First Harvest

I thought I would post something today about my garden. It is still fairly early in the growing season but I have already been able to reap a harvest from my fledgling flora. At dinner, I went out to my patch of radishes and found 3 of the round red rooted plants big enough to pull and clean. Then, I took my sickle and lopped off a few delicate lettuce leaves. I combined them in a bowl, and a nice fresh tossed salad was my bounteous harvest. It will be a while before my tomatoes and cute cumbers will be ready to join my salad concoction. For now, I am satisfied.

Tradition

I would like to officially announce today that I have raised a son that is carrying on the Carter Family Tradition of running out of gas. Yes, I am sure there will be many skeptics out there that do not believe that the Carters could ever be risky enough to try and drive one more mile after the gas gage has dropped below the "E" on the display panel. But, it has happened. In fact, not only did Coby run out of gas, but he somehow managed to run out of gas on both tanks. Yes, the truck that we allow him to drive has 2 tanks.





So, for all of you non-running-out-of-gas people. What are the official steps to getting your car back on the road and to the nearest gas station? In the Carter Family, we use the following steps.
1. Try starting the car again.
2. Try using the other tank (if the one you are using is empty) Maybe there is enough gas in the other tank to get you going. "All we need in 1 gallon, and there has got to be at least one gallon in there."
3. Try starting the car again.
4. Siphon gas out of the nearest car with a garden hose.
5. Buy a $20.00 plastic gas can and fill it with 1 gallon of gas.
6. Poor gas directly into carburetor to prime the engine.
7. Hitch Hike to the nearest gas station and then follow number 5, then 1, then 6, then 3, then 2 (maybe you poured it into the wrong tank).

Auger Falls on bikes

Many of my blogger readers have requested a video of our second attempt at going to Auger Falls. As you may know, our first attempt was a complete and utter failure. You can read about our failed attempt here.

After the failed hike, we decided to try going to auger falls on bikes. Andy and Savanna braved the elements and the soar legs to ride our bikes. As the video starts out, we were amazed at how far we rode and how much ground we covered. We discovered that Auger Falls was still quite a ways from where we turned around. If fact, Savanna started to complain how far it was, even on a bike.

Here is my short video on our trip on bikes. Please watch all the way to the end. There is a "kicker".



Here is the link for my facebook friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNCsSe_fHQc

Varsity Letter

Coby has worked very hard this year to play on the tennis team. He practiced weekends, he practiced after school, he practiced after practice and after he practiced after practice, he practiced some more. He has really improved and become a valuable player on the Twin Falls High School Tennis Team. Tonight he was awarded a Varsity Letter for his efforts and for playing on the Varsity Tennis Team.



Go Coby!

Take me out the the Ball Game

My brother Blake will be getting married next month and I have been thinking about doing video's of weddings for some reason. I've watched a few on YouTube that were very well done. Not only did the videographer capture video of the newlyweds and the attendees at the wedding, but the video also captured some of the unseen ambiance and detail of the wedding. For expample, one of the videos shows the flower arrangements, or the shoes of the groom all shiny, or just a couple holding hands. It inspired me to try and capture some of that "other" feeling in my videos. So, with that in mind, I drew my flip video out of my holster and began to shoot. I didn't add any transitions but I tried to add some "color" to my video'ing. I really don't think it added much to a baseball video but I am sure it would have been better if I was filming a wedding.

Anyway, if you would like to watch the vid, here it is.




Here is the link for all of my FaceBook Friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7--eUmDwPOU

water softener

I didn't have much planned for this Saturday. I was excited about having a nice leisurely weekend. As I stumbled around I decided to go down to the laundry room to move some wet cloths from the washer to the dryer. I turned around to look at our water softener and noticed a small leak coming from a small tube on the filter. The leak was a small steady stream of water that sprayed over onto the water heater. As I moved closer to see how bad it was, it was at that moment that I knew my Saturday had taken on a whole new theme. It was "Replace the Water Softener" weekend.



I was so excited (you all know how excited I get when there is plumbing to do) that I ran quickly upstairs and grabbed my BUCKET OF PIPE FITTINGS! Unfortunately none of the fittings would work for the delicate plumbing job I was about to undertake. So I turned off the water to the house and ran to Lowes to find a new water softener. I don't know if any of you know, this is not a cheap proposition. I picked the softener that best fit our families size and wept as I opened my pocketbook to pay out the $500.00.

After 3 more trips home and back to Lowes, I finally had the plethora of pipes and connectors to put my new softener into action.

After replacing our softener, we have noticed a huge difference in water pressure. We used to wait 10 minutes for the toilets to fill up and only one person could shower at a time. With our new softener, we enjoy a full complement of pressure which makes nice showers, but also uses up our hot water much quicker.

Google Alerts

While I was reading Clark's Blog about how he didn't blog even once in April, Which is a cardinal sin in the rule of blog-a-lot-tonia, he mentioned a blog that he followed. So, like a good lemming, I followed his advise and jumped off the cliff and clicked on a link to an unknown blogger. As I was falling to my death and scanning down the page of this new blogger, I came across a post that mentioned Google Alerts. I've never tried google alerts so I wasn't sure what to expect. I quickly leaped from the blog, opened up a new google chrome tab and typed http://alerts.google.com to find out what it was all about. From what I can tell, it will run a search for you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and send you an email of the search results. This "unknown" blogger stated that one of her friends searched for his name every day. When his name showed up on a blog, or webpage or whatever, he would know. I've decided to give it a test drive. I have setup an alert looking for my name. Now, I'll just put my name in this blog post several times to see if the alert finds this post.

Here we go:
clint carter
clint carter
clint carter
clint carter

Lets go fly a kite

On the Saturday before Mothers day I found myself with my two daughters picking out flowers. I had already purchased some gifts for Deanna for Mothers Day but I usually bought some flowers too, to offer her on this special day. I would normally buy a bunch of small flowers that needed to be planted, and then plant them in the front yard in various places to help beautify our little patch of the cul-de-sac. For those of you that love trivia, "cul-de-sac" is a word of French origin with the literal meaning of "bottom of the bag".

There was a light breeze in the air as we walked around the chilled plan nursery searching for the perfect flowers with a well rounded array of colors. As the wind picked up my mind thought about flying a kite. This would be perfect kite flying weather. It wasn't too windy as to completely rip the kite off of it's string but just blustery enough to keep a simple kite aloft for several minutes. I leaned over to my two girls and asked, "Have you flown a kite before?". Both of them shook their heads no. I was shocked, I definitely have failed as a Father in the kite flying department. I decided right then and there that I would rectify this error and buy a couple of kites and fly them TODAY! (pointing my finger in the air with defiance)

Below is a small portion of our kite flying activity.





After 30 minutes to an hour of kite flying, both of the girls came up to me and exclaimed, "We have decided that flying kites is better than going swimming." Well, that was an interesting comment and nice to hear that flying kites moved up the fun-o-meter scale, just above swimming.

Here is a link to the video for my Facebook Friends. I don't know why but embedded video links never really make it to my Facebook Notes section.

Up's and Down's

Coby has had a lot of up's and down's this year on the Twin Falls Bruin Varsity Tennis Team. He has felt the thrill of success and the agony of defeat. He has worked hard, practiced many hours and has had to eat a little humble pie. It is nice to announce that Coby is ending the season on a positive note. He is now playing number 3 singles on the Varsity Team and his last two matches have resulted in WINS!

Another positive note is that the Times News has now learned how to spell his name correctly. Here is his score as printed in the local newspaper.

Auger Falls

A couple of weeks ago I had heard about a hike that was fairly new that was down in the snake rive canyon. I decided to load up the kids and our dog and try out the new trail. I was warned by the article in the newspaper that the walk was a little long and that it would be much easier on a bike. Well, I wanted to try it anyway so we set off down into the canyon to enjoy the warm weather. This little trail followed the Snake River from the Perine Bridge down to a section of the river named "Auger Falls". I wasn't sure how long it was but it couldn't be too bad.


View Larger Map

After about 2 miles of walking, all of us, including Jack, our dog, were tired and thirsty. I decided to stop and rest a second and take an inventory of our situation. This had become a very, very long walk. I decided to ask one of the people returning, just how much further we needed to go. When I inquired, the hikers exclaimed, it is still a long way to the falls. RATS! My mind was made up, we were turning back. On the way back, Katie's feet started to hurt and everyone was hot and thirsty. I gave Kate my socks so her feet would feel better.

We talked a lot about the pioneers and that we were pretty much wimps. We talked about our trip to Martin's Cove. I think the Cove hike is about 6 miles round trip and we just about died with a 4 mile walk. I guess if we knew it was going to be so far, we would have prepared a little better and brought water with us.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUgMofTJDJM



I thought that this was the end of our Auger Falls story but yesterday morning, I noticed a bug in Jack's ear. We discovered that he had a tick! Just another happy reminder of our trip through the sage brush on our way to not making it to Auger Falls.

Garden 2010

This weekend the weather in Twin Falls warmed up to the point that we can now plant a garden. Saturday April 17th was a beautiful day, so I called my Home Teacher and asked if we could borrow his Rototiller. Katie and I walked over and drove it back to our house, at the breakneck speed of 1/4th of 1/4th of a mile per hour. After dropping the tiller into our garden spot I drug, pulled, leaned, grunted and wrestled with that tiller until my garden was nice and fluffy brown. Each step would send you about an inch deep into Southern Idaho's volcanic ashy brown soil. At that point, I needed a long break from gardening. As I took pride in my work, I tried to guestimate just how big the garden was. I figure it was pretty close to an acre which made me very proud. I swaggered as I surveyed my plot of land and quizzically asked Deanna how big she thought our whole entire house lot was. She responded that our whole parcel of land was probably 1/4th of an acre. My shoulders slumped as I realized that my acre garden had just shrunk to 1/4th of 1/4th of 1/4th of an acre. Interesting how 1/4th keeps coming up over and over again.

After a brief break to gather my strength and organize my thoughts, I grabbed my two best planters (Katie and Savanna) and headed back out into the spring sunshine to plant our garden. The following is our adventure and documentary of this year's gardening at the Carter Farm.



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

Easter 2010

Easter for the Carter Family starts with a rude awakening that the easter egg hunt down at the city park is only minutes away. A frantic rush begins as we try to find easter baskets that have been stored for the winter and a dash around the house to find warm enough clothes for the outside elements. We jam ourselves in the car and curse every red light we hit on the way to the park. As we arrive, we notice that all of the other families are doing the same thing, so the park appears to be fairly empty. Eggs are strewn about the greening grass and hand made posters are placed on trees announcing the age groups that can participate in each section of the park. Caution tape is wrapped around trees to cordon off each area. The suspense builds as the seconds tick away before the start of the hunt. The city posts a single police car at the center of the park and the event begins when his siren pierces the ears of the excited youngsters. If the little children are too close to the cruiser, the blast of the siren freaks them out and the hunt is over before it began.

Now that I have set the stage, my little home made video will show the rest.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6nzGJnvQSM

Piano Recital

After last weeks post about Piano Festival, I decided to video our kids as they played their Festival pieces at their annual Piano Recital.

Below is a video of their piano performances. Don't leave too soon or you might miss out on the best part of the whole night.




Here is the link for all of my facebook friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq1L1ZYYdH4

Superior

Last week our kids participated in a Piano Festival. This is an event where piano students present their piano pieces before a judge to be rated on how well they are doing. This year Savanna, Andy and Coby brought their best 2 pieces of music and played them before a judge. For parents, this is a nervous time because you are really hoping they get a good review so that they will continue on the road to piano nirvana. "Nirvana for piano players is when you get to a point the you can sit down at the piano and play just about anything that is plopped down in front of you." Unfortunately, I have not reached nirvana yet and I don't think I'll even get there.



Each of our kids were directed to their room with their music to be evaluated. I went with Savanna and Deanna went with Coby. I could tell that Savanna was nervous but she was keeping it under control. I waited until she was called into the room, and then I plastered my ear to the door in hopes of gleening as much information as I could as to what was happening inside. It was silent for a while, and then she played a 5 finger scale in hopes of warming up and dispelling her nervousness. She began her first piece and after the first line of music, I could tell she was having trouble. She stopped, my heart stopped. She started again and then after the second line of pros, she stopped again. I was terrified. Stopping twice on the same song was not a good start, not at all. I was then sick to my stomach that she had lost the top marks you can get at festival, "Superior". Savanna regained her composure and played through the first song without missing a beat. She paused for a minute and then started her second piece which was played without faults.

When she opened the door, I about fell over as my ear had become inseparably connected with the wood grain. I pretended to be leaning on my arm and casually asked how she did. She said she did fine, "which is what they always say" and walked over and sat down to wait for the results. Within a couple of minutes the door opened and a folder was presented to the helper. She handed it to Savanna and I looked over while holding my breath. At the top it read, "Superior"! Whewww!



After returning to the front of the church "7th ward building", to hear the results of Coby and Andy, I recalled a time when I was sitting at the piano bench with sweaty fingers and pounding heart as I was being judged on my piano prawes. I told the story of when I had received an "Excellent" instead of a "Superior". It was a troubling day which, to this day, I blame on the fact that my judge happened to be my regular piano teacher. She knew all of my faults and knew exactly where I would have trouble. For some reason I don't blame it on the young boy that would rather play baseball outside than to practice his piano every day. I blame it on the misfortune of having my teacher be my judge at Piano Festival.

Patriots?

Over the last couple of weeks I have been re-watching the TV show West Wing. The TV series was cancelled several years ago but just recently I found a channel that was showing all of the reruns. So, I set my Tivo and started recording them. I had forgotten just how much I enjoyed watching. The dialogue is quick and witty so you have to be "on your toes" if you want to understand all that is going on.

Today I bring you a very short clip from one of the episodes from the second season. This particular scene shows a young woman that has just been offered a job by the White House Chief of Staff. What makes this interesting is the fact that Ainsley Hayes (the young women offered the job) is a staunch Republican. Since the President of the United States in this TV series is a Democrat, it is very unusual that he would want to hire a Republican to serve in the West Wing of the White House.

Ainsley Hayes meets with the Chief of Staff with the full intention of declining the offer for a job. As the day continues, and as she walks around the White House, she discovers that the people that are working there are just normal people working hard to make the country better. Even though their political views may be far apart, they are just people trying to do what it right. At the end of her day, and after several short runin's with the senior staff at the White House, she decides to take the job and serve the President of the United States even though she is a Republican.

Here is the final scene of the episode.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJd37-rU2qY

It is my hope that the current administration that is occupying the White House is truly trying to do what is right and trying to make our country better. With all of the bad mouthing that is going on on the radio and TV, I can only pray that there are good honest people trying their best to make our country better.

Over 200 Posts?

I know, it sounds crazy but I swear to you that I have posted over 220 posts on this blog. NO WAY...... WAY!

Now this may not seem like much but I also must bring up the fact that I have also been keeping another blog fully stocked with anecdotes, stories, jokes and personal thoughts. That other blog is http://www.ldsfamily.net. And, to give you even more perspective on how much blogging I have been doing, I have also started another blog just to post stuff on, for my web store where I sell metal figurines. Yes, I started a blog solely for profit. It is http://www.metalcraftstore.com and it is a website dedicated to tell people about my webstore eCarters.com. So, if any of you out there in the bloggosphere think you are overwhelmed by keeping one blog going, just think of little old Clint blogging his brains out month after month so that 2 people out there can read it and one person can buy an overpriced figurine made of nuts and bolts and various misfit metal pieces.

Maybe sometime in the future, my work will become popular and I can make a living by just typing up random stuff that happens to me in my life. At this point, I highly doubt it because I don't feel like my writing is getting any better. It is the same dribble that I wrote 220 blog posts ago.

I just had a de ja vu, well, not a de ja vu because I didn't remember it, I guess I just realized that my son had written this same post last week and now it seems all to familiar. Ok, maybe he didn't write a post like this, but as I re-read it, it looks like something he would write.

Save the Planet?

I know that I can't save the planet on my own. I may not be able to effect any global climate (whether or not man is causing the change). I can, however, in my small little way, help to make the land fills just a little smaller. I can use a little less electricity. I can help the environment be less cluttered. Here are 2 things I do in my life to help the environment even though they may seem infinitesimal.

Just over a year ago, our garbage collection company gave us recycle bins. At first, it seemed a little tedious to break down the boxes and organize the cans and newspaper but, I decided to give it a try. After a week or two, I got into the flow of it and I actually feel like I'm helping.

Recycling facts:
Every ton of recycled paper:
Saves 17 trees
Saves 4,100 kwh of energy
Saves 7,000 gallons of water
Reduces air pollution by 60lb
Saves 7 cu yard of landfill space


When I was a student at BYU, I remember when the university installed the electronic doors that allowed the handicapped to press a button and have the door open for them. Being the average lazy college student that I was, I would punch the button into every building and walk in through the doors as if I were the king of the land. Doors opened for me and shut for me without any effort. Then, I read an article in The Daily Universe that mentioned the fact that those doors were for the handicapped and would wear out much faster if they were used by the general public. I also noted by my own intuition, that those doors were using a large amount of electricity to open and would let in far more cold air than a regular door. My days of using the magic button ended and to this day, I prefer to open my own doors even if Target or Fred Meyer want to open them for me.

The Fab 5 Sisters

As many of you know, my daughter has been taking clogging lessons for several years. She has really become a good little dancer. If you want to see one of her dances, you can follow this link.

Last week she had the opportunity to go with her sister, mom, grandma and cousins to a clogging concert. The performers were "The Fab 5". I don't know if any of you remember or even watched the show on TV called America's Got Talent but these 5 ladies made it all the way to the finals solely on their clogging talent. This was very exciting for the little clogger in our house, so, to go see them live was a special treat. There are some wonderful things about these 5 ladies. They are all sisters, they are all Mormons, they wear modest outfits and they are cloggers. What great role models for our little girls.

After the performance, Savanna and Kate were able to meet all of the members of the Fab 5 and Deanna took some pictures with her phone.





They had a wonderful time.

Ski Trip

Every year the local elementary school will take their 6th graders up to Pomerelle Ski Resort for a ski trip. Last year, the school districted moved 9th graders up into the high school and moved 6th graders up into the middle school. Therefore, there were no longer 6th graders to take on a ski trip, SO, they decided to allow the 5th graders to go this year. How cool was that, Savanna, being a 5th grader, was able to go up to Pomerelle for the new 5th graders ski day. Savanna was so excited.

This was Savanna's very first time skiing. She really wasn't sure what to expect. Before we went, I made it clear that this was not going to be easy and it may even be a little scary. I told her that she needed to be brave and that she couldn't give up.

I took a vacation day off of work to go up with her and help her learn the do's and don't's of skiing.

As you can tell from the video, Savanna picked up the skills of skiing very quickly. Quicker than I thought she would. She was also very brave. She was very apprehensive about going on the big ski lift and down the big hill but she gathered the courage and did it.

The following video shows our time at Pomerelle. The sun was shining, there was no wind and the snow was just right. We had a great day.



Here is the link for my facebook friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-d34zv3opg

Brother's Announcement

All of us at the Carter household are very excited to announce that earlier this week, my Brother Blake Carter asked Estee Blatter to marry him!!!! The amazing part is that she actually said yes!!!

Upon hearing the awesome news, all of the Carter girls jumped up and down and screamed at the top of their lungs. (which is quite loud and high) I think I lost 50 percent of the hearing in my left ear when then finally ran out of air.

Here is a photo of the newly engaged couple.



We are so excited for this event and we will be thrilled to welcome Estee into our family.

Congratulations to them both!!!

Olympics

We have been watching the Olympics in our spare time. I found this nifty little app on Google to keep track of Olympic Metals.

Bathroom Remodel

Some of you may know that we have been trying to remodel our upstairs bathroom. You may also know that I do not have a construction bone in my body. I can build a website faster than I can build a box. So, we are in the final stages of having the bathroom completely finished so I thought I would show everyone how it looks.



Originally, we just wanted to tear up the linoleum and put in tile. That process required us to rip out the toilet and the sink. Since the sink was out, we might as well replace the cabinet. With a new cabinet, we had to get a new sink. With the new sink and cabinet, we would have to paint around the spots that were different from the old cabinet. So, we decided just to paint the whole bathroom. We also found out that the water pipes did not match up with the new cabinet so we had to re-pipe the cold water faucet so that it would not run into the drawers in the new cabinet. Once the new cabinet and sink are in place, the mirror no longer fits above the sink so we need a new vanity mirror. After looking at vanity mirrors, we noticed that it would not match up with the overhead lighting so we will need to install new lights above the mirror vanity. When we put in the new mirror vanity, the current side mirror will no longer open so we will need to take it out, which is embedded in the wall so I will have to put sheet rock over the whole from the old side vanity mirror. Then, after all of that is done, we want to put in a fan which could, in itself, start a whole new batch of issues.

Now I remember why I hate construction projects. The only bonus out of this whole project, (other than having a nice new bathroom) is that I have finally started my own bucket of pipe fittings. My Dad will be proud!

Baptism Video

Melinda complained that in my post about Kate's Baptism, that I didn't include a video. Melinda was nice enough to shoot the video so I had better post it so that her efforts were not in vein.



Here is the link for my Facebook friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bcdIBsiVJQ

Katie's Baptism

Last weekend we had the happy event of baptizing Katie. Many of our friends and family were able to travel to Twin Falls that day to support Kate in her decision to be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Here she is in her new White Dress.





We are all so proud of her. She is making correct choices and truly does want to follow Heavenly Fathers plan and keep His commandments. We have had several Family Home Evenings over the past months to prepare her for this point in her life and she has really worked hard to learn everything she needed to know to get Baptized. Several times she has come up to me to tell me how the church is organized and also what covenants are made at baptism. She has excitement in her eyes and was a very good example to her younger cousins.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful children. We hope and pray that we can keep them on the straight and narrow path as it leads to missions, endowments and temple marriage.

Karma

Do you believe in Karma, "cause and effect", "what comes around goes around", "you reap what you sow"? Well, I do. I guess I don't believe in a person called Karma like the television show "My name is Earl" believes, but I do believe that you will be treated as you have treated others.

Here is my story. I am a simple appliance repair man. The appliances that I repair are computers. On many occasions my friends call me up asking me questions about computers. I respond the best that I can. Sometimes, a friends computer is beyond help over the phone so I offer to have them bring their computer over to my house and I'll take a look at it. I'll usually work on the computer, install updates, run some cleanup utilities and get it working the best that I can before handing it back.

When returning the computer to it's owner, I usually get many "Thank You's" in return and a query as to how much it will cost. I always give a bit of a smile and reply, "cookies would be nice". I then get another smile and a thank you. I send my friend with their fixed PC on their way. I really wasn't looking for anything in payment, just a happy friend.

Well, the tables were turned the other day and I was the unlucky friend asking for help. Not just a little help but a MAJOR plea for help. How grateful and thankful I was to find a friend that was willing to give of his professional services to help our family. When we offered to compensate him for his work, all that was offered was a big smile. I am so thankful for friends that are willing to help us out when we are in need. My dedication to help others with their computer problems is even more profound. With the simple act of service that our friend gave us, the help we received completely and totally outweighed all of the service I have ever given by helping my friends with their computers.

Do unto others as they would have done unto you. Karma (our Heavenly Father) will repay us for our service with blessings until it is overflowing and more than we can receive. That is my testimony and the lesson that was taught to me again this week.

Follow Up

I found a video clip from American Idol that proves my point about the 100% vs 110% weirdness. Not only that, but this clip shows one of my favorite clips of the 2010 season.

The first audition is of Vanessa Wolfe from Vonore Tennessee. She isn't the best singer in the group but she is authentic. She is who she is and does her very best. My favorite quote from the clip is, "Instead of butterflies, I got Fraogs".

At the very end of the clip you will see Randy Jackson giving his vote on whether Jermaine Sellers should go to Hollywood. Listen on what percentage of "yes" he gives this performer.

100 Percent

Ok, there are a few little sayings that annoy me just a little bit. I wrote about one of those phrases that pesters me in my blog a little while back. This time, another phrase caught my eye while watching American Idol. This little idiom comes into play after all of the judges have given their opinion about the participant. One of the judges brings up the fact that they need to vote on whether to keep the minstrel or toss them out of the show. If the vocalist is horrible, the critics tell the poor schlub how terrible they were and march them out the door in tears. However, if the warbler is good, each of the judges try to explain just how magnificent they sang. Unfortunately, their vote sounds like this. "I vote yes! One Hundred Thousand Percent Yes!"

Ok, a hundred thousand sounds good, but then they said percent, what is that? I think when you are talking about a percentage, once you reach 100%, you have reached the max you can go. Have you heard people say they will give 110%? I hear it all the time. Once you hit 100, you are done, thats all there is. You can't give more than 100%. So, if you are excited about something, or you are trying really hard at something, please just say you are giving 100% and end it.

If you don't like only giving 100%, try using something that doesn't use a percent. You are the best vocalist I've heard and so you get a total YES from me. Lets see, you could say I'll work harder than everyone else. I'll stay later, I'll sing higher, practice longer. That all works.
110%?
Not so much.

Going to the wrong church

Over the New Year Holiday weekend our family took a trip to Bountiful Utah where we were invited to a New Year Celebration. The party took place at my Brothers house up on the hill. We had a great time and enjoyed ourselves very much. As Sunday rolled around we decided to go to my brothers ward at 9:00am so that we could get on the road so we weren't too late getting back home. As we gathered all of the kids in the car, we took off in a caravan to attend Blake's church. My Mom and Dad led the way since they new which church Blake attended. There is an LDS Church on about every corner so it isn't that obvious which church you attend. So, we traveled up to the church, entered through the back, and found seats in the gym. We settled down for a nice fast and testimony meeting. As we tried keep our kids from falling asleep and from beating on each other we discovered that the chapel had "stadium seating". It was strange. The chapel had a slight downward slope to it so that the back rows of the chapel where about the same height as the raised podium. From the gym, where we were sitting, it was really hard to see the speakers at the podium because they were only at eye level.

After the sacrament had been passed around, we noticed that Blake and Estee had still not arrived. They were only a minute behind us when we left the house so there was no way that they were just late. We then realized that we were not at Blake's ward. We really couldn't pick up and leave in the middle of the meeting so we decided to just stay. Plus, if this wasn't Blake's ward, which building was?

Anyway, as we peered around the members in front of us, we could get small glimpses of the people on the stand. As I scanned to the right of the stand, I could see the men that were presiding at the meeting. At the very end of the bench, there was a man that I thought looked like Elder Bednar. As many of you might know, all of the mormon men in Utah look the same. Most of the leaders walking around look like Elder Bednar so I shrugged it off and went back to managing the sleepy kids. I did, however, continue to study this "Bendar Look-a-like". Of course, I was in the gym and my eye site isn't what it used to be. I decided to entrust my findings with my wife. I pointed him out to her and then took Savanna out in the hall so she could use the restroom.

When I got back, Deanna leaned over to me and said, "I think you are right, that might be Elder Bednar." Wow, that was cool. Deanna, with even worse eye site than mine, agreed with me. With this confirmation, I leaned over to my parents to get their opinion. As they bobbed and weaved their heads to get a better look at the gentleman on the stand, my Mom reported that she was pretty sure that he was Elder Bednar. I immediately turned to my son Coby and pointed out that there was Apostle up on the stand. He squinted his eyes and gave a small grin as he picked out Elder Bednar from the men in front. Then, he leaned back over to me and reported, "Ya Dad, and I think the guy next to him is Elder Hales." I grinned in disbelief and stuck my head up above the crowd and sure enough, on the right hand of Elder Bednar was Elder Hales. I relayed this message down the pew and in seconds we were all looking at each other with huge grins on our faces and in complete shock. It isn't every day that an Apostle attends your church meetings. In fact, in Twin Falls, it never happens!

As the meeting went on, we became privy to the fact that these two Apostles were attending their "Home" ward. No wonder everyone in the chapel was so casual about these two very iconic general authorities attending their sacrament meeting.

After the meeting, I was determined to go up and meet both of these men so I marched myself into the chapel area with my kids in tow to meet both of the Apostles. This is a big deal since I have only met one other Apostle in my life. If you want to read about it, you can view it on my post at LDSFamily.net Anyway, back to the story, we went into the chapel to track down Elder Bednar but he went out the side door to another meeting. However, Elder Hales walked up the isle right towards us, so I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. He looked at me for a second, smiled and said hello. I introduced each of my family members which were standing in a line like the partridge family and he shook each of their hands. He asked us where we were from and we replied that we were from Idaho. Just as he was leaving he said, "My sister raised 6 kids in Burley Idaho." We looked at each other and thought, "We know people in Burley!", but, he had already left.

So, even though we were at the "Wrong" Church, we were at the "Right" Church.

Elder Hales

Elder Bednar

Christmas Morning 2009 at the Carters

Nothing too exciting happened at Christmas this year. The major gifts were a Laptop, a Family Membership to the YMCA, Nintendo DS, Rip Stick, White Socks and Acquire. We defiantly had a wonderful time being together and sharing gifts. We hope you enjoy the short montage of our Christmas Morning.

New Years 2010 Celebration

Here is a quick little video of our family at a New Years 2010 party at Blake's House in Bountiful Utah. All of us had a wonderful time. Blake and Estee were great hosts. We did our best to clean up the confetti mess but I am pretty sure that Blake will be finding little pieces of confetti throughout his house for years to come.

Sledding into the New Year

For new years we traveled to Bountiful to visit my parents and my brother. We found this really fun sledding hill so I took the kids over and ran up and down the snow hill. I decided to take a camara along with me on one of the rides. I think you will enjoy it.

The Best of 2009

I decided to put together my favorite stuff of 2009. You know, Hollywood puts together their best movies, best music, best actor, best blah blah blah. For some reason the average "joe" never gets mentioned on these type of compilations of awards. News programs also offer the best stories of the year or the best event of the year. Barbra Walters did a "10 most fascinating people of 2009" just a few days ago so, I decided to do my own "best of" for 2009.

Therefore, I have put together the "best list" which will include all of my favorites in a few different categories.
1. My Favorite Videos (that I produced)
2. My Top Blog Posts (that I wrote)
3. My Top Selling Figurines on eCarters.com
4. My post with the most comments
5. My mosts viewed video on YouTube
6. Favorite new websites

Here we go:

My Favorite Video I posted on YouTube this year - Banadana and Was Up!





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2. My Top Blog Posts

* DMJ The Department of Mirth and Joviality

* Pants

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3. My Top Selling Figurines on eCarters.com
* Kayak Figurine
* Optometrist Figurine


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4. My post with the most comments


* Am I alone (8)
* Pants (8)
* Ghosts on my Computer (6)
* Suspicious Dog 6
* Whas Up! (5)

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5. My mosts viewed video on YouTube

Carters Get A Wii! (480 views)


The Super Nerf War (228)


Lower Falls at Yellow Stone Park (134)


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6. My favorite new websites:

* http://www.lsdfamily.net
* http://www.metalcraftstore.com

Christmas Sales

I don't think many people know that I have a web store. My store is www.eCarters.com. I sell Metal Figurines that are hand made by a small company in Hansen Idaho. This is an example of one of the figurines.
When I get an order, I just call them on the phone, place the order, and when they have a friend or family member coming into town, they drop it off at my door step. I don't make much money off this website, in fact most of the months the web store eCarters.com either loses money or just breaks even. However, during the 3 weeks leading up to Christmas, this is what it looks like in my house.



Even though most of the year is a bust, this little web store actually provides some needed extra dough for Christmas.

Avatar

I have been excited to watch the new movie Avatar that came out this weekend. I have heard great reviews. I have read that the CGI (Computer-generated imagery) is ground breaking. Therefore, I was interested. I watched as many previews as I could because it looked so dang cool. One of the primary characters in the movie is a native Na'vi humanoid. They look like a cross between a monkey, cat and human. Even though the previews showed a scantily clad woman Na'vi, I still had high hopes that the movie would be much cleaner. I went to Screen It to see if I could get any help on the movie. Screen It didn't have a review yet. So, I went to IMDB to see if they had any information. They only listed the Movie's Rating and described why it was rated PG-13, "Rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking." This rating didn't seem too bad so I decided to take the boys to the movie on my birthday.

The movie started out harmless enough. There were a few swear words at the beginning but it was a war and battle movie so you kinda know that they are going to use some harsh language but it seemed minimal so we kept watching. Eventually the movie moved to the Na'vi and the main woman character was introduced. The previews were correct that she was presented as a "very native" looking creature. Unfortunately, these natives wore very little clothing and were very anatomically similar to humans. At first it seemed that this would be a small part of the movie, but as it progressed, it just got worse and worse until we got to a scene where I knew we just needed to leave. There were too many shots of naked buttocks and to many revealing shots of the torso of the women Na'vi. The final straw was when the Na'vi were headed off to their hammocks to go to sleep. That is when I leaned over to my boys and said, "I think it is time to go". So, we left the theater to find my wife and the girls that were watching a cartoon about 2 frogs wanting to become a prince and princess.

I was very disappointed. I really wanted to see this movie, and I still do. I just wished that there wasn't so much nudedidity!

A Song for the Mormons

On Monday night, the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien presented “A Song for the Mormons”, sung by bandleader Max Weinberg. Because U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch recently wrote a song for Hanukkah, Max Weinberg returned the favor.

This is totally hillarious! I was worried that it would bring up all of the old stereotypes about Mormons but it wasn't too bad.

Enjoy

For all of the Facebook readers, here is the link.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/115218/the-tonight-show-with-conan-obrien-a-song-for-the-mormons

Too Much Money

I'm the kind of guy that would love to be cursed with too much money. I have always thought it would great to be "tested" with millions of dollars. What would I do with it? How would I use it? Where would I go? Who would I help? I think we all dream of being a millionaire. However, being a millionaire may not be all that it seems. Last week during our "Book Club" meeting, the subject was broached because of the incedent about Tiger Woods. Of course we all know that Tiger is a millionaire, if not a billionaire. So, why would he get in trouble with all of these different women if he had millions of dollars? Humm, good question. It seems crazy to us "poor" people why millionaires get involved in drugs, women, alcohol, addictions ect. Here is my theory.

If I was a millionaire, I would do all of the things I always wanted to do. For example, visit Australia, stay in the nicest hotels, go on the nicest cruise ships, visit exotic places, ride in limos, etc. Now, lets just say that I was able to do all of these things. I spend 5 year doing all of this stuff. After that 5 years, I've done it all. Disneyland is not interesting anymore. I've been to Italy several times, I even built a house there (boring!). I have several houses on the beach, I've lived in Paris. Nothing is interesting anymore, nothing is exciting anymore. So, where do I turn to find excitement? Drugs, addictions, the "s" word. How do you keep the excitement in your life when you have done everything? I'm sure it is hard to do.

So, if you every get filthy rich, don't go completely wild and do all of the fun stuff in life in a short period of time. Leave some fun stuff out there to keep your life interesting and fun.

As I said before, I think I'm ready to be tested with wealth. (cheesy grin)

Spirit of Christmas

The website on Youtube called Mormon Messages has done it again. They have produced another awesome little video and posted it today.



I hope all of my readers have a very Merry Christmas.

Savanna Clogging

Every year Savanna's clogging team prepares a dance for the Festival of Trees. This year was no different. Savanna loves clogging and dancing. She is one of the youngest dancers out there on stage. Even though she is young, she has been able to learn the steps and moves without any problem. If she continues, she will be one of the best cloggers in the studio that is her age. BTW, her dance studio is named "Rocky Top Cloggers".

Enjoy the video.

Warm Fire

Leave it to Clark Draney again to spark (no pun intended) a memory from my childhood. He wrote an article this week about starting a fire in his fireplace. I guess the post was just a normal post and didn't really excite me much until he came to the part about remembering to open the flue. Pow! The memories of growing up in our house just flooded my mind.



In our house there were 2 fireplaces. One upstairs, one down. The upstairs fireplace was well kept and was used to warm the main level of our house. In the winter, this was a great source of warmth in our house. However, to keep the fire stoked with wood, someone would have to tiptoe out the back sliding glass door periodically to get more wood. Upon doing so, a blast of cold air would rush into the main room and chill us all for a few seconds until the door was again slid shut.

The downstairs fireplace was a whole different animal. For some reason, the cold air would be pushed down the chimney. I'm sure there is a scientific reason for the down draft that made lighting a fire down there a difficult task. I remember several times trying to light newspaper down there only to receive a face full of smoke in return. The first blast of smoke was from forgetting to open the flue. The second blast of smoke was from the down draft of cold air. The instruction and scientific explanation was given that enough heat had to be applied at the beginning to get the air to start flowing back up the chimney. Once this delicate balance of hot and cold was overcome, the smoke would cease to fill the room. After several minutes of gray plums of smoke layering the downstairs family room, the miracle of the chimney would occur and the room would begin to filter up the brick column.

I am sure that as I get older, I will find that I have a layer of soot embedded deep in my lungs that will eventually kill me. Yes, I am sure I have a very minor case of Black Lung right now. I always new I would die of cancer.

Eagle Court of Honor

Last weekend, (Thanksgiving weekend) my sister Melinda's son earned his Eagle Scout Award. She had a wonderful Court of Honor the evening we were there so I took along my flip video and took a few video shots.

Congratulations Thomas!

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.