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.

On a happier note, Emily recently received her school’s V.I.C. award for displaying a very important character trait: respect. We never heard what she did to deserve the award, but a majority of her fellow students voted for her.

I went with Emily’s class to Coloma for a day-long field trip to the nearby gold discovery site that I had visited so many times as a kid. It was great to share a lot of my childhood memories with her. I found out soon enough though that her teacher gave me the rowdy kids to keep an eye on, thinking that I would be the one parent that would keep them in line.

Patrick received an award last month too. His was a certificate of achievement for outstanding reading. (He’s reading books the likes of which I wasn’t reading in 4th grade!) The school makes a really big deal out of these awards, bringing all the students in for an assembly and inviting the parents to come and witness the commendations. I believe it’s a real motivator for the kids. Meanwhile Patrick stays involved in Boyscouts. I went along on a trip to the local TV station, KCRA-3 where the kids posed in front of the weather green screen and I later Photoshopped them into different poses.

These McClellands keep busy most of the time, but occasionally we need to slow down and tell the stories of our past lives.

Ed’s note: I originally wrote this post in 2008 but never published it. I added the photos and cleaned it up a bit and finally published it in 2014.