the link or the photo on the right to see the album.

[Read more →]

The weather was agreeable with only a smattering of rain, and overall we had a great time in the two parks, and the kids will remember this trip for a long time to come. We’ve posted photos on the McClellandfamily.com/Photo Albums page.There’s a reason there is no 4-day park hopper pass at Disneyland: Three days is enough! Admittedly we didn’t cover everything in the park in our three days there, but nonetheless we were burned out on the crowds, the stress, and mostly the

[Read more →]

The hightlight of my day? Standing on Main Street with the fireworks going off over Sleeping Beauty’s castle and the snow begining to fall. Well we’ve made it through day 1 at Over-stimulation land, and despite all the whining, moaning and complaining from the kids, we ended the day with smiles on our faces, and landed hard on the hotel sheets. The hightlight of my day? Standing on Main Street with the

[Read more →]

In 2005 when Todd Foster, Mark Foster, and Kirk Syme bought Royal Gorge, the largest cross-country ski area on the North American continent at 4000 acres, their plans to develop the area around our Serene Lakes cabin met with extreme anger from the community. Patrick and Emily took the over-development to heart and did their part to raise money to aid the fight against Foster and Syme.

[Read more →]

Easter weekend can be a long weekend when you pack the kids into the car for a trip to the cabin. Any weekend seems too short when we make the 2 hour drive to Soda Springs on Friday afternoon, unpack, take care of cabin repairs and get the kids settled in for bed. By the time

[Read more →]