Christmas Letter 2012

The dynamics of the Carter Family has changed this year.  We had one of our decedents (Coby) graduate from High School, pack up his things and leave the nest.  We didn't think it would ever happen and we were pretty sure he would not survive on his own.  Amazingly enough, Coby is still alive and has managed to live, on his own, for four whole months.  We are pretty sure he is living on milk, Cup-o-Noodles and toast.  He has spent the last semester at Utah State University and is entering his finals week.  We are anxious to have him home for Christmas to hear about all of his experiences at college.  Coby is planning on starting his mission paperwork so that he will be ready to leave on a mission in early spring 2013.

Andy tried out for the Junior Varsity Basketball team this fall, and made the team.  So, we are traveling around the gem state in hopes of catching a glimpse of him playing on the TFHS JV basketball team.  So far he has played really well for the short periods of time that he has played.  Andy was ordained a Priest this year and is excited to be in the Priest Quorum.   At the end of the last school year, he was fortunate enough to quality to play in the State Tennis Tournament in men’s doubles.  He is really excited for tennis to start but has to wait two more months before tryouts and practice begins.

Savanna has been serving as the Beehive President in our ward.  She completed her Young Women Recognition award this year which is a MAJOR accomplishment for a little Beehive.  Savanna continues playing the piano and clogging.  She worked very hard this year to make the highest team in her dance studio called Pride Elite.  The Elite team is made of girls from a senior in high school all the way down to 8^th grade.  She is very lucky to make such a special team at her age.  Some of her clogging dances can be found on YouTube.

Katie has decided to play basketball again this year.  She wasn't on the same team as last year but still had a winning season.  Katie has also decided to start clogging again.  She tried out for a clogging team called Thunder and made the team.  She hasn't been clogging for 5 years but picked it back up very quickly.  She had her first performance this month and did very well.  You can also see her clogging performance on YouTube.

Clint has made a career change of sorts this year.  He has enjoyed being a computer technician but was wanting something more.  He talked with his employer to see what other opportunities were available.  After some deliberation and investigation he has moved from being a computer tech to sales.  He is now referred to as “Technology Specialist” on the sales team at Integrated Technologies.  So, if you need any computer equipment, any toner, a printer or copier, please call Clint and buy from him.  His livelihood now depends on what he can sell.  So far it has been a good move for Clint and the future looks bright.  Clint continues to serve as the Elders Quorum President in our ward which keeps him busy and involved.  He enjoys the opportunity to serve people and create fun activities for the Elders in the Quorum.  Clint has decided to volunteer as an assistant tennis coach for the Twin Falls High School JV Tennis Team.  Tryouts and practice begins at the end of February.

Deanna has been studying her brains out this year.  She continues to work on her Master’s program so that she can say that she is definitely smarter than anyone else in the family.  We already know she is smarter but she wants a diploma to prove it.  She has about 1 year left before she earns her Master’s Degree.  Deanna continues to teach at Sawtooth Elementary as a Kindergarten teacher and also serves as a Laurel Adviser in our ward.  She loves working with the Young Women and the Young Women leaders.  They rally around her and sit close so they can participate in the fun witty humor that Deanna brings to the activities.  This summer at girls camp, Deanna’s little tent was filled with Young Women Leaders as they stayed up late into the night bouncing funny stories and sarcasm off of the paper thin tent walls.

Finally, my daughters insist that I mention one other thing.  At the beginning of last year we found a little dog lost in the streets early in the morning.  We took him into our home with the hopes that we would find his owner.  We did not find the owner so we added another dog to our family.  This fall, little Simba died as a result of a hole in the fence and a bigger dog’s rage, so we had a small funeral service for this little adopted dog.  We miss little Simba in our lives.

We love you all and we pray for your health and safety. We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Clint, Deanna, Coby, Andy, Savanna, Katie

SIMBA, Rest in peace.

Many of you may already know but last month our little dog Simba passed away.  If you don't know how Simba came to be a part of our family, you can go to my blog post earlier this year by clicking here

So, Simba has been with us since February 2012. He was welcomed with open arms from all of the kids.  Simba has been a loving pet to all of us except for Jack.  I think he tolerated Jack for the most part but when there was a battle for attention or food, Simba, the smaller dog, would always win.  Simba liked marking his territory so much that I gave him the affectionate name of Weedler.  I called him Weedles, Weedler, Weedy, and Weeds.  Simba didn't care, he loved the attention.

Simba would be the first dog to the door when someone came home.  He would jump up on the couch or chair to sit by you while you watched TV, played on the computer, or just sat reading.  He didn't care what you were doing, he just wanted to be sitting by someone.  One of the fun traits that Weedler had was that when we talked to him, he would tilt his head from side to side as if he was trying to figure out what you were saying.  It was very cute.

Weedles met his demise by trying to find love.  There was a girl dog around the corner from our house and Weedles felt the need to respond to the call of the wild.  He snuck through 3 tight fences to find this girl dog. Once we found Simba missing, we all went hunting for him.  We searched until it was too dark to see in hopes that he would just come home of his own accord.  The next morning we received a call from our neighbor that Simba had passed away.  The girl dog he was trying to court was a Great Dane.  Needless to say, she was not in the mood and he received the brunt of the attack.

That night, we dug a hole in our backyard and gave a short funeral for our little dog.  Each of us talked about what they will miss missed about Simba.  All of us cried as we lowered his little body into the ground.  We will miss little Simba.  I hope we get a chance to see him again in the next life.

On TV

I was on TV this morning at 7:00am. I know, there arn't that many people watching that early on a Monday morning, however, they posted our show on the internet so now I can rebroadcast the program to all my friends and family.

I am a member of PLaNT which stands for Professional Leadership and Networking of Twin Falls which meets every Tuesday to talk about our businesses and promote leads for sales. I am the IT guy for this group and I represent Integrated Technologies (which is the new name of the company I work for).

I was a little nervous at first but was able to be calm for the live shoot. It was a little shocking how quickly the program started and how fast the time flew once the cameras were rolling.

Family Pictures

Before Coby left we decided to take some pictures of our family. Below is a small video of all of the pictures that I thought were great. Some of the pictures were cut off a little bit by my video editor. I'll have to fix that later. At least you will be able to see a lot of our shots.

Olympic Medals

The Olympics are in full swing this week so I guess I had better post some interesting new thing about it. This time, I'm posting about something that I am finally fed up with. Ok, fed up is a little strong. Maybe I'm more annoyed than fed-up. Ok, no, fed up works fine. Michael Phelps, that is my irritant. Michael Phelps Greatest Olympian, Michael Phelps most decorated olympian, Michael Phelps most metals of all time, Michael Phelps wins another gold medal. AARRRGGGHHHH Stop with the Michael Phelps stuff and stop giving him medals. Why does he have so many medals? Well, it is because there are so many swimming events. If there were 300 fencing events, maybe one of the fencing olympians would have a bunch of gold medals. Here is a good example. Lets say there is a really good runner. Lets say he can run the 100 yard dash really well and can beat everyone in his field. So, lets compare that with the swimming. Swimming has 100m free style, 100m back stroke, 100m butterfly, 100m breast stroke. There are four events right there. So, we should have 4 events in the 100 yard dash! 100 yard dash, 100 yard backwards, 100 yard skipping, and 100 yard sideways run. Plus, in the swimming they have the relays. Backstroke relay, freestyle relay, butterfly relay, breast stroke relay. We should add all of these relays to running as well. You get the picture. So, I think the swimming people have way too many events in their category where they can win medals. Poor "shot put" people only get one chance. What if they had the shot put throw, shot put roll, shot put shuffle, shot put flip, shot put relay? Many more shot putters would be getting medals and would then be able to compete with Michael Phelps' record of the most Olympic medals. Maybe it is just that I don't like swimming. For me, it isn't fun to swim. For me, you are just a few kicks and arm digs away from drowning. That's no way to have fun with the fear of drowning on your mind all of the time. Wow, I went way off the deep end on that one. No pun intended. Ok, maybe a little pun intended.

Parents Reactions

I don't know if our children know or not but us parents go through a lot of emotions while we are watching our kids play sports. I've always wandered how goofy I looked sometimes while watching Andy, Coby, Savanna or Katie perform. Well, I finally have a mirror to look at. While I was watching the olympics last week, the spotlight turned from the gymnast Alexandra Raisman to her parents. They replayed Alexandra's whole uneven bars performance but only showed her parents in the stands. I loved their reaction and finally found the footage on YouTube. This is probably how I look when watching my kids at their performances.

Prank

When I was growing up, each of the kids was involved with scout camp and girls camp. For the boys it was always Camp Bradley. For the girls it as always Alturas Lake. We would pack our bags and prepare for camp a day before leaving for camp. For some reason, the Girls camp was much more easy going and playful than the boys camp. I remember several times seeing my Mom sitting in the middle of the living room floor with the pajamas of my sisters. I remember asking her what she was doing. Well, she was sewing up the bottoms of their pajamas. This was a little prank that my mom would pull on her daughters just to let them know that she was thinking about them while up at camp. Now, in the modern era of political correctness, this playful prank isn't so well received. I would imagine that pranks are no longer encouraged and small notes of encouragement are now the norm. Well, I'm not going to follow the norm, I'm going to follow tradition. So tonight, I'll be heading over to where Savanna has dropped off her camp gear to sew up her pajama bottoms. I hope that when she goes to bed that first night and as a hard time getting into her pajamas, she will think of her geeky Dad and smile.

One Ping Only

I have a few little sayings that I like to quote.  I don't use them all of the time but they come in handy every once in a while.  One of these little phrases is, "One Ping Only".  Many of you may not know what movie that is from.  It is from "The Hunt for Red October".  It is a very important part of the movie that makes or breaks the fate of a submarine crew.  I decided to try and track it down for those of you that have heard me use the phrase.  Enjoy.

Mints

When I was younger, quite a bit younger, our parents would leave all of us kids at home to go to a wedding reception. Although we were not happy that we were left at home and didn't get to see the cool stuff that went on at wedding receptions, we did have one reason to be excited. Usually our parents would leave the house stating that they would bring us home something special. We all new what that ment too. It ment that Mom and Dad would bring us home some mints. Sure enough, if we were still awake, Mom or Dad would pull out a small napkin filled with little green and pink mints. Sometimes even some nuts. Well, it was my turn to carry on the tradition. When we were at a reception for Brian Stevensen tonight, I decided to gather a small pile so mints onto a small plate to bring home for the kids.

Below is my small stash of reception mints I brought home for the kids.

Utah State

It is official!  Coby is now registered and ready to go to Utah State University in the fall.  BYU has always been at the top of Coby's list for college but with the full ride scholarship and an excellent job offer Coby received from a business owner in Logan, Utah State has become the more viable option.  It has taken some time to make a decision on what he wanted to do but through prayer and pondering, Coby really feels excited about his new adventure at Utah State.  Deanna and Coby traveled up to Logan to check out the campus, check out the computer science and computer engineering programs and to look at the possibility of getting on-campus housing.  Just this weekend he sent off his down payment for housing just off campus in Logan.    

Today, he confirmed that he would have a nice paying job with a tractor and implement company in Logan that will work with his school schedule and give him the money he needs to pay the bills.

Everything has just come together perfectly for Coby and we feel he will have a great experience at Utah State.  In fact, one of the councilors that he met with last week had the curiosity to ask Coby if he happened to know another Carter named Gordon Carter.  Coby grinned sheepishly and said, "yes, he is my grandpa".  It turned out that this councilor had been on several Charity Anywhere Foundation service projects to Tijuana Mexico.  Coby felt accepted right off the bat and already had at least one new friend.

Now, lets just hope that he gets some really good roommates!

The Summer of Andy

In 2008 I wrote a blog post entitled, "The Summer of Coby".  This year, however I can already say that this summer will be "The Summer of Andy".  Many of you might be wondering where I got this silly idea of naming a summer after someone.  Well, I got it from an episode of Seinfeld. If you follow this link, you will see the short clip of George Castanza announcing that this summer will be "The Summer of George". http://youtu.be/ZPS3qLtaFtw

Anyway, back to the summer of Andy.  Well, Andy has been working on trying to put together an Eagle Project.  He have searched high and low for a project that would be worthy of his efforts.  He has found several ideas but never really got them going.  Finally a project came available through the Twin Falls City Parks and Rec.  He was to organize and execute a plan to clear out an area of Derkie's lake for people that would like to kayak and canoe.  A 20 foot section of the lake front would need to be cleared and sand would need to be moved to create a nice beach to launch and extract small boats.  Below is a picture of the backhoe taking out the weeds.

Andy has also been working towards getting his drivers license.  We signed him up for Drivers Ed right at the end of the school year, which was a big mistake.  Trying to get through DE during Tennis, Concerts, Year end church and school activities is like herding cats.  Needless to say, he missed over half of his classroom times and only got a couple hours of driving done.  So, he had to go to the next class that started in June and continue to get his driving times in.

I tell you both of those stories to let you know that Andy finished Both of these huge tasks yesterday.  Andy completed his Eagle Scout Project on Saturday and finished his last driving hour the exact same day.  On a side note, I didn't die during the parent drive portion of his driving classes.

Way to go Coby!

Mom and Dad (Gordon and Susan Carter) drove up to Twin for Coby's graduation about a week ago.  They sliced out some time from their busy schedule to come and attend this momentous event.  While they were here that weekend, Grandma Carter (Susan) decided to make a poster that we could hold up for Coby when he stepped across the stage to receive his diploma.  I thought she had made a small poster that one person could hold up and try and draw attention to Coby.  But no, the poster was like 15 feet long. The poster said, "Way to go Coby!".  It was huge.  Below is a picture of the banner that they held up for him.

Of course, we were a little embarrassed to hold up this sign for Coby but it turned out to be pretty fun for all of us.  In fact, the local newspaper picked up on the story and mentioned it in the Times News.  So, to read all about it, you will need to click on this link.  Twin Falls High School Graduation 2012.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Carter for coming up and supporting Coby Carter at Graduation.

Senior All Night Party

The Twin Falls High School PTO puts together a party for the graduating seniors over at CSI every year to try and get the students to spend the night in a controlled environment so they don't go out partying and possibly getting into trouble or even worse.  So, Deanna and I volunteered to chaperon this all-night-party.  Deanna had access to a cotton candy machine so both of us stayed up all night serving cotton candy to the students.  While there, I had to take a few breaks to make sure that I stayed awake. At about 1:30am, I saw  Shane Schvaneveldt standing on the joust mat boasting his strength and challenging all parents and students to a battle.  Like a gallant warrior I decided to take him up on the challenge so I marched right over there, took off my shoes, removed my wallet, took off my watch, took out my phone and keys and stepped onto the bouncy house joust battling ground.  The standards that you are required to balance on were very shaky because they were supported by air, so right off the bat, you are uneasy and a little wobbly.

The challenge had been announce and I was there to meet his skills with my cunning.  I rose my battle gear in the air and prepared for a confrontation.  Round 1. After just one swing and a miss, I leaned too much forward and fell off my post.  AARRRGGHH!  "I'm better than that." I murmured under my breath.  Round 2.  I took a few stabbing pokes at my opponent but could not get enough forward momentum to be effective.  I took a couple of hits to the side and regained my balance.  Another couple of hits to the side and I felt myself falling backwards without any way to recover, so in a dramatic display of defeat, I through my battle bar into the air and took a leap back into the abyss of the air filled mat.  I was determined to do better this next time.  Round 3.  I was focused, I stratigized and made my play.  My opponent found himself leaning when he should have been swaying and he started forward towards me without a return hit to bring him straight and decided to just dive into my legs to try and get me to fall.  The chopping action of this dive took me down but not until after my adversary had already left his post.  Round 3 goes to me. Round 4.  I decided that I didn't have much strength left and this was probably my last round so I took my jousting stick and swung it around with one hand and tried to take out my opponent's legs.  The swing was hard, my aim was true and the blow landed just at his knees.  I knew that this pounding would disable my opponent at the knees and render him unbalanced to the point he would fall off his pedestal and dive for the mat below, HOWEVER, the impact was not as dramatic as I had expected.  I looked at him, he looked at me.  A grin came over his face and he laughed with a hearty gladiator like grunt, "Is that all you've got?"  I was shocked and found myself vulnerable without both hands on my weapon and took a couple of good shots to the side and head and in the end, took a devastating blow that rendered me unbalanced and defeated.  Again, in a show of dramatic theatrical display, I threw my arms in the air, spread my arms and legs out and took a final dive backwards to the mat.

Coby's Senior Year

Coby's Senior Year is almost over.  He has worked, he has played, he has won, he has lost, he has performed and he has succeeded.  Coby has been to Boys State, he has performed for the Jive show choir, he has kept up a part time job at Smiths, he has completed his Duty to God, he has graduated from Seminary, he has been accepted to 3 universities, he has traveled to Mexico on a service project, he has played on the Varsity Tennis team and next week he will graduate from Twin Falls High School with a 4.0 except for a couple of B's.  :-)

As parents, it is our duty to take some pictures of him along the way and record his experiences for posterity.   So, below, I'll put a few of the pictures we took of Coby during his Senior Year of High School.

Way to go COBY!!!!

We are hoping that Coby is able to find a full time job working this summer to help cover the costs of his housing and tuition at school this fall.  Coby has decided to attend BYU and is preparing to go down to Provo in August.  His apartment has been arranged and he has selected some classes he will be taking.  He is excited to get out into the real world and experience life on his own.  His parents are a little reluctant to let him go but know he will be successful in what ever he chooses to do in college.  At this point, Coby plans to attend a full year at BYU Provo and submit his papers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the end of next summer.  He then plans to serve a 2 year mission for the LDS church wherever the Lord would like him to preach the gospel.

Garden Again?

Last year my garden was pathetic. It started out strong, rows and rows of different veggies.  Of course, my radishes are always successful, they grow like weeds.  Maybe it is because they are from the "weeds" family.  They kinda taste like weeds according to my kids.  My loose leaf lettuce usually grows quick and full.  My beans and peas grow at an OK rate of speed and we usually harvest them early because we are excited to eat fresh peas.  But, after the first month of garden heaven, our interest in the garden starts to wain.  The tomatoes haven't produced yet.  The potatoes look like just another weed in the garden.  The radishes that I didn't eat, go to seed and the beans and peas have produced their two pea pods and we ate them as soon as they were ready.  From then on, all of the vegetables that take a while to produce are forgotten and the weeds begin to take over.  We leave for a weekend for one activity or another and I look out the back window and can hardly identify my garden anymore.  By late summer my garden is overgrown with weeds and I can't even find any of the plants I had waited so long to harvest.  My tomato plant can't breath anymore, my potatoes have been over-run by weeds and have given in to not having any sunlight.

Now, why in the world would I start another garden?  I talked to my sister living in Boise and told her about my gardening plight.  She recommended a new path.  "Have a special family home evening", she advised, "and tell all of the family that you aren't doing the garden alone this year.  If you want a garden, everyone will need to help."  It was great advise.  I had grand visions of each child in the family taking a section of the garden and weeding it, cultivating it, and harvesting a bounteous cornucopia of vegetables for our family's enjoyment.  I marched right home from this brief meeting and announced to my family that we will not have a garden this year unless everyone helps out.  Everyone looked at me like I was a little crazy and retorted right back with the same enthusiasm.  "Ok, we are fine without having a garden".  I looked around the room and everyone but Katie was nodding with approval.  Katie raised her hand and said, "I'll help you with the garden Dad."  So, there you have it.  What was I to do?

Well, today was the deciding day.  It is Memorial Day weekend.  I have some free time on Saturday but it was raining very hard.  Everything was wet and the garden plot was muddy.  I guess it just wasn't going to happen this year.  But, for some reason, I still had this small yearning to plant something and watch it grow.  Was it the deeply rooted genes from my ancestors that compel me to be a farmer?  Was it the call of a prophet that each family should have a small garden in case of hard times?  Was it the thrill of spring when all the world starts turning green?  Is it the excitement of seeing something magical happen in a small patch of brown dirt?  I don't know, but whatever it was, I succumbed to the pressure and started a garden today.

Savanna's Clogging Recital

Here are some videos of Savanna's Clogging Recital for 2012.  She went to the National Competition in Utah a couple of weeks ago and performed these exact dances before the judges.  She received a 1st place in her solo freestyle dance, a 1st in her duet dance, a 1st in her team A Capella dance, 1st in one of her group dances and a 2nd in her final group number.

The dance studio she performs with is called Rocky Top Cloggers.  Her dance team name is "Pride".  They did really well this year and savanna brought home a ton of metals.  Plus, we were able to go to Lagoon for one day and have some fun.  Congratulations Savanna on your awards.

Below are all of these dances that we taped from her 2012 dance recital.

Katie Soccer Video

This weekend I had the pleasure of going to Katie's soccer game.  This was the last one of the season so I took my video camera.  Last week Katie made 5 goals so I was prepared to get lots of footage of her kicking goals.  It was not to be.  The last team they played this season was very good, very fast and had some good defensive players.  So, only one goal was kicked by each team.  HOWEVER, KATIE WAS THAT ONE GOAL KICKER FOR HER TEAM!

So, here is a small video showing some of Katie's best moves including her goal at the very end of the clip.

Great Job Katie!!!

200 videos?

I was on Youtube this past week and I noticed that I had over 200 videos uploaded!!!  Wow, 200 videos?  That is very cool, well, maybe it's really dorky but I thought it was cool.  So, I started working on a video announcing this event.  Then, after many attempts and a dweeby video, I noticed that my uploads were at 200 but I only had 195 actual videos live on YouTube.  So, I haven't hit 200 yet.  :-(  Very sad.

So, here is my lame attempt at announcing that I have now 200 videos on YouTube, even though I really don't.

It has taken me a little while but I have finally purchased iMovie for my iPad and tried to figure out how it works.  So, I took some video that was already on my iPad and tried to arrange it into a few clips so I could figurine out how everything works.  So, this is my first video that I have made and uploaded to YouTube.  I was amazed at how easy it was to use, but I was disapointed that it wasn't quite as powerful as I had expected.  The worst part was that I could not figure out how to send a video from my PC to my iPad.  I don't know how to do it.  I tried everything from using itunes, to uploading vids to drop box with no success.

Anyway, here is the short little video I edited with my iPad.

TFHS Tennis

Coby and Andy's year in Tennis is starting to come to an end.  They have a few more matches before they start competing at a district tournament which would qualify them for State.  Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. We hope they do well at district so they have a chance to compete at state but at this point, we are not sure what will happen.

The other day, they were playing a match against a local tennis team and a Times News reporter was there taking pictures.  Below are a couple of pictures that they took of Coby and Andy while she was there reporting on the match.

Last Day of Paper Route!

It has finally come to an end.  Our term as paper delivery people is over.  Saturday April 21, 2012 will go down in history.

Below are a couple of pictures of our last day doing the paper route.  I'm going to sleep in as long as I possibly can tomorrow and enjoy my extra few hours of sleep.

Coby at Jive Night

Coby's final Jive performance was last weekend.  We are very proud of how hard he worked and how well he performed.  Coby was the star of two numbers so I took a video of each one to share with everyone.  The first one is called Kryptonite which he performed as a solo with a cameo by one of his friends to help fill the stage.  He did a great job each time he performed.





The second number that Jive performed was Hawaii Five O.  If you listen very carefully, you can hear someone beatboxing in the background.  That was Coby.  There is no background music, no background drums, it is all Coby keeping everyone together and doing the percussion for this performance.

Great Job Coby!!!!

Funeral

It was a difficult week for the Carter and Blake Families because we lost our dear family member Van Holt Blake.  Last summer our family visited him and his wife at their house in Orange County.  He was gracious enough to take us down to the pier where we were able to go on a cruise.  When we returned, Van and Shanna also picked us up and took us back to their house and fed us some lunch before we headed back to Idaho.

Three short weeks ago Van started to have trouble breathing and was feeling ill.  He finally decided to go to the doctor to see what was going on.  After extensive testing they found out that he had cancer and just a few weeks later the illness took his life.

This last weekend, I and other members of our family, traveled down to Orange County California to support Van's family during this difficult time.  Several other cousins, Aunts and Uncles were there as well.

The funeral was really well put together and all of the speakers spoke with love and affection for Van Blake.  Each of the children spoke or prayed and expressed their love for their Dad. It was very touching.  Each funeral I go to, I go away with a firmer determination to be a better husband and father.  I have awesome examples in my family of how to be a great husband and father.

Below is Uncle Van's funeral program for those that could not attend.

We love you Van and we will miss you.  We hope to see you again when it is our turn to pass through this life and into the spirit world awaiting the resurrection.

Temple Baptisms

Our family went to the bountiful temple during spring break to do baptisms for the dead. We met at 9:30 am and organized ourselves and had a wonderful time. Afterwards, I asked if this temple had a cafeteria. I was told that it did so I convinced everyone to stay for lunch and eat in the temple. We had a great time and then afterwards, we went out front and took some pictures. My sister took some really good pictures whereas the pictures I took arnt so great, however, I have my pictures now from my phone. So here we are.

TF Tennis

Coby and Andy are playing #1 Men's Doubles this year on the Twin Falls Tennis Team.  Their first few matches were against some really tough teams and some of those matches went to a tie breaker to decide the match.  Yesterday, they played Canyon Ridge High School, which is the new high school here in Twin Falls, and did very well against their #1 Men's Doubles team.

Below is the report in the newspaper on how well they did.

Our Life

I don't know how they are doing it.  They must have some hidden camera's in our house, in our cars and everywhere we go.  Somehow ABC Television has filmed our life and then made a sit-com out of it.  I swear it is true.

Example number one comes directly from this weeks episode of "The Middle".  This episode is called "The Paper Route".  I know it sounds funny but some of the conversations they have in this TV show match up almost exactly with conversations we have had in our house.  I think they filmed our situation, then got some writers together, and created this episode.

Example number two comes from an episode of "Last Man Standing".  The episode is called "Take your Daughter to Work".  Although the name doesn't really tell you about how it relates to our life, it is unbelievable how much like our life this episode depicts.  This is almost exactly what happened to our family when I almost hit a dog early in the morning while doing the paper route.  If you don't know about this "dog" incident, then you need to read my earlier blog post. http://littleenoch.blogspot.com/2012/02/simba.html

The third example is from another on of the episodes of "The Middle".  This one comes straight out of our life.  The episode is called "The Sit Down".  When I watch this one, it is almost too hard to watch because it happens in our life all of the time.  I don't want to watch my life again.  But, somehow, it is entertaining enough for me to stay hooked on this show.

So, if you want some samples from the Carter Family Life, just watch these three episodes and you will have a pretty good idea what is going on in our home.

Clint

Oliver

Over the last several weeks Savanna has been going to play practice over at CSI where the CSI theater department was putting together a production of "Oliver".  Almost every evening she would go over there and practice her songs and parts with a bunch of other little kids, all cast to be orphans in the play.  As they waited for their scenes, they would play in the dressing room.  As the weeks went by, they started to develop other words to some of the songs that they sang in "Oliver".  As the song developed, they decided to sing this montage in the foyer of the auditorium after their last performance.

Below is that song while they stood on the steps of the auditorium.

Simba

About two weeks ago, I was driving Andy back from his paper route.  It was about 5:00am in the morning.  It was snowing that morning and there was slush all over the roads.  As I turned the corner from Locust on to Falls I noticed a little animal in the road.  I looked closer because most animals in the road are squirrels.  This was a small animal but bigger than a squirrel.  On close inspection I noticed it was a dog.  There were other cars now driving down the roads and I could tell that if he (the dog) did not get out of the road, he would look like a dead squirrel.  So, I stopped the car, turned on my flashers, and tried to coax this little dog into the car.  He was hesitant and refused to get in, however, he was cold and he wanted to get out of the snowy weather so he slowly moved closer and closer to the car.  Finally, he got close enough so that I could scoop him up into the car and take him home.  Once he was home I would warm him up, call the animal shelter, and find the owner.  The poor little puppy didn't have any name tag nor collar.  We had no way of identifying who's dog it was.

The next morning I called the pound (animal shelter) and reported that we had found this little dog which was a mix of pomeranian and Chihuahua.  A couple of days went by and no phone calls for the dog.  I decided to make little fliers and hang them on some telephone poles near where we found him.  Katie and I posted several up all over the intersection.  Still no phone calls.

It has been 2 weeks now, so, as might be expected, all of the family has decided to keep the dog and name it Simba.  Below is a picture of Simba with his new collar.

University

Coby has been filling out applications for the last few months to see if he could get accepted into college. He has applied to Utah State, BYU Idaho and BYU Provo. In his application to BYU he ran into a glitch where they did not attach his High School transcript with his online application. So, with this error, it showed that he had not met the advanced application deadline. He had to call BYU and fix the problem but we were still a little worried that this problem might have caused him to miss this deadline and might make him ineligible to be accepted to BYU. After a few months of waiting, Coby received an acceptance letter from Utah State. He was very excited to receive this first letter of acceptance from any University. So, to show his excitement, he took his letter and taped it onto our front door with a little red bow. Below is a picture of this letter on the window.

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 Later, he found that several of his friends were receiving notice that they had been accepted to BYU Idaho. Again, we were a little worried that the issue with his transcript and his application were messed up but once he logged into his account online, he found that he had been accepted to BYU Idaho Fall Winter Track.

So, the final application to BYU Provo was still out under review. He had not heard any word, he had not seen any notification. However, this week Deanna and I noticed that one of his friends had posted on Facebook that she had been accepted to BYU Provo. We looked at each other and decided to wake Coby up and have him check his application account online at BYU. All of the family was around that kitchen table in our pajamas awaiting his review of his account online. He typed in his username and typed in what seemed 300 characters. He clicked and clicked and finally started to read, "Coby Carter, you have been accepted to attend BYU Provo in the Fall of 2012". A cheer rang out and the suspense was over. He had received an acceptance from all 3 Universities he had applied for. We are all very proud of Coby and his hard work to get him to this point and we are excited for him the choose which University he will want to attend in the fall. With this final response, we have now realized that Coby will indeed leave home in about 6 months. What in the world are we going to do? What in the world can we do to prepare him to leave home?

Malta Idaho

Every few months I travel to Malta Idaho to do some computer work for an electric company. Most of the time these trips are uneventful. Occasionally, however, I'll come across something unusual so I make sure I have my camera at the ready. This particular trip I was met by a herd of sheep so I quickly took out my camera phone and recorded the experience.

Cartoonist

I follow a blog called Mormon Cartoonist. This guy creates creative cartoons that he submits to the Friend, The Ensign and other LDS magazines. Many of his works make it to print. Anyway, as I as reading through some of his cartoons I started thinking about what would make a good cartoon. I can't draw worth a darn so being able to create one on my own would be a disaster, but, I could come up with an original idea for a cartoon. So, I started looking around in my life for something that might be good as a cartoon. One evening while talking to my sons, I came up with an idea for a cartoon. So, I went to Mormon Cartoonist and suggested a funny premise. A few days later I received a response that he would take my idea and make a comic that would come out in February. Well, February is finally here and below is his cartoon based from my idea.

Click on the link below to go to his website and see his comments about this cartoon.

http://www.mormoncartoonist.com/2012/02/eight-bit-love.html

Jive

Coby decided to try out for Jive last fall when the new school year was just starting. We were thrilled that he would want to join this dancing and singing group again. We were very proud of him during the last school year and enjoyed every concert and performance he was in. This year is no exception.

I must say that I was a little worried about this new group because almost all of the girls that were in Jive last year had graduated. So, there was only one returning Jive girl from last years gaggle of girls. However, this new group of girls are just as talented. There were only a few boys that returned as well so there were a lot of new kids joining Jive and performing with Jive for the first time.

Even with these big changes, Jive performed a wonderful "Winter Showcase" just a few weeks ago. We had many friends and family come to watch Coby perform and I think each one of them walked away very happy and impressed with the quality of singers and dancers in this year's Jive group.

As usual, I volunteered to make some videos for the transitions between songs when the Jive kids would have to change their clothes for their next number. Unfortunately I didn't come up with anything really creative but the videos still turned out really well.


Below is one of the numbers they did called Waka Waka. It is probably my favorite song and dance of this years program. I'll also put some links to some of the other videos that I made for the Winter Showcase.





http://youtu.be/hGmqJjjyxR0

http://youtu.be/WjH4fX88634

http://youtu.be/tP2TPxb8tXc

Evidence of Dad Snoring

While we were flipping through the video camera videos to make some room for Coby's Jive concert stuff, Deanna came across this video and had to show it to me.

Mexico Trip

Humm, I just discovered that I didn't write anything on this blog about my trip to Mexico.  So, here we go.  I hope it isn't to much of a repetition of what I wrote on the CAF website or the LDSFamily.net website.

Normally at this time of year I don't have much vacation time and I'm very busy at work.  This year, the busiest time was November to December opened up for me.  I looked at my vacation days and I had 5 days saved up.  The trip to Mexico was from Christmas which was Sunday this year and ended on the day after New Years which was Monday.  At work, we were given both Monday after Christmas and Monday after New Years off.  So, I only needed 4 days.  Coby struggled to get the time off at work but when push came to shove his boss decided to let him off of work the whole week since he was giving service to the needy in Mexico.  Tiffany was generous enough to let us use her "stand by" tickets to fly from SLC down to San Diego.  So, after a little tweaking and some miracles, I was headed to Mexico with Coby, Andy and Savanna.

You have probably seen my video that I made of the work and the play we did while in Mexico so I think I'll just talk about some of the things I thought about while down there.  Here are a couple of things that struck me while down there.  Keep in mind, I've been in 3rd world countries before and the poverty really doesn't shock me anymore.  I searched for things that I could use in my life.  Here are some of my thoughts.

As we crossed the boarder into Mexico it was interesting that I didn't need any identification, paperwork, visa, passport or any other paperwork.  I also noticed that there wasn't a line at all getting into Mexico.  We just walked across the boarder, through the gates and we were in.  I think I really only saw one official looking guy sitting at a table asking us to push a button to see if we were the lucky ones to be "checked".  Otherwise, it was pretty much void of security.  HOWEVER, when entering into the USA, there was a line of people, a line of cars, there were security all around.  There were several lines of people waiting to enter.  When we arrived at the start of the line we were asked for identification, passports, birth certificates and we were asked what we purchased and what we did while in Mexico.  The officer asked each of my kids a question or two and then he waved us in.  We then scanned our bags and were permitted into the United States of America.  Ok, so that seems pretty standard, how can this translate into a learning experience.  Well, for me, it was a "type" or an "example" of what it will be like at judgement after we die.  I believe that there are 3 kingdoms of glory that we can inherit.  Three degrees of glory.  After we die, it will be like the boarders of Mexico and the US.  It will be fairly easy to get into the lower degrees of glory.  There won't be a line, there won't be much security, there won't be much paperwork.  We will be able to just walk across, HOWEVER, to get in the highest glory, I'm sure we will have to have all of our paperwork in order.  There will be a line, there will be security, there will be documentation and questions that will be asked of us to determine whether we are allowed in this sacred location.  Ok, so it is a little stretch of the imagination but it seems to fit, at least in my mind.

Second, I have a new appreciate of rules, laws and police officers.  When traveling in Mexico there arn't man traffic regulations.  Some places there aren't any stop signs or stop lights.  In several locations we traveled the traffic was chaotic  First come first serve was the rule and if you were in a bigger car, you had the right of way.  There were pot holes, bumps, broken roads, speed bumps, and holes everywhere.  The roads were unkept and the drivers didn't obey the traffic rules.  Although it was sometimes pretty cool just to roll though a stop and keep moving if no one was there, it made me appreciate the rule of law in the USA.  Drivers are constantly aware of the laws and rules of the road because the police do a great job of making sure we are safe.  Without the enforcement of these driving laws, the US would not be as organized and safe as they are today.  They would fall in the chaos of what is happening just across the boarder in Mexico.

I had to be such a downer on Mexico but these were a couple of things that I tried to notice and be thankful for once I was back in the good old U S of A.

If you missed my video, you can watch it here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BywKiQNmhqc

Here is something cool.  Below is the hospital we stayed at in Tijuana.




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Below is the little "tienda" where we went for snacks when we were hungry and where they let us use the bathroom.


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And below was one of the little lunch spots where we had "Tortas" for Lunch.



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BYU football game

I just found the best way to watch a football game. I found this on YouTube under BYU TV. These videos show an entire BYU football game with all of the plays and none of the commercials or slow time in between the action nor the time outs. SWEET!