Patrick and Emily entered their latest Pinewood Derby cars and finished near the back of the pack. They may have finished dead-last in most heats, but you can’t say they didn’t have the coolest cars. We rallied for a new category in next year’s event–coolest car– but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

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I Am…
I am adventurous and shy.
I hear birds chirping in the morning.
I see a steep mountain I’d like to roll down.
I am adventurous and shy.
I pretend my life is a story.
I touch a soft cloud in my bed.
I am adventurous and shy.
I understand that I have to grow up.
I dream tomorrow will be a better day.
I am adventurous and shy.
I am Emily.

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Just goofing off at the computer one day. Then dad gets the idea to give a wet willy. House rules: if you get caught you must submit for “the finalization”, a final dose of dominance -hot breath in the victim’s wet ear!

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One Rule: No shaving until I’m done remodeling the kitchen. Well enough with the itching, enough with the Yukon Cornelious jokes, enough with the counting of gray hairs. It’s time to shave! Then I figured, “Let’s make a video of it!” ->

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After skipping the California State Fair at the Cal Expo for two years running, we managed to drag our tired feet through the scalding heat and hit up the event this year. Overall we concluded that we hadn’t missed much in the years that we skipped, but we did get a few good family pic’s for the photo albums.

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Emily’s gone away to a 4-day summer camp with the Girl Scouts near Calaveras Big Tree. Here’s the email-letter she sent home. Before she left home, Emily made Lisa and I both write her a note and then kiss the paper below the note in a circle. This is the “paper” that she refers to (and that she’s holding in the photo.

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This is from the McClellandfamily.com Archives (as told by Steve in the voice of Emily):

When I was barely walking and just mumbling a few words, probably at about 15 months, Daddy left me alone, supervised only by my attention span and a 5 color playdough set. When he returned to clean up, the playdough was

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No prizes here. The winner gets bragging rights for the dirtiest nails after 2 days of camping and NO SHOWERS!

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It’s spring fever…. You don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! –Mark Twain

With stiff competition this year Emily was not selected for her competitive soccer league. She was sad only briefly (she’ll miss the girls from her team) but then relieved to not have the daily stresses of the league. She’s deciding now if she’ll even play soccer this year. As for me, I won’t miss the politics, the expenses and the huge dedication of time that comes with it.

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What an incredible day we had today! Two last-minute dives were an unexpected treat. Last night at dinner I realized that our flight was more than 24 hours away and I could dive again today. As for Lisa, she was dived out. Too bad: she missed a doozy.

As Lisa and the kids slept, Jojo the dolphin, a local regular, paid a surprise visit to

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