Utah State

I came home one night from work and found this posted on our front door.

If you can't read it, it is an acceptance letter from Utah State University!!!!  Way to go Coby!!!

Christmas Letter

We have been so busy this year with everything going on in our lives that it was hard to crank out a Christmas letter and send it out to all of our friends and family.  However, we did it.  So, if you didn't happen to get a Christmas card from us this year because of mail delivery issues or something, here is what we sent out.

If you can't read this letter because it is too small, you might want to ask for reading glasses for Christmas.

Here is the photo we sent along with this letter.

43

43 isn't even a number that anyone remembers.  I don't know why but those numbers between the 0 and 5  and 5 and 10's just don't seem to have much significance once you hit 40, or even 30 for that matter.  Who even remembers when they were 33 or 37 or 43?  Nobody!  It is a year in your life that just kinda passes by without noticing.  In fact, when people ask me how old I am, I have a hard time remembering my age.  Humm, now, was I 42 or 43?  Hummm I don't even remember.  I think I'm 43?  Then I try to use my math skills to try and figure out how old I am.  Lets see.  I was born in 68. So, 2011 minus 1968 is ummm, carry the one, minus the 6 plus 10.  Then, you have to factor in that you haven't reached your date of birth for the year so do I add an extra year or subtract a year for my age.  This time I think I subtract. So, I end up looking like I did before in saying, I think I'm 43 years old.  The 20 something year old cashier looks at me like I'm a little bit crazy not knowing my own age.  Well young lady, (said in the oldest grandpa sounding voice I can muster in my head), when you are 43, you will have the same problem trying to remember the insignificant year of your life.  Now, I'm not saying that insignificant things happen.  There are very significant and important things that happen in some of these inconspicuous years.  It just happens to be years that don't help you remember how old you are.

So, even though I am 43, please don't ask me my age because I may fall into a stupor of thought that may result in my misrepresenting my true age.

Happy 43rd Birthday?
Clint

Letter to Santa

Katie wrote this wonderful letter to Santa Claus in fourth grade.  Notice how she asks for stuff for Mom and Dad first.  What a cutie!  *grin*

Katie Bball

This year Katie decided to put her name in the ring to play basketball. She was picked up by a little team of 4th grade girls and they started practicing.  Her coach was serious about the game and very dedicated.  They practiced every week and sometime twice a week in preparation for their games.  Katie is one of the tallest girls on the team and she also has a pretty good shot.  Although she is good, there are a couple other girls on the team that are much more aggressive.  After the first couple of games I could tell that this little group of girls had a pretty good team.  As the season rolled on Katie's team only lost one game.  This last weekend was the "tournament".  The first game they had was the semi finals.  They played a pretty well against a group of pretty rough girls but won.  They were set for the finals.  They were pitted against a team that they had dominated in both of their other match-ups.  Katie was feeling pretty confident but was also a little nervous about that "Championship Game".

Unfortunately, this tournament final proved to be the one game that none of their star players could make a basket.  Both teams stayed in the single digits all game long.  We came down to the final two minutes and each team had 8 points.  Both teams were scrambling to try and make that game wining shot.  One of Katie's team mates fouled and a point was made on the free throw line.  This brought the total score to 8/9.  Katie's team needed a field goal or a foul shot to tie or win the game.  Several attempts were made at the basket but nothing would drop.  On three of these attempted shots Katie's team was fouled and put on the free throw line.  Each excruciating attempt bounced off the rim unsuccessfully.  Time finally ran out and the game was over.  "Fever" (the name of Katie's team) 8 and the other team 9.  Katie was definitely disappointed and didn't want to say much about losing this game.  You could tell that she was holding back tears and felt bad that they had lost.  After winning each game all season, they lost in the finals to a team they had beat twice.  I guess that it life sometimes.

Here are some pictures of Katie in action.

Shadows of Summer

I found this little video on my Flip Video Camera so I thought I would upload it to YouTube.  This happened a few years ago in the summer.  Katie and Savanna would get on the trampoline and create a routine.  I stuck up into Savanna's room and recorded this one.  It is nice to remember these nice summer days now that it is stinking dang cold outside.

Christmas Tree 2011

Ok, I thought of naming this one, "its starting to look a lot like Christmas" but it seemed just a little too cheesy even though I am the king of cheesy.  So, I'm going with a bland name of "Christmas Tree 2011".  Sorry all of your cheesy subscribers.





I don't know if any of you knew but Facebook is no longer importing blog posts into facebook.  So, you will have to subscribe to my blog to get the updates now.

Thanksgiving is over and unfortunately for me, I caught a cold on Wednesday.  So, I was sniffling and sneezing all the way through the 4 day Thanksgiving weekend.  Of course, as soon as Monday comes around, I am feeling a lot better.

While surfing around the internet, I came across this cartoonists blog.  So, I subscribed.  This is a great little cartoon about Thanksgiving.

If you want to subscribe to his blog, go to his site.  http://www.mormoncartoonist.com/

Wardle Reunion 2011

This year the Wardle Family had their family reunion at Downatta Hot Springs.  Of course, I bring my flip video along to record the events.  It looks like we just ate food most of the time but in reality, we did do other things.  I don't remember any of the other things but I'm sure we did something.  Just Kidding!

Black Friday?

Yesterday we looked through the humongous Thursday paper (just a reminder that we still have a paper route) to see what kind of deals we could find for Black Friday.  Deanna put together a plan and toward the evening, she invited me to come along and check out the lines.  I grabbed my coat and said "Sure" and jumped in the car. It was about 8:30pm. We drove out to BestBuy and was amazed at how many crazy people were standing out in the cold to wait for the doors to open at midnight to go in and get some great buys on electronics.  As we passed by we decided that we probably wouldn't get any good deals in there since there was already a huge line around the side of the building.  We then drove by Target and looked at that line. Again, a few loons standing out in the cold.  Deanna then suggested we drive by Walmart to check it out.  Happily, I drove the car around the corner and headed to Walmart.  We arrived and didn't see a line at all, however, the parking lot was almost completely full.  If you know Walmart parking lots at all, you will know that there is a huge gigantic selection of parking stalls to choose from on a regular shopping day.  So, seeing this outrageous amount of cars parked should have given me a clue that the relatively calm exterior was no indicator of what might be happening inside.  We parked out in the "back 40" and walked around a mile and a half to get to the front doors (or so it seemed).  We entered and that is when the mayhem began.  We were given a map with dots and locations.  The dots had numbers which indicated which sales items would be sold at which locations and at what times.  I happily looked around and was glad that I wasn't too involved at that point.  I thought we were just going to walk around and look at the crazy people and head home.  Well, Deanna had other plans.  There were a couple of great deals that would be occurring in that store that night and she wanted to take advantage of them while we were still there.  So, we walked around and found the enterances to the maze of  isles that would be selling these particular items.  We entered one particular set of isles that had been roped off and the Walmart attendant notified us that we were about the 30th in line and that we were guaranteed one of these items.  We entered the maze and navigated ourselves to the back of the line.  "What time does this item actually go on sale?" I wondered to my self. So, I leaned over to Deanna and asked, "What time does this item go on sale?" hoping and praying that she said 10:00pm.  She fumbled through the papers and maps and said, "12:00 midnight".  Without being too frantic, I looked at my watch.  8:45pm.  My heart sank, my countenance shuttered and my back began to hurt.  I then realize that I was there for the long haul and not just a visit and that I had become one of those "crazy" shoppers I was gawking at just seconds earlier.  I was going to be sitting on this hard tiled floor until midnight and probably much later.  Thank heavens for Angry Birds!

Below is one of my "breaks" from sitting in line on the Walmart floor.  If you can spot Deanna in these shots, you win a free trip to Walmart where you can sit on the floor for over 3 hours.

Return Missionary

Most of our family traveled to Portland Oregon to see Blake Wight after he returned from his mission to Moscow Russia. Blake is looking good and seemed to adapt well to the change in culture after returning to the US of A. The kids loved hanging out with cousins and the adults enjoyed sitting and talking with each other. The night before Blake's talk in church, we sat down as a family and had a chance to ask him questions about his mission and had him share his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was great to hear some of his stories and experiences. I think his example will help other prospective missionaries solidify their desire to serve. The video below is the little unofficial reception after church.

two events

This photos shows 2 important events at this point in our family's life.  First, it shows that our furnace has died.  A few days ago, our furnace stopped blowing air through the ducts in our house.  I went down to the old furnace to see if I could figure it out.  The fan belt had broken so we needed it replaced.  We called the "heating and air" guys to check it out.  He replaced the belt and left.  A day later we heard this really loud squealing noise from our furnace and the furnace wouldn't shut itself off.  It just kept running and running.  We called the heating and air guys again to check it out.  Well, the ball bearings were going out on the fan shaft (it's all ball bearing these days).  Plus, our thermostat wasn't working to shut off the furnace properly.  Fixing these couple of issues would put us at around $800 to repair.  So, we decided to buy a new furnace.  While we were waiting for the new furnace we borrowed a couple of space heaters from Kim Critchfield.  So, Savanna is sitting in front of one of these space heaters.  So, this photo is to help us remember our week of living like the people on "Little House on the Prairie".  Wearing sweats around the house instead of shorts and wearing stocking caps to bed at night.

Secondly, this photo was taken at 4:30 in the morning.  This is when we get up to do the paper route.  All of the papers have been folded and are laying on the ground ready to be delivered.  We have now been doing this paper route for over a year.  I can't believe that we have done it that long.  I am definitely ready to quit the paper route but my two kids don't want to give it up.  They like the money more than they like the early mornings.  Good for them.

Pumpkin Smashing

When I was young, we would leave our pumpkins out all night on halloween and some teenage pranksters would grab our pumpkins and smash them in the streets. None of these hoodlums came down our street this year so I had to smash them myself.

 

Here is the link for my facebook friends. http://youtu.be/EhNovWCCASg

Pumpkin Run

This fall Deanna and Katie signed up for an event over at CSI called "The Great Pumpking Race".   All of the participants received a cool orange shirt made of that under armor material.  So, Katie ran the .5 mile race and Deanna walked the 5k walk.  Katie decided to do the 5k walk with Deanna but got a little anxious and started running.  So, she would run ahead, then turn around and run back to Deanna, then run ahead and back.  In any case, they both got a lot of exercise.  I was there with my flip video to document the whole thing.



Below is a link for my facebook friends.
http://youtu.be/lXolvzRVu50

Jive 2011

With a little coaxing and a little persuading we were able to convince Coby to try out for Jive again.  He has been very worried about his schedule lately because he has a new job working for Smith's.  Coby has a pretty full schedule of classes and he knew just how hard it would be to do a job, school, graduate and do Jive but we knew that Jive would be a great experience again, something he wouldn't regret.  So, this last week, the Twin Falls High School had its first choir concert.  Jive began the night with a medley of songs from the musical Grease.  Below are some shots from their first performance.  Coby did a great job and it looked like they all had a great time.

Here are the links for my facebook friends.

http://youtu.be/iQqgOZbqoMo

http://youtu.be/uO2jdRbEZZk

Sadie Hawkins

Last week Coby was given a can of tennis balls while attending seminary class. It had a bow on the top so he opened it and on the first tennis ball was a picture of himself swinging a tennis racket. On the second tennis ball it said, "Let's make it a match at sadies". On the third ball was a picture of the girl that was asking. So, Coby is going to the Sadie Hawkins dance this year.

Train in Downey

While at the Wardle family reunion at Downata Hot Springs I went into town to buy some charcoal and found this old rustic looking industrial area. While taking some shots of these interesting looking buildings I heard a train coming so I ran over and filmed it. I put all of my shots together to make this nice little video.

Here is a link for my Facebook readers.  http://youtu.be/opz8ESo3e4Y

B-day gift

It was Coby's b-day last month and we asked him what he wanted.  He came up with the wish to have a huge tennis bag that would fit like 50 tennis racquets in it.  We, the parents, thought it was a good idea so Deanna hunted one down and ordered it.  I decided, however, to try and find something cool for Coby that he didn't know about.  So, I started looking for some ideas.  I know Coby likes video games but I wasn't about to get him another one to take up more idle time.  So, I decided to get him a tee shirt with the video game logos on it. I search around and searched around but I didn't have much time before his b-day.  So, I finally decided that I would make the tee shirt myself.  I went and bought a couple of black tee shirts and then those iron-on sticker pages you can print from your ink jet printer.  Then, I scoured the internet to find the right images for the shirt.

I was a little nervous about giving it to him because I wasn't sure if he would like it or not.  So, the day finally came.  I packaged up my little gift of an iron on tee shirt and plopped it in front of him, anxious to see what he would think.  At the very least, he could wear it as a pajama shirt around the house, or use it when he changing the oil in the car (as if anyone actually does that anymore).

Coby opened up the package with much trepidation because of my anxious eyes wondering what would be the result of the surprise.  He looked at the shirt and said "LEGIT!".  Mummm, not quite the response I was looking for but I guess "legit" was something good.  

The reason that I write this post today, is because I saw Coby walking out the door to school with one of the tee shirts I gave him.  Hopefully he gets rave reviews from his friends.

Below are the shirts I gave him.

10 extra points if you can tell me what video game these symbols come from.  20 extra bonus points to anyone that can tell me the names of the "races" that these symbols represent.

Wicked

This summer our family saved up our money and purchased tickets to see the play "Wicked". I really wasn't sure that to expect but from all of our family and friends we had heard that it was a great play. I knew that it was some kind of spoof on the play The Wizard of Oz but I really didn't know much more about it. The only way you can really tell that we are there for Wicked is by looking at Savanna. She is holding the program. Below is a quick cell phone video recording of us at the show. I would have taken a little time to show everyone how far away we were from the stage. We were probably about 3 or 4 rows from the very back of the auditorium.

Fashion Show

Every year about this time our family heads to the stores to buy new clothes for the new school year. I remember when I was a kid, my sisters would head to Salt Lake City and buy a bunch of new clothes. Sometimes it was to the "OP" outlet or "Fritzies" down near Provo. When we get home there was a tradition to have all of the girls go and put on all of their outfits and put on a "Fashion Show" for Dad. So, this year after Deanna brought the girls back from Boise, I had them model all of their clothes for me. The video isn't that great because I was using my camera phone but it is fun to watch them strut their stuff with their brand new clothes.