This is Life.

I don't know about some of you parents out there but sometimes it feels like a burden to get ready and go down to watch your kid play a game of soccer, or clog, or bball game, or choir. You pay your $5.00 to watch your own kid perform and end up spending 90% of your time watching other kids perform and then seeing your kid up there doing their thing for 20 seconds. It can be a little tedious and boring and sometimes, I must admit, I would rather stay home and stare at the wall.

HOWEVER, that that is at BIG HOWEVER, I have grown to learn to appreciate these little snippets in time when I can watch my kids stretch and grow. This weekend happened to be one of these events. Savanna was scheduled to go and "clog" at the Festival of Trees. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you would have already known that. Anyway, Savanna was already complaining about having to go down and perform. She wasn't excited and really didn't want to go. Of course, that really didn't help my desire to go either. I bribed her into going by offering her a sandwich at Subway. That did the trick and the complaining stopped.

We arrived at the Festival of Trees and of course, there were gaggle of other parents there to watch their kids perform as well. After the clogging began I started to think in my mind that THIS was life. This is why we came here, this is why I wanted to be a Dad. I decided to enjoy the moment and soak in this special time to watch my daughter perform in front of an audience. I was proud to say that my attitude changed and I fully embraced the moment in time where I was participating in "real life".

Fortunately for you, or unfortunately however you want to look at it, I brought my flip video and recorded the event for all time. You are all probably tired of watching Savanna's clogging videos but for me, I just can't get enough.



Here is a link for my Facebook Friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNiEouIogOg

Pictures in a box

I was wondering around the mall the other day waiting for Andy to find some basketball shoes that were "cool" enough and also had his school colors. Those colors being from my Alma mater O'Leary Middle School. While we were waiting and wondering, we, the girls and I, saw a photo box.



We saw some people stuffed inside so we walked past and looked in a few stores. As we shuffled back down the main corridor of the mall, we saw the kiosk again. It was empty. I decided that if the price was less then $5.00, we would get in. We peeked through the curtain and found that photos were $3.00. The girls started to bounce up and down and since it was below my price point, we squeezed into the box and sat down. I swiped my card and prepared to be photographed. The girls seemed to want to do all crazy face pictures but I convinced them at least once to a normal smile. We had a great time and we have some pictures to remember the event. I kinda like those photo kiosk booths.



Deanna and I took one while we were dating. I still love the picture.

Thanksgiving

Our family got together this year at my Sister's house in Boise Idaho. Not all of the family was able to come but we had a good sized group. I decided to take along my flip video to document the festivities. Actually, I almost forgot the flip, but my wonderful wife remembered and stuck it in my coat pocket.

We had a great time eating, playing volleyball, watching Harry Potter, playing games, watching the BSU game and enjoying each other's company.

A huge THANK YOU goes out to my sister and her husband for hosting the celebration! We had a great time.



Here is a link for my facebook friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GgG1cpLK1w

Grandma's Stories

My previous post talked about some stories and poems that my Grandma Erma Blake used to tell us when we were younger. When typing up the post, I began searching for a recording that I knew I had so I could link to it along with my post. As I searched more and more, I began to panic because I could not find the recordings anywhere. I looked on my new computer, my old computer, my work computer with no luck. Yikes, I hope I didn't lose it.

In a frantic attempt to find the missing files, I grabbed my Ancient computer from the pile of computer rubble and booted it up and started a search. Thankfully, I found all of the recordings. So, if you would like to hear my Grandma tell these little stories, here are the links.

The Little Orphan Annie
Epamandas
Johnathan Bing

Memories of Grandma Blake

I was sitting in church this Sunday listening to the teacher in Sunday School when a lady spoke up from near the back of the chapel. The teacher could barely hear her comment so he walked the microphone back to her so we could all hear. She was an elderly lady but it looked like she had a good comment. When she got the microphone up to her mouth she recited this poem.

"Once there was a little boy who wouldn’t say his prayers,
and when he went to bed at night away up stairs,
his mammy heard him holler and his daddy heard him bawl,
and when they turned the covers down,
he wasn’t there at all!
They searched for him in the attic room
and cubby hole and press
and even up the chimney flu and every wheres, I guess,
but all they ever found of him was just his pants and round-abouts
and the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!!"

The teacher handled the situation masterfully and moved on with the lesson but several people grinned not understanding what had just happened. I smiled too but immediately I thought of my Grandma Blake. Ema Blake used to recite this poem to me when I was little. Memories of my Grandma flooded into my mind and I smiled as I thought of her in her home with the thick shag carpet and the heater vents in the halls. I remember her playing card games, telling us stories and fixing us meals. I felt a closeness again with Grandma Blake while sitting there at church. I was determined to walk over to this elderly lady and thank her for reciting that familiar poem.

When the lesson was over and people were leaving for their next class, I found her sitting in the pews and asked her about the poem. She was very pleased to start reciting the poem again but started reciting a different poem about Joseph Smith. She stopped half was through and asked if that was the one that she I recited earlier. I could tell she was a little confused about which poem she had given during the lesson. I then told her it was about "Little Orphan Annie". She immediately began to repeat the correct poem again for me. When she finished, she told me that she learned the poem when she was 8 and that she was now 80. I thanked her again for reminding me of my Grandma and went to my next class. I found out later that this lady had Alzheimer's disease just like my Grandma Blake.




I am grateful this week for my Grandma Blake. She worked hard all of her life so that her children, and grand children, could have a good life, good education and a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I felt close to her today as I remembered her through this poem. I hope I am living up to her hopes for me. I will read these three poems this week to remind me of her.

The Little Orphan Annie
Epaminondas
Johnathan Bing

Backyard Baseball

Now that summer has passed and winter is upon us, I thought I would post a video of a warm sunny day earlier this year. Katie and Savanna join forces in this little video to take on the world champion of Backyard Baseball, Andy. They make up the bases just like I did when I was young. The tree is first base, second is a stool by the fence, the slide is third base and home plate is an old frisbee that has fallen apart. These creative kids have added a new rule invented exclusively for Carter Backyard Baseball. The new invention is "Ghost Runners". I don't remember using ghost runners when I was young but it works out perfectly when you only have a couple of baseball players on your team or even if you only have one player. I happen to capture the end of this particular game where Savanna and Katie actually defeat the undefeated.



Here is the link for my Facebook Friends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQ55y3Ob64

First Lego League Video

I am really shocked today at the success I have had with one of my little videos that I have posted on YouTube. I have worked very hard to make videos that people would want to see with the hopes that one of them would go viral. With no immediate success, I decided just to take my video camera and view a few local events just to documents stuff that our family has been doing. I took a video of our service project on 9/11/10. I did a short video of Katie and Andy running in the local "Child Run" event. Each video getting a few hits but nothing really noteworthy of viral proportions. So, I was shocked to find one of my videos start to take off at a rapid pace up the "Most Views" chart on my YouTube Channel. This video is not well crafted, it is not funny, it is not even about my family except for the very beginning. Even though I didn't think this video would do anything on the internet, I was amazed that it started receiving several hits every day. In fact today, this video has now surpassed my top hit getter. It has now passed my video entitled, "Carters get a Wii". I'm guessing that it will hit 1,000 views by the end of next week if the trend continues. WOW!

Below is the video.



Here is the Link for my Facebook Friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNRUh7U5Vyg

It is really more of a video of our visit to a competition in Twin Falls. This competition was called "First Lego League" or FLL Body Forward challenge. Elementary age youth put teams together to compete with small robotic machines to do small tasks which equated to points. The team with the most points wins.

Coby volunteered to help with the event so I grabbed Katie and went over to see what was going on. I took my flip video camera with me to document the trip. The video shots I took were from a practice table that they had set aside for each team. After practicing each task, the teams would then be ready to compete.

Professional Photos

Every year our family tries to schedule a time to take some professional photos of our kids. Unfortunately, we get so busy that some years we just don't get it done. We have our photographs done by Kim Critchfield. He does a great job and always gives us wonderful pictures of our kids as the grow up. We get these professional portraits done because the school pictures just don't turn out very well. You know all of the problems, the kids don't have their hair done right, they just come in from PE, they make a funny face, their shirt isn't tucked in, their zipper is down etc, etc, etc. This way, we can control all of the variables and get a nice clean picture of our kids that we can look back on with fondness instead of horror.

Here are the pictures we took this year. It is always surprising how old they look when we get the photographs back. They are growing up FAST!

Adventure in a Semi-Truck

Periodically I get little assignments from my Dad to do little projects here and there. Sometimes they are a little challenging. This time I was asked to pickup a Semi-Truck from the mechanic's shop and drive it out to the Truck Stop. In my truck driving days, this would have been a breeze, but as you might see in the video, I am a little rusty. Ok, in reality I never was really good at driving the semi truck. I decided to take Katie along with me to document our adventure.




Here is a link for my Facebook Friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj7nOSfc6RE

Panda Bear Pumpkin

In an attempt to live up to my reputation of being a "grand champion" pumpkin decorator, I asked my daughter for an idea for a pumpkin this year. All Katie could come up with was a Panda Bear. So, I wandered around the internet looking for some creative examples of panda bear pumpkins. To my dismay, there was only one example of a bear that I liked, so, I went the store to buy a series of pumpkins. Big, medium and small pumpkins were on the menu and I had to find just the right sizes to make it look presentable. (you know my standards are high) After eye-balling the layout of the pumpkins in the store and having several people look at me like I was a little weird, we bought the needed items and headed home to put them contraption together.

We glued, stabbed and fastened all of the pieces together and then pulled out the brushes to get it painted. This is where we ended after our first painting and assembly stage.



Below is our finished product that is on display at the school. Let's just hope we did well enough to win some kind of ribbon so that my pumpkin decorating mystique is not lost.



Happy Halloween to all!

Halloween 2010

I tried to make a video of our family painting our front windows in preparation for Halloween but the video was dead boring. It was excruciatingly slow, like watching paint dry, humm, that is exactly what it was, letting paint dry.

So, to make it a bit more entertaining, I sped it up.



Here is a link for my facebook friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2und7F83Ud8

Kids Run 2010

Two of our kids participated in the First Annual Kids Run event in Twin Falls. Andy and Katie both ran and both won 4th place in their respective age groups. I took a little bit of video to display as evidence. As you might see in the video, I ran along with Kate for the last 50 yards. We had a great time.

Paper Route

When I was younger I swore that when I was older and was able to make the decisions about my life, that I would not under any circumstances, under threat of life and limb, make my kids do a paper route. I'm hear today to tell you that somehow, some way, I have failed to live up to that promise to myself. Yes, that is right, we are now a "Paper Route" family. Yes, one of THOSE strange families that get up at crazy hours in the morning to blacken their fingers with news print and find a way to stumble around the neighborhood and deliver the news of the day. Rain or Shine, sleepy or really sleepy, the newspapers must be delivered.



Andy (and Savanna for that matter) have been talking about a way to make money all summer. We have had them mow lawns but now that we have hit the time of year when grass begins to slow it's growth, we are faced with a challenge of how to allow them to earn money. There just aren't many chores around the house that merit pay. We don't have pigs to feed, cows to milk, hay to bail, (even though we do live smack dab in the middle of a large agricultural area). So, we toyed with the idea of taking on a paper route. For many months we checked the news paper only to find that the only routes available were to far away (Ahh, that really was a sad fact even though I was secretly happy). Then it happened. We woke up one morning and our own street was listed in the paper needing a paper deliverer (if that's a word). Hummm, how could I get out of that one? I hoped that it would go away but day after day our street showed up in the paper as needing a paper boy, (paper person for those of you keeping track of politically correct lingo).

Finally I gave in, went down to the Times News, and signed my life away as a parent of a paper boy.




We've only been delivering papers one week and I can already tell you, it still isn't any fun. I'm just hoping that when it is time to get paid, Andy and Savanna will think it was all worth it. The more likely scenario is that I will offer them the same pay for NOT doing the route anymore. :-)

Twitter Feed

When the average american reads the title "Twitter Feed", they probably picture a bird feeder advertisement. In my case, it is a little different. Many of you already know that Twitter is a website that allows people to post very short little pieces of their life on the internet. These pithy comments on the web are called "tweets". I really haven't done much with Twitter in the past until I found out that you can send a text message to your twitter account. That way, you don't have to be at your computer to post a brief comment. So, over the last month, I have started to send little tweets to my twitter account. Then, after learning how to make that all work, I decided to add my "Twitter Feed" to my blog. So, now, you can see my tweets every time you visit my blog.

My Twitter Feed has been placed on the right side of my blog under "Twitter Feed".

Bruin Football

We try and support out local sports teams by attending their sporting events. Sometimes we miss them but we hardly ever forget to go to a football game. We live less than 100 yards (football lingo) from the football field so when they crank up the lights and test the loud speakers, we are the first to know. Below is a picture of us at the Twin Falls Bruins football game. This year there are 4 football players on the team from our ward. We cheer extra loud for them when they get a chance to play. I think the Bruins have only lost one game this year so far. Let's hope that they continue winning and make it to State. Go Bruins!

really?

Really, I've got nothing better to write than to post a video of a baby monkey riding a pig? Either I'm really busy with a bunch of stuff in life, or nothing significant has happened in my life that I'm willing to share with the entire world. Hummm, I don't know which of these two answers fits my situation. I apologize to all of those subscribers that come to my blog looking for some good literary pros. Apparently the best I have is a monkey riding a pig.

Obviously, I still don't have much to say or I would have said it by now. Hopefully all of my readers will give me ONE MORE CHANCE at coming up with something witty and pithy.

Signing off for today.

Clint

Internet Fun

I am sure that all 7 of my subscribers know that this is the place to find out what is new and fun on the internet. Not every post is new and fun but once in a while, I'll hit something great. Well, here is the latest fun video that is spreading like wildfire around the internet. Remember, you saw it here first.



Don't watch it too many times or you will start singing the song and it will get stuck in your head.

Winna Winna Winna

Those of you that have been to the Twin Falls County Fair and Rodeo will understand the title of this blog. As you walk down the trampled grass cooridors your ears fill with the sounds of "Carnies" yelling at the top of their smoke filled lungs to try and get you to play their carnival games. If you happen to pass by at just the right time when someone has actually one something, you will hear, "Winna, Winna, Winna". This year was no exception.

One of the visits we try to make while at the fair is a wandering wramble through the art buildings. This year Kate had her art project posted on the wall. She beamed as she pointed to her masterpiece displayed as part of a kaleidoscope of art from her elementary school.



Afterwards, the girls got their hands stamped and rode some of the rides. I tried to take some pictures with my camera phone but they don't turn out too well. This was their first ride, which also made Kate sick.



After some more long lines and a few rides, it was time for the girls to go home and it was time for Andy and I to start working at the Fair Booth. Each year our LDS ward has one fundraiser. This fundraiser is a fair booth that sells hot dogs, hamburgers and other stuff.



Coby came out to help as well since it was busy and we were down a person or two. Again, the picture isn't great from my phone. The picture is just good enough that you can see Andy's back (wearing a red hoodie) and Coby.

Meeting with Choir Director

Coby came home from school the other day with a story to tell. He said that he was in class and one of his friends came up to him and told him that Mr. Casperson was looking for him. He didn't think much of it until a second friend came up and told him that Mr. Casperson was looking for him. At this point, he started getting nervous (gulp). He thought for sure he was in trouble somehow but wasn't sure why. He thought that maybe it was for being late or something so he was a little reluctant to run down to his office to find out what it was. Then, while at lunch, four more people came up to him and told him that Mr. Casperson was looking for him. (Mr. Casperson is the Choir Director by the way). So, Coby finally decided to take his punishment and head down to the Music Teacher's office right after he finished his lunch and take it like a man.

Upon arrival, Mr. Casperson invited Coby into his office. The Director politely asked Coby what he had for 8th period. Coby replied that 8th period was when he took his IDLA class online, however, since the class he wanted wasn't available this semester, he was just doing some online html this semester to fill the time during the class. Mr. Casperson was happy to hear this news and replied, "Well, I just found out that I will be needing another boy for my 'JIVE' singing group." Coby paused. Coby had tried out for Jive at the end of the last school year but was not chosen from the group of boys that tried out. He was a little shocked that he had now been asked to join them. He told Mr. Casperson that he would check with his parents to see if this would work into his schedule. Coby brought this news home to Deanna and after a small discussion decided to accept the invitation to join the singing group "JIVE".



We are very excited about this opportunity for Coby. We know he will need to stretch himself but we know he will grow and be successful. It will, however, take quite a bit of hard work. But, I really think Coby will enjoy his time with this group. Way to go Coby!

YouTube

I don't know why but lately I have been obsessed with how many views my video's have been receiving. When you look at the old spice commercial spoof that BYU produced, they received over 2,000,000 views. That is incredible. I mentioned to my kids that I was hoping that the Old Spice Spoof that Andy and I did at Scout Camp would go "viral". They looked at me like I was a little crazy. "What does Viral mean?" they asked. It is when a video becomes so popular that it spreads around the internet like a virus. It isn't an actual virus but it spreads so quickly that it just gets seen by thousands and possibly millions of people in a very short period of time. Businesses pay lots of money these days just trying to get a video out there in the bloggosphere that will go "viral". Anyway, none of my videos have gone viral, in fact, they haven't even been sneezed at. Below are some stats from my Channel on YouTube.

I currently have a measly 6 subscribers.
My most viewed video is "Carters get a Wii" with 665 views.
2nd is "The Super Nerf War" with 479 views.
3rd is "Lower Falls at Yellow Stone Park" with 255 views.
4th is "Banadana skit" with 191 views.
and the one I hoped would go viral at 5th on the list is "Camp Bradley Old Spice Spoof" with 162 views.

Even though the Camp Bradley Video didn't go viral, it definitely moved up the rankings in my YouTube Channel very quickly. It only took a few weeks to hit number 5 on my "most views" list. In comparison, the "Carters get a Wii" video has been out there since December 2008.

Anyway, there you have it. My top five video's on YouTube. Click here if you want and become a subscriber to my YouTube Channel.