Suspicious dog

I snuck home for a few minutes, because of a cancelled appointment, to grab something to snack on and to start staging my gear for a campout with Andy. When I opened the door I saw the chairs in front of the kitchen area so I knew Jack (our dog) was in the house. I did my normal "Jackster" greeting but didn't find him in his usual spot on his pillow in the corner of the kitchen. I looked around and called his name again. I then heard a "thud, thud" and Jack peaked around the corner from upstairs with those innocent eyes. It looked and sounded very suspicious so I went upstairs to investigate. There was a nice smashed section of the bed (on my side of course) that looked like the outline of one medium sized cockerspanial. I touched the indention with my hand and the spot was warm. AARRGGHH!





JACK HAD BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED!!!

A flash of light

Tuesday night I decided to lace up my bball shoes and put on my basketball jersey play a game of church ball. I was a little apprehensive on 2 counts. First, I didn't feel that fit, and second the game started at 9:40pm. The 9:40 game is always hard because it is soo late in the evening. By 10:30pm every night I am usually winding down and getting ready for bed, so, to be playing an "intense" game of basketball at 10:40 does not bode well for going to sleep on time. In fact, it usually takes at least and hour or even two before my body is able to settle down into sleep mode.

In the words of Doctor Clark Draney, "I tell you this story to get to the story" that inspired the title of this blog post.

Since I was still wide awake on Tuesday night I was walking around the house trying to decide what to do until I felt tired. Deanna came upstairs and we started to chat around midnight. We were sitting in the kitchen discussing the happenings of the day when there was a bright flash of light that came in our back window. Since we live in a cul-di-sac, we get a lot of flashes of light when cars come down the road and decide to turn around, however, those blinding lights usually enter through the front living room. This was coming from the back yard. Both Deanna and I found that curious and so we peered into the back yard which borders the elementary school. We didn't see any cars, plus, headlights wouldn't hit our house from way over there. Deanna mentioned that it might have been some spot light or search light from a police car. We opened the back door and squinted into the darkness. No police car in view. The school grounds and streets were empty. We shrugged it off and went to sleep.

Yesterday morning, in the newspaper, we discovered what had happened. There was a huge meteor that burned up in the atmosphere at 12:07am Wednesday morning. Exactly the same time we were chatting in the kitchen!

Here are a few of the news reports on the meteor. How funny that we just happened to be awake at exactly that time of night because of my church basketball game.





http://www.ksl.com
KTVB.com

Mormon Whiskey

When I was little, my Dad used to bring home a 2 liter bottle of something he like to call Mormon Whiskey. My Dad would pull out the "Mormon Whiskey" for special sporting events on TV. I remember it being the drink of choice for Basketball games, Football games and Tennis matches. It seemed to be the perfect counterpoint to a bowl of buttered popcorn.



Mormon Whiskey is nothing more and nothing less than a bottle of Grapefruit Soda. I decided to write about Mormon Whiskey because I found myself in Walmart the other day looking for some cheep pop. I usually pick up something like lemon/lime generic soda but something caught my eye. It was a bottle of Grapefruit Soda. I immediately grabbed a couple of 2 liter bottle and took them home with the hopes that the tastes would bring back all of those memories of home. To my surprise, it was exactly as I remember. Sweet, tangy and delicious.

Mormon Whiskey lives again in the Carter Home.

Halloween 2009

I don't know why, but every time I have to spell Halloween I have to sing the song in my head so that I spell it right. Have you heard the song?

H - A - Double L, Oh - Double U - Double E, N spells Halloween.

Anyway, only two of our kids dressed up this year for Fright Night. This year was not much of a fright since our two girls dressed up as a cow girl and a princess.

Here are there cute little outfits.



The last little video that I would like to share with everyone today is our paintings on our front windows and pumpkin that we submitted for judgement at our elementary school.
Last year we submitted a pumpkin entry and received The Grand Champion award, this year, we earned the "Most Complicated". Hummm, they must have been running out of creative awards to give out.

Our window painting lacked a little imagination but we kept up the tradition despite lack of interest and creativity. Enjoy the Video.

Do I look Fat?

I'm starting to feel fat. When I was younger it was always embarrassing when girls my age would look at my legs and say, "I wish I had your skinny legs". Yes, it was very emasculating to hear those types of comments. So, when I got on my mission, I was able to brag that I got up to a whopping 140 pounds. All of my slacks were very tight and I even had to commission some new trousers from a local seamstress in Ecuador to accommodate my growing waistline. However my current situation is getting very grave. My neck and chin are starting to look like the double chin that Glenn Beck is sporting. My belly is growing further and further out over my pants so that I can no longer see my belt buckle. My pants are all a little tight and I can now see my gut when I'm just standing in a relaxed position. I've definitely got to do something about my weight but at the end of the day, I'm just too tired to actually go out and run around. I guess that is how it starts. Maybe I'll participate in our stake basketball program. It might just allow me to get in enough exercise that I don't feel like a complete fat fatty fatso.

So, as of right now, I weight over 160 lbs. Not much over, but I'm over that. So, I'm FAT. I guess I'll start by eating less twinkies and HoHo's.

hijacked

I was sending and reading email from my gmail account the other day when I noticed a very strange thing.  The email I was sending looked a little different than normal.  I checked some settings and then I noticed that the name on my emails that I was sending, was wrong.  The name that was showing up in my email was Horst Gunter.  Who in the world is Horst Gunter and how did he get into my email account?!?  That is when a cold sweat fell over me as I thought about someone getting into my email account and messing around.  My gmail account is tied to about 20 other accounts around the web.  I quickly clicked my way over to my settings page and found the “Change Password as quickly as possible” button in Google.  I changed the password to a very complex set of letters, numbers, characters and umlauts. I included Capital Letters, small letters, commas, squiggly’s, numbers and infinite values.  To make positively sure that this hijacker did not get into my account again, I think I even put in a couple of values of Pi and integrated integers.

After my frantic clicking, punching of buttons and keystrokes, I finally felt secure again.  It sure did scare me to see something changed like that in a very critical area of my life.

After getting home that night, I took one extra precaution and renamed my dog.  His new name is #m%gZ~2.

Am I paranoid?

Christmas List

I know that I probably shouldn't bring up the "C" word this early in the year but I'm going to do it anyway. Every year it is a struggle to find great Christmas (that's the C word) presents for my wife and for our kids. Deanna does an awesome job of finding great gifts but it is much harder for me. So, to help myself along, I keep a list of ideas in my phone. If I see something on TV, or while I'm walking through a store, I quickly just type it into my phone for safe keeping. Now that it is October, it is time to pull out the list and start finding great prices on the ideas I have come up with. Unfortunately there are some items on the list that never seem to make it underneath the Christmas tree. For example, I have had "stilts" on Coby's list for several years. For some reason, the stores are not filled with stilts as gift items. I think it would be a great "teen" gift. Plastic stilts, FUN!

Not only do I jot down gift ideas for my wife and kids, I have also kept a list for myself. It is inevitable that a few weeks before Christmas, I receive requests from various sources for what I want. I used to just ho hum around and try to think of something brilliant at the last minute which means I would usually say, "a new tie" or "new socks". It makes for a very boring Christmas Morning.

This year I'm asking for something a little unusual (and admittedly a little boring). In our garage, we have been trying to keep a good storage of water. We have filled up milk cartons, 2 liter bottles and apple juice bottles with water. We have around 30 of these mix matched containers sitting on the shelf. Every winter, these containers freeze and expand which means they break. So, as the weather starts to warm, we get a really nice natural spring water fall flowing off of our counters in the garage. Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of a waterfall, but this type of tippity tap sends chills up my spine like nails on a chalk board. I tell you all of this so that I can get to the final punch line of my story.

Here it is, "for Christmas, I'm asking for a 50 gallon drum to store our water.

ldsfamily dot net

I am very excited (excuse my while I bounce up and down excitedly in my chair while typeing) to announce that I will be starting a new blog/website called ldsfamily.net If you like what you see, please add a link to this website from your blog.

I came across a foundation called the "More Good Foundation". They are an organization that promotes positive LDS content on the internet. I became very interested when I saw this blog post by LDS Media Talk that talked about adopting a website and providing content. I decided to check it out and send in an inquiry about the program. I was emailed back and was offered a chance to participate. They seemed very willing to give me a chance to help once they saw that I have a Blog, Personal Web page, YouTube Channel, developed a site for a non-profit organization called Charity Anywhere Foundation and a facebook page.

We discussed the types of things I have been posting and how I could promote positive Mormon content on the internet. We came up with a website called simply, LDS Family. I will be posting things about me, and my family. The posts will be about my everyday life, stuff that happens in our family, things I have been thinking about. I'll post stuff about the Mormon church, Mormon beliefs, Mormon standards, Mormon living. I'll talk about what it is like to have an LDS Family. You know, an LDS family is like any other family. We have the same struggles, the same time constraints, the same issues with children, teachers, work etc. I just hope that I can create content that people will be interesting in reading, following, and returning. Hopefully it will create positive content that will be a tool people can use to learn more about the Mormon church.

To learn more about adopting a website, you can go to this page.

Scout Camp

I know it took me a while but I finally put together the few little video clips I had of Andy at Scout Camp. I know it isn't much but I think you will get a feel for what happens up at Camp Bradley every year.

Enjoy this short video.

Snow, October 4th?

Yes, Snow, October 4th. We weren't expecting snow, we were expecting rain but this morning there was a small blanket of snow all over our yard. Being this early in the year, I figured that it would probably melt away by noon, however, it continued to snow/rain all day long. It snowed enough to get out the winter clothes and have the kids run out and play.

Here is a short video of the event.

Freeze

Well, I just got the news that we will be hitting the freezing mark this week in the Magic Valley. The Forecast calls for, "A COLD FRONTAL PASSAGE TUESDAY WILL DROP TEMPERATURES BY 30 TO 40 DEGREES WEDNESDAY FROM TODAY. THURSDAY MORNING WILL BE THE COLDEST OF THE WEEK WITH LOWS IN THE LOWER TO MID 30S IN THE VALLEYS AND TEENS AND 20S IN THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS.

SENSITIVE PLANTS/CROPS MAY NEED TO BE COVERED TO PROTECT THEM FROM TEMPERATURES AROUND FREEZING BETWEEN 4 AND 7 AM THURSDAY."

A guess this means that it is time for the harvest here in Twin Falls Idaho. Unfortunately, this harvest won't take long. I only have a few tomatoes, maybe 1 squash, some carrots, and maybe my red potatoes. I guess I have one more pumpkin that could be picked but I think it might survive the cold weather.

Happy Harvesting!

Phone Surveys

Today, while I was walking around my house, I heard the phone ring so I picked it up and answered it. On the phone was a very polite lady that said she was calling from a market research company. When I was younger, I would have just hung up the phone and not think a second about it. However, when I was at college, I worked for a company called Discovery Research Group. It was a company that did phone surveys. My job was to call people from a list of phone numbers, ask them to spend a little time with me on the phone while I asked them their opinions. We never sold anything, just asked questions. Companies would pay very good money to find out if people knew about their products. Some surveys were very boring, but others were actually very interesting. I really hated the job but it was the only job at the time so I suffered through it.

Because I worked for DRG (Discovery Research Group) I have a soft spot in my heart for phone survey people. Whenever I get a call from a phone survey person, I always try and take the time and complete it. I have been on the other end of the phone, and I know that the person gets paid based on how many surveys they complete.

I don't have any compassion for people that try to sell me something over the phone. When I find they are trying to sell me something, or trying to get me to donate to something, I say "no thanks" and hang up the phone.

Harry Potter

I have been listening, not reading, the final book in the Harry Potter series. I have really enjoyed all of the books and the movies but I don't think I would have been able to make it through all of the books without using Audio Books. I ready about 20 pages per hour, and for some reason, one hour is about my limit on my attention span. My eyes just can't take that much reading. So, if I were to read a long book like the Harry Potter's, then it would take me months and months to read it. Hummm, lets see, 20 pages per hour, one hour per page. If the book is 600 pages, how long would it take if I read every day? Where are those mathmaticians when you need them? Ok, I'll just tell you. 30 days!

I know, I know, there are many of you out there that can read a 600 page book in one day. I don't know how you do it. Deanna, my wife, is one of those people.

I don't know why I went into all that because that is not what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about is some of Harry Potter's words. Most of the words the author used are awesome and I love them, like Gillyweed and Crumple Horned Snorkack, Hermione, and Hargrid. However, there are some words that I don't like. I discussed these words with my kids and they didn't agree. As we argued about what words were good and which were bad, they challenged me to come up with better names. So, here they are.





Names I don't like and the new name I came up with.
Dumbledore, he is not dumb so it should be Smartbledoor or Merlinore.
Stupefy, ok, throwing a "stupid" charm at someone won't do much,(although my kids seem to throw their own stupid jinx's around all of the time in our house) it should be Stunner or Shockify!
hufflepuff, sounds like puff the magic dragon, it should be Dragonsbreath.
Parselmouth, just doesn't give you the snake feeling, it should be Viperspeak.

I don't know if you will like my new names or not. If you have any Harry Potter words that you don't like, please come up with some good alternatives and post them on my blog.

pants

This is a little embarrassing to mention but it is kinda funny and maybe there are some people that have run into the same problem.

Yesterday morning I woke up and found a bunch of folded clothes on the bed. There were teeshirts, polo shirts and pants all folded neatly in a stack. As the clothes teetered, I decided to put them all in their rightful place. I picked up the shirts, hung some, stuffed some in a drawer. I picked up the pants and placed them in my drawer nice and neat. I then went through my regular routine of taking a shower, combing my hair, brushing my teeth etc. I went back into the bedroom and grabbed one of the polo shirts I had just put away and the jeans that were on top in my drawer. Everything was going well. My shirt felt a little snug but it always does after it has been washed, plus, I wear a "medium" polo shirts which, I am told by "What not to wear", is what size I should be wearing. (What's wrong with being a medium?) I then put on my pants and took out my belt. As I put my belt on, the belt hit the leather tag at the back, which it normally doesn't do, but I dismissed it without a second thought.

As I was leaving for the day, I grabbed by keys, wallet and cellphone (these are my weapons of war in the modern day battle). I guess I didn't notice until I put my wallet in, that my back pocket really wasn't big enough. I thought that was kind of funny but washing jeans always does funny things to your clothes. I walked out to the car and put my hands into my pockets for my keys and I noticed that my front pockets seemed a little small. Well, they were regular size but not as deep. Again, I dismissed it and drove off to work.

Once I was at work, my brain kept giving me subtle hints that something was amiss with my pants. My brain kept on reminding me that the pockets were small, there was a leather label on my pants and my wallet just doesn't fit like it normally does. I knew it could not be true, but my brain had assessed the citation and told me that I was wearing Deanna's jeans. I didn't want to make a big deal about it at work as it might cause way too much imbarrassment for myself. And I wasn't about to go to a job site with the possibility of having someone notice that I had women's jeans on. So, I picked a suitable time to leave and ran home for a few minutes to confirm my suspicions.

On arrival, I took off the pants, and looked for a tag. If the tag said size 12, they were womens, if they said size 32X32 they were mens. I looked at the brown leather tag on the back of the jeans and it said Ralph Lauren (Could that be a guy's jean label?) Ralph is a guy isn't he? However, there is a Lauren name on it too which sounds very much like a woman's name. This tag didn't help we with my sleuthing. Finally, a tag with the size, (12). RATS, I had accidently put on my wife's jeans again. I grabbed another pair of pants, put them on and everything was right with the world again.

Disclaimer Deanna's currently wears a slim and trim size 10 jean. The size 12's that are mentioned in the above post are her old pants that no longer fit her.

Marriage Stats

Marriage Year 1993
1 Temple Marriage
16 years of marriage
5 apartments
4 cities (Provo Utah, Sandy Utah, Idaho Falls Idaho, Twin Falls Idaho)
2 houses
9 cars: Lynx, Honda, Mazda 626, zippy, pickup, voyager, grand caravan, F150, Altima
8 different jobs
4 wonderful kids (2 boys, 2 girls)
2 trips to Disney Land
1 trip to Hawaii
2 trips to the emergency room

Announcement

I have an announcement to make today on my blog. I have started a NEW BLOG called LDS Family.net!!!

I am very excited. It all started about 2 weeks ago when I read a blog post by LDS Web Guy that mentioned a program called SiteAdopt.org. I decided to check it out and found this non-profit organization called More Good Foundation. They are an organization that is trying to promote positive content about Mormons. What an interesting idea I thought. I continued my investigation and found and email address and volunteered to adopt a website.

After a couple of discussions, they were more than willing to give me a shot at adopting a website. My website is called, LDSFamily.net. How cool is that? I will now be posting just like I have here on my blog, but I will be focusing on stuff that happens to me as it pertains to my membership in the LDS Church. So, when people go searching around the internet, and type in Mormon, or LDS, or LDS family, they will find my blog and find good positive content about the church. YES, I can even count it as missionary work!!! Ok, not really. Maybe I'll get a half of a check mark on my score sheet in heaven.

Now that I think about it, how often did I mention that I was LDS in my blog? How many times did I mention that I was LDS? Probably not very often if not at all. How embarrassing really. Anyway, I'll be changing my ways now and hopefully promote good positive content in the future.

I hope you will all add my new blog to your readers and come check out my new site once in a while.

LDS Family Dot Net

Sunflower

During the school year last sping, Katie's teacher gave everyone a sunflower seed. They took time in class to talk about sunflowers and then each of them took a small paper cup, dumped some dirt inside and then planted their own sunflower. They left their little miniature gardens in their classroom until the end of school. Each of them carefully took their little sunflower home to watch it grow over the summer. At this time, the little sun flower was only a few inches tall.

At that point, Katie delivered her sunflower into my care. I wasn't sure what to do with it so I decided to take it out into my sprouting garden and plant it in the ground. I had no faith nor hope that this little plant would survive in the harsh outdoor environment after basking in the warm inviting climate controlled classroom. Nevertheless, we found a spot in the garden and plopped the sprout in the dirt.

Over the summer, I watched it grow, still not thinking much about the flower. I began to take serious notice of this plant after it had grown to about chest high. As it continued to grow and tower over my 5'10" frame, I knew we had something special. I took Katie out one evening and took a video of her with her sunflower. We quickly uploaded it to YouTube, and send a link to her teacher which was overjoyed to see that at least one of those sunflowers from class had reached maturity.

Red and Brown

I have to be very careful today. I have decided to wear a combination Brown Slacks with a Red Polo shirt. For some reason, when I wear this combination of clothing, I have this very intense urge to shop at Target.



When I arrive at Target, I enter the doors and start on my usual path to the electronics department. (I love looking for good deals on cell phones and computer equipment) On my way, I inevitably get stopped several times by other shoppers. I don't know why, but when I wear the red and brown duds, I become the most knowledgeable person in the store. People stop me to ask where things are, ask for prices on items, and ask for directions to the bathrooms. I don't quite get it.

Clint

Oquirrh Temple

I thought I would post a quick picture or two about the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple. Before our family reunion, we decided to take the kids down to SLC and let them walk through the temple before it was dedicated. A friend of mine told me that whenever they had a temple open house that was fairly close to Idaho, they always tried to make a trip with the kids to go see it. The idea being that they really will not be able to see the inside of a temple until they are ready to get married or go on a mission. So, what a great way to get them familiar with the temple.

One last thing. They had some big tents setup to view a quick video and another tent setup for a reception. Our kids commented that it was the "Nicest tent they had ever been in". It was like a Harry Potter tent where you think it is going to be this small tent with white walls and when you walk in, it is like you stepped into a palace.

Here are some pictures of our visit.

EFY

This year we have decided to send Coby off to EFY (Especially For Youth). We didn't have enough dough to send him to a program that was "on campus", so we sent him to an area program in Ogden. My parents were nice enough to let him and his two friends stay at their house in Bountiful the whole week.

I don't know why I am so excited for him but I just feel giddy about the whole idea. I'm pretty sure I'm more excited than he was. I really hope Coby sees that there are many more youth out there struggling just like he is to live the standards of the gospel. I hope he meets other young men and women that are striving to get good grades, striving to keep the commandments and striving to make themselves better.

Too many times our youth are put down for trying to be better. How great would it be if the youth of today would build each other up instead of tearing each other down.

Positive Peer Pressure!

I listened to a talk this weekend about "positive peer pressure". The speaker talked about how awesome it would be if the youth could influence other youth to be better, to straighten up, to reach higher. Adult leaders are great but youth have MUCH more impact on their peers than adults do.

I've been a youth before. I know that it is hard enough just trying to keep your own self esteem above water. I know that only the strongest youth can walk over and pick someone else up out of their hardships. I just hope we can help teach and train these youth to see their worth so they can be the strength for those that are faltering.

It is very interesting to look at the Junior High years and High School years from the other side of the Adult / Youth fence. I think I would have handled those year differently if I had known what I know now.