Auger Falls on bikes

Many of my blogger readers have requested a video of our second attempt at going to Auger Falls. As you may know, our first attempt was a complete and utter failure. You can read about our failed attempt here.

After the failed hike, we decided to try going to auger falls on bikes. Andy and Savanna braved the elements and the soar legs to ride our bikes. As the video starts out, we were amazed at how far we rode and how much ground we covered. We discovered that Auger Falls was still quite a ways from where we turned around. If fact, Savanna started to complain how far it was, even on a bike.

Here is my short video on our trip on bikes. Please watch all the way to the end. There is a "kicker".



Here is the link for my facebook friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNCsSe_fHQc

Varsity Letter

Coby has worked very hard this year to play on the tennis team. He practiced weekends, he practiced after school, he practiced after practice and after he practiced after practice, he practiced some more. He has really improved and become a valuable player on the Twin Falls High School Tennis Team. Tonight he was awarded a Varsity Letter for his efforts and for playing on the Varsity Tennis Team.



Go Coby!

Take me out the the Ball Game

My brother Blake will be getting married next month and I have been thinking about doing video's of weddings for some reason. I've watched a few on YouTube that were very well done. Not only did the videographer capture video of the newlyweds and the attendees at the wedding, but the video also captured some of the unseen ambiance and detail of the wedding. For expample, one of the videos shows the flower arrangements, or the shoes of the groom all shiny, or just a couple holding hands. It inspired me to try and capture some of that "other" feeling in my videos. So, with that in mind, I drew my flip video out of my holster and began to shoot. I didn't add any transitions but I tried to add some "color" to my video'ing. I really don't think it added much to a baseball video but I am sure it would have been better if I was filming a wedding.

Anyway, if you would like to watch the vid, here it is.




Here is the link for all of my FaceBook Friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7--eUmDwPOU

water softener

I didn't have much planned for this Saturday. I was excited about having a nice leisurely weekend. As I stumbled around I decided to go down to the laundry room to move some wet cloths from the washer to the dryer. I turned around to look at our water softener and noticed a small leak coming from a small tube on the filter. The leak was a small steady stream of water that sprayed over onto the water heater. As I moved closer to see how bad it was, it was at that moment that I knew my Saturday had taken on a whole new theme. It was "Replace the Water Softener" weekend.



I was so excited (you all know how excited I get when there is plumbing to do) that I ran quickly upstairs and grabbed my BUCKET OF PIPE FITTINGS! Unfortunately none of the fittings would work for the delicate plumbing job I was about to undertake. So I turned off the water to the house and ran to Lowes to find a new water softener. I don't know if any of you know, this is not a cheap proposition. I picked the softener that best fit our families size and wept as I opened my pocketbook to pay out the $500.00.

After 3 more trips home and back to Lowes, I finally had the plethora of pipes and connectors to put my new softener into action.

After replacing our softener, we have noticed a huge difference in water pressure. We used to wait 10 minutes for the toilets to fill up and only one person could shower at a time. With our new softener, we enjoy a full complement of pressure which makes nice showers, but also uses up our hot water much quicker.

Google Alerts

While I was reading Clark's Blog about how he didn't blog even once in April, Which is a cardinal sin in the rule of blog-a-lot-tonia, he mentioned a blog that he followed. So, like a good lemming, I followed his advise and jumped off the cliff and clicked on a link to an unknown blogger. As I was falling to my death and scanning down the page of this new blogger, I came across a post that mentioned Google Alerts. I've never tried google alerts so I wasn't sure what to expect. I quickly leaped from the blog, opened up a new google chrome tab and typed http://alerts.google.com to find out what it was all about. From what I can tell, it will run a search for you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and send you an email of the search results. This "unknown" blogger stated that one of her friends searched for his name every day. When his name showed up on a blog, or webpage or whatever, he would know. I've decided to give it a test drive. I have setup an alert looking for my name. Now, I'll just put my name in this blog post several times to see if the alert finds this post.

Here we go:
clint carter
clint carter
clint carter
clint carter

Lets go fly a kite

On the Saturday before Mothers day I found myself with my two daughters picking out flowers. I had already purchased some gifts for Deanna for Mothers Day but I usually bought some flowers too, to offer her on this special day. I would normally buy a bunch of small flowers that needed to be planted, and then plant them in the front yard in various places to help beautify our little patch of the cul-de-sac. For those of you that love trivia, "cul-de-sac" is a word of French origin with the literal meaning of "bottom of the bag".

There was a light breeze in the air as we walked around the chilled plan nursery searching for the perfect flowers with a well rounded array of colors. As the wind picked up my mind thought about flying a kite. This would be perfect kite flying weather. It wasn't too windy as to completely rip the kite off of it's string but just blustery enough to keep a simple kite aloft for several minutes. I leaned over to my two girls and asked, "Have you flown a kite before?". Both of them shook their heads no. I was shocked, I definitely have failed as a Father in the kite flying department. I decided right then and there that I would rectify this error and buy a couple of kites and fly them TODAY! (pointing my finger in the air with defiance)

Below is a small portion of our kite flying activity.





After 30 minutes to an hour of kite flying, both of the girls came up to me and exclaimed, "We have decided that flying kites is better than going swimming." Well, that was an interesting comment and nice to hear that flying kites moved up the fun-o-meter scale, just above swimming.

Here is a link to the video for my Facebook Friends. I don't know why but embedded video links never really make it to my Facebook Notes section.

Up's and Down's

Coby has had a lot of up's and down's this year on the Twin Falls Bruin Varsity Tennis Team. He has felt the thrill of success and the agony of defeat. He has worked hard, practiced many hours and has had to eat a little humble pie. It is nice to announce that Coby is ending the season on a positive note. He is now playing number 3 singles on the Varsity Team and his last two matches have resulted in WINS!

Another positive note is that the Times News has now learned how to spell his name correctly. Here is his score as printed in the local newspaper.

Auger Falls

A couple of weeks ago I had heard about a hike that was fairly new that was down in the snake rive canyon. I decided to load up the kids and our dog and try out the new trail. I was warned by the article in the newspaper that the walk was a little long and that it would be much easier on a bike. Well, I wanted to try it anyway so we set off down into the canyon to enjoy the warm weather. This little trail followed the Snake River from the Perine Bridge down to a section of the river named "Auger Falls". I wasn't sure how long it was but it couldn't be too bad.


View Larger Map

After about 2 miles of walking, all of us, including Jack, our dog, were tired and thirsty. I decided to stop and rest a second and take an inventory of our situation. This had become a very, very long walk. I decided to ask one of the people returning, just how much further we needed to go. When I inquired, the hikers exclaimed, it is still a long way to the falls. RATS! My mind was made up, we were turning back. On the way back, Katie's feet started to hurt and everyone was hot and thirsty. I gave Kate my socks so her feet would feel better.

We talked a lot about the pioneers and that we were pretty much wimps. We talked about our trip to Martin's Cove. I think the Cove hike is about 6 miles round trip and we just about died with a 4 mile walk. I guess if we knew it was going to be so far, we would have prepared a little better and brought water with us.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUgMofTJDJM



I thought that this was the end of our Auger Falls story but yesterday morning, I noticed a bug in Jack's ear. We discovered that he had a tick! Just another happy reminder of our trip through the sage brush on our way to not making it to Auger Falls.