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