October Ferrin Family Birthday Party

Today was the monthly birthday party for the family. The cousins really look forward to the monthly event. Several of the kids decided to forgo eating in order to play with their cousins for a longer time. Since October is Halloween, most of the kids dressed up for the event.



Fortunately it was a beautiful day outside - about 70 degrees and no clouds at all. The kids played inside and outside. They carved Jack O Lanterns. They played football. They ate chili and pumpkin pie. We took a number of pictures available here.

Summer Trip to Logan and Bear Lake

Between Summer Term and Fall Semester, Mary Ellen and I took the opportunity to get away for a couple of days and travel up to Logan and Bear Lake. It was after the public schools had started so we were pretty much alone at the normally crowded vacations spots. We stayed at the Anniversary Inn in Logan, in the Ice Cave room (I think the name is something else but that is what it reminded me of). Considering it was 90 outside, the room felt cool. We also attended a session at the Logan Temple (smaller than I was expecting), ate at two of the local Logan dives (American and Chinese, both pretty good), had a raspberry milkshake at Bear Lake, and enjoyed the drive up Logan and Sardine canyons.

The only problem was that we forgot our camera. That seems to be a theme for the summer, as I have rarely remembered it on any of our trips or family outings. I think that I may be a "impulsive camera shooter", as I seem to remember the camera only when I have a strong desire to take pictures, something that only happens every few weeks. I really enjoy taking pictures, but since I don't really like my picture taken, I project that on everyone else so I have a hard time taking other people's pictures too. But I know that pictures are what memories are made of. So I take them anyway...

So without a camera, I used the camera on my phone. Daylight pictures were a challenge to hold the camera steady enough. But I tried to take a picture at night. The first ones were really bad. The best is posted below along with other memory shots.

New Season, New Semester, New Classes

Mary Ellen has started the Fall semester at BYU and she continues to love it. She is taking another Watercolor class, a Figure Drawing Illustration class, another Art History class, and a Marriage class. She also has a mandatory Art Seminar that I usually attend with her. Her marriage class is taught by an ex- State College -ite, Kent Brooks, who was a former institute director there mucho years ago. It is a VERY popular class, with people sitting on the floor most days. It is also one of the few classes that I can help Mary Ellen with, as the others are "Art" classes, and my abilities in Art are usually surpassed by my 4 year old granddaughters and grandson.

It is quite exciting to be at campus. Mary Ellen loves the classes, the students, and especially the learning. She is still doing really well - all A's and B's (mostly A's). She even got an A in her technology class this summer. It turns out that the instructor was Eric & Sarah's home teacher.

The weather in Utah this summer has been cool for the most part. Cool is a relative term. We have spent most of July and August in the 90s. But usually we have a few weeks of 100s (I think normal is 15 days or so - last summer was 43 days). This year we have had one or two. But September hasn't cooled off much, with 90s until last week and 80s forecast for the next week. Very dry though with hardly any rain for the last three months. Needless to stay, no snow yet.

Our usual routine is school Monday thru Thursday. Friday is "my" day. Mary Ellen and I spend it doing things together and getting away from the normal routine. Last week we went art supply shopping in Salt Lake, bought a couple of chairs and a table for the bedroom we are working on (see below), bought a Sunday dress for Mary Ellen, and had a wonderful dinner of unlimited shrimp at Red Lobster. On Saturday, Mary Ellen generally spends the entire day working on homework, with a little housework thrown in. Sunday is the Lord's day, along with seeing family. We went to Eric & Sarah's Primary program last week, and then saw Rachel & kids and met with Neil & LeAnn when we got home with a brief visit from Josh. Fun but tiring.

We have been redoing one of the upstairs bedrooms. It had an "orange" accent wall and was decorated with "Halloween" colors (my opinion, not necessarily shared by others). We changed the accent wall to light blue. Also changed the bedding and some of the pieces in the room. We are still working on the wall decorations. I think I have a "before" picture somewhere and will post the before and after when we are about done with this.

The hardest part of the routine is that Mary Ellen has 8am classes every day. I am NOT a morning person. I really like to stay up until past 11pm, but that will have to be limited to weekends for the next few months. Maybe in the winter she won't start classes until 10?? :}

Summer Term is Over, and So is Summer Itself

It has been a while since I have blogged, since sometime in the spring except for a short entry showing off the two new grandchildren. It has been a really busy summer. I am looking forward to the Fall when things should slow down and we should get back into a routine.

Mary Ellen did really well at BYU last winter. Though she was really nervous about the classes, and especially about trying to compete with a very bright BYU student body (average entering gradepoint is about 3.8), she actually did a lot better than when she was going to BYU 40 years ago. She ended up with a 3.75 for the semester! For summer term, she had to take a Technology class (a class that didn't exist 40 years ago) which normally is taken as a freshmen. It covered Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. She was really nervous about the class. Although she raised a bunch of computer nerds, she is pretty much at the opposite end of the scale when it comes to computers. She got permission for me to attend with her to "translate" what the teacher was saying. After the class was about 60% done, I stopped going and she did great. Her final project was to "enhance" a photo. She started with this shot of the Salt Lake Temple:

After changing the sky and adding tulips and getting rid of a building and some people, it ended up like this:


Although I wouldn't call her an expert in Photoshop or Illustrator, she is amazing at what she can do in both programs, even if she doesn't understand everything.

The pieces she did in the winter are equally amazing. Several friends and family have been lucky enough to stop through and get some of her prints. I will try to post a few if I can find a way to scan them.

James and Adele

New grandbabies.....

Spring Snow

After almost 70 degree weather on Monday, the weather people predicted four days of cooler and rainier weather "with a chance of a dusting on the valley floors". Instead, we woke up to 9 inches of overnight snow and no power for 3 hours because of downed powerlines and tree limbs.

We thought that "spring" was in the air. Flowers were blooming, cherry and apple trees were blossoming. Grass was greening.

There were a number of trees damaged - too much weight on new branches (and sometimes old branches). We lost a lot of tree blossoms. The flowers however will all recover. They are pretty hardy this time of year. The more delicate flowers seemed to know to wait a while.

Some of the worst problems were at BYU. They had a tent set up outside for food service. The tent came down, bending the aluminum poles pretty badly.

The forecast (if we can believe it) is for 70s next week. Someone did a survey of Utah weather forecasts and found that the accuracy rate was about 25%. I don't think I would have lasted long at Penn State if I was wrong 3/4 of the time!

Busy Saturday

Normally our weekends are our quietest times, with Mary Ellen going to school all week and trying to keep up with the kids 1/3 her age. For those who aren't aware, the average grade point of entering freshman at BYU is about 3.8. In spite of that, Mary Ellen is doing well and enjoying the trip. This weekend was one of our busiest since starting school.

We got a call at 8:20 in the morning from Kassie asking us to attend her (and Kimmy's) basketball games. They started at 9:00 in the Salt Lake Valley. We were just lazing around at the time and hadn't even showered yet. We didn't make it at 9:00, but we weren't too late.

I tried taking pictures but (1) it was a gym that wasn't well lit and (2) it was a long distance shot and (3) it was a basketball game and they kept moving. So the shots were "interesting".

After Kassie's (they lost) and Kimmy's (they won) game, we jumped in our car for the 50 mile jaunt to Springville where Braden was also having a basketball game that we were invited to attend. We hadn't eaten breakfast (40 minutes to shower and drive 25 miles was a little tight) and we had just enough time to get to the game, so we did what every american would do - stop at McDonalds for a burger. Then to Braden's game. Note in the picture that they guy he is defending is almost a foot taller and probably double his weight. I give Braden an "A" for effort though. Their time got wiped because of the size of the opponents. These were only 5th and 6th graders.


After the games, we had to get ready for the monthly family birthday party. Our assignment was a fruit and vegie tray. We stopped at Reams in Springville (a really good place for fruits and vegies and cheap too) then came home to get ready before the hoards arrived. Fun was had by all, mostly the kids (both small and big). After the festivities were over (about 10pm), we took Tim and Carly home because Mary Ellen had to pick up her intaglio prints before they were thrown away by the custodial staff.

Sunday was not really much of a day of rest. I had a Mens Chorus practice at 10:30, followed by Choir Practice, followed by Home Teaching, followed by Church (where I taught the High Priest lesson), followed by dinner, followed by more Home Teaching, and finally bed. Somewhere in there we did manage to read the Sunday School lesson. And somewhere on Saturday I managed to prepare for both the High Priest lesson and the Home Teaching message.

Ok, this is a pretty boring post, but it does show a slice of our current life. I do wonder where I ever found time to go to work though.

What Am I Doing?

Long before text messaging and even before "general" email, computer nerds were using "BITNET" and "DARPANET" - the predecessors to email and the internet, to send messages to one another. Like the text messaging "HOW R U", these early computer nerds developed their own "shorthand". One of those things was "Flame On...", where a sender would "flame" either the recipient or just a general "flame" - airing of a pet peave or irritation real or imaged. So with that intro:

Flame On...

Mary Ellen is going to school. Pretty much everyone is really supportive and is always asking her how school is going. Invariably, though, after talking to Mary Ellen about school, they generally turn to me and ask "What are you doing"? My general feeling is that they are saying, "Your wife is busy solving the problems of world peace and curing diseases, and you are sitting on your fanny doing absolutely nothing all day, aren't you." My first reaction to reply with something like "I am learning to be a tatoo artist" or "I am trying to record every episode of 'Overhauling' on television". My second reaction is to want to hit something or somebody.

For the record, I love to learn. I love technology. I love to learn about technology. I love to learn as much about computers as I can. With Mary Ellen in school, I relished the opportunity to have several hours each day to be able to learn. So with that, this is what I have done since January 5th:

* Read "Adobe Photoshop CS4 One on One", complete with about 20 hours of video and about 80 hours of hands on exercises.
* Read "Adobe InDesign CS4 One on One" complete with about 20 hours of video and about 80 hours of hands on exercises.
(While I would love to be doing this just to do it, it does have a purpose. Mary Ellen is writing and illustrating family history stories but doesn't know the programs that are used for image editing and layout. She is the artist. I am the technologist.)
* Read "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X", complete with mucho hours of exercises and problems. (OK, I am not quite done with this one yet. I have read the book but am only 2/3 finished with the problem sets.)
* Read the Sony Ericsson W810i Users Guide. Mary Ellen has used her cell phone for over 4 years. The family callled it "the brick". It was just a cell phone. No camera. No music. No nothing else. The keys started to die one by one. So Brandon gave us one of Rachel's old phones. Mary Ellen isn't a technologist. So I am the designated "reader" and "trainer". She can now dial the phone sometimes, answer the phone most of the time. The camera and music player are still "in training", although she stumbles across the music player frequently when she hits the wrong keys.
* Read "Weird Relationships" (don't bother, it wasn't worth the time it took".
* Currently reading "Screwtape Letters", "Snoopy", "Mac OS X Leopard", :PHP and MySQL", "Nearly Everything Imaginable - The Everyday Life of Utah's Mormon Pioneers", and "Butt-Naked Baby Blues".
* Just bought "Adobe Photoshop CS4 Channels and Masks" as my next self-learning project.

Besides that, I try to help Mary Ellen both with her homework (especially family history) and housework, as well as keep her comforted, happy, and loved.

So the next time you want to ask me what I am doing after talking to Mary Ellen about her school work, don't!

Flame Off...

There. I feel much better now.

First Week of School

Mary Ellen is just finishing her first week of school. Although she started the week a bit apprehensive and anxious, she has had a really marvelous week of classes, assignments, studying, meeting new people, and having fun learning new things. Thinking back almost 40 years when she went to BYU the first time, she enjoyed it then, but not to the same degree. I think the experience of living for over 60 years makes for a better perspective at how enjoyable it can be to learn new things.

She is only taking 10 credits in 5 classes (she will be a bit upset at the "only" word - it is really keeping her busy). She started the week with Art History where they are looking at art from about 1500 to the present. Next semester she will step backwards into art before 1500. The one comment she had about this (and other) classes was that all of the instructors act like their class is the only class that is important, and really the only class that the students should spend ALL their time on. Following that class, she has a Family History class. The instructor wrote his name on the board ("Roger Minert") and asked if anyone could pronounce his last name. Mary Ellen held up her hand and pronounced it correctly. He said that she was the first one to ever do that, and asked how she knew. Her reply: "Because your neice is my daughter-in-law." The whole class laughed at that one.

On Tuesday Mary Ellen has a 3 hour intaglio class. It has something to do with etching copper plates that is well beyond me (at least beyond my interest level). Mary Ellen is really loving this class as she has wanted to take printmaking classes since she first arrived at BYU. She also attended the first devotional.

Wednesday is her long day. Besides Art History and Religion, she also has a three hour water color class. Since it was the first meeting, no one had any materials to work with so the class was pretty short. It should get going next week.

On Thursday, besides her intaglio class, she has a seminar where they invite artists in to speak to all art majors. The teacher for this class was the one who got her into the program so quickly. A number of people in the class were complaining that the class was two hours long and interfeared with other classes they wanted to take. He response: (1) it used to be no-credit so no one would come, (2) the artists that come to speak are the best in their field and the students will enjoy their talks and learn a lot, and (3) the other classes aren't as important, so if they don't like the fact that they have to take this seminar every semester, they can get a different major!

Luckly Mary Ellen has Friday off to catch up on assignments, the family, the home, and church. She has been more than wonderful to me this week, in spite of being so very busy.

I don't think there is anything a husband can do that is more wonderful that helping his wife to soar. She is a marvelous person, a very fine artist, a wonderful wife, a marvelous friend, and very supportive of me and works to meet my needs. Helping her achieve her dreams is the least I can do for her.