It was time… time to make another major life change. For Christmas we brought home a new addition to the family. Introducing Ferris, the Boston Terrier.

[Read more →]

District Honor Roll, President’s Academic Award and a special commendation for winning the spelling bee as a 4th grader against 5th and 6th graders: We must be doing something right. Way to go graduate, Patrick! We’re proud of you. Now on to middle school!

[Read more →]

Burried deep in the damp basement of McClellandFamily.com we keep a box of old archived blog posts. Every so often we dig them out, blow off the dust and publish them here on the new and improved blog. (They were originally posted in that sappy old blog with that racist logo.) Rather than leaving them there to perish or simply bringing them forward to this blog and filing them by date where you would never see them (honestly, does anyone really read posts from 5 or 6 years ago?) we file them here under a catchy title usually with the word “archive” in it. That’s a hint: For you regular blog readers, search the word “archive” and you may see stuff you’ve never seen before. Here’s what we’ve brought out of that damp basement lately:

To my wife Lisa on Valentine’s Day 2005: A lover’s day poem written by Steve and a photo or her lipstick-written response! Originally posted February 14, 2005

[Read more →]

We are sad to say we are leaving Steve and Emily home. Love you and we’ll miss you!(Steve’s note: Patrick got to go this time to make up for missing the trip in March of 2004 (he was too young, we deemed.) The whole family also went in December of 2006.)

[Read more →]

Mike and Jody treated us to a weekend in San Francisco, a Jimmy Buffet concert and the hotel room to boot.  We were joined by Gina and Connie for the night. This is the last known photo before “Wasted Away Again in Margaritaville.”  Thanks Mike and Jody! We had a blast.

[Read more →]

We made the trip to Fog Willow Pumpkin Farm for the second year in a row and met Mike and Jody and the kids. We also ran into former neighbors Staci and Kyle Karnow and their three little ones. The farm’s annual free event is getting quite large, and while it’s barely worth fighting the huge crowds , the magic hour just before sundown makes for some great photo op’s. I’m glad we went.

[Read more →]

Jody Wassermann invited me to bring my unicycle, juggling pins, balls and my best skills to the Sacramento CCHAT Center (Children’s Choice for Hearing and Talking), Jody’s place of employment, to entertain and educate the kids.  I have to admit I was a bit nervous at first, but I kind of got into character and had a blast. Jody ad-libbed with me and we created an act on the fly. In another life I’m sure I was supposed to be a clown, but I’m just too shy in this life.

[Read more →]

Independence day was celebrated at the cabin with the Wassermanns and Petterle’s. Also Les, Dan, the Killers (Honestly, Amy when all three of us are together in one place at one time, can’t we manage to get a photo together?) Eva and Roger joined us with the kids for a couple of days too. It was a full house, but we had a fun week. We entered the usual float pulled by Mike’s jeep in the parade. Steve road the unicycle in the parade for the first time.

[Read more →]

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

[Read more →]

I thought it was going to be simple to sum up our second day here: breakfast, beach, scuba class, dinner, sleep. And in fact the beginning of the day started out just like my summary. By dinnertime though, the action heated up with a tear-filled dinner, a father-daughter moment of a lifetime and some high-tech shenanigans that turned Emily into a ghost.

[Read more →]