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.

Hie

My daughter took some video of me playing the piano the other day. I really like this song so I play it all of the time. I think my family is sick of hearing me "Play" it. The song is "Hie to Kolob".



Here is the link for my facebook friends. http://youtu.be/Eci-gaYROqk

providential

As I have been driving around in my car lately I have turned on my android phone and listened to audio books on an app called Ambling books. I sit here typing up this post with a little hesitation to tell you all that I have been listening to "Anne of Green Gables". I decided to listen to this audio book for a couple of reasons. #1. It was free. #2. It was on the top 10 free books in the list. Ok, so, free was in both of the reasons, I am a little cheap.

In any case, I was listening to this book and enjoying the artistic and creative language that is used by Anne (with an e) Shirley. I decided that in my life, I don't do a lot of imagining anymore. I don't even do a lot of creative writing. I used to get on this blog and write up something clever about something that happened in my life. I'd think of a creative way of phrasing it and I would post it for the world to see. I have noticed that my posts reciently have been short pieces of information with video clips or photos. No pithy comments nor creative writing.

I decided today that my lack of interesting writing is do to my lack of listening to Dennis Miller. Every day I would listen to Dennis on the radio and my brain would be taxed as I tried to follow his logic and tried to decider his verbose vocabulary. With this stimulation, my mind would begin to find clever anecdotes and short stories to post on this blog. Unfortunately, I can no longer get Dennis Miller on any radio station in Twin Falls. I might have to wrench some money out of my frugel fingers and purchase a membership to the DMZ (Dennis Miller Zone) so I can get my fix of Dennis's hyperbole. (I'm not even sure I used the word hyperbole correctly but it sounds good)

So, I went to his site to see how much dough it would take to join his club. I found a couple of vids and then came across this "bathrobe session" and found that he mentioned Twin Falls Idaho. Wow, he actually knows something about Twin Falls and he has been here. How providential (as Anne would say).

Here is the clip:



Here is the link for my facebook friends. http://youtu.be/lq3gUNW1Nj8

Second Half

Here is the second half of our vacation cruise video to Ensenada Mexico.



Here is a link for my facebook friends. http://youtu.be/02GPFx_hwJs

First Half of the Cruise

Here is the first half of the video I took while on the Cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada Mexico. This video is of our trip out to Catalina Island and a little bit of our meals and around the ship.



Here is a link for my facebook friends. http://youtu.be/zYTvQ9FiDsU

Temple Trip

Last week we went on vacation. We jumped in the car and headed down to Southern California. We decided to break up the long drive by stopping in Primm Nevada and stay overnight. We like staying in Primm because of the really inexpensive hotel rooms but nice accommodations. However, if we did this, we would have to stay all day Sunday in Las Vegas, Sin City. So, we tried to make the best of it. We got up early, got our Sunday clothes and tracked down the nearest Mormon Church that we could find. We attended Sacrament Meeting and then loaded back up in the car and tried to find the Las Vegas Temple. The weather was scorching hot, a blistering 111 degrees, so we didn't want to spend too much time out side. Nevertheless, I did take along my flip video and captured our visit.

Savanna's New Ear Rings

Savanna turned 12 and with that special birthday she was able to get her ears pierced. Enjoy this little video showing the pain and suffering she had to endure.

Hidden Message

The kids are counting down the days until our vacation on our little white board on the fridge.

Lagoon

We r at lagoon for savanna's clogging competition.  Her group scored a second place in both of their dances.

Picture from Peru

My Mom and Dad went to Peru last week on a service project for Charity Anywhere Foundation. Mom took a bunch of photos of the project and was showing them to me over the weekend. As we were browsing through pictures of Machu Picchu, one photo caught my eye and I had to get a copy of it. This is a shot of a Peruvian mother's baby carrier.

Car Carrier Kangaroo Sales Blooper

I've been working on a website for my sister Analee. This website will be a place where people can buy a product that she invented and makes. I decided to make a few videos to go along with her website. One of the video's was really cute so I thought I would post it here. In this clip, Analee is trying to make a sales pitch for her new Car Carrier Kangaroo but is interrupted.



Here is the link for my Facebook Friends. http://youtu.be/k6hOBobnxnM

Easter 2011

Katie is the last one of the kids that is eligible to participate in the Twin Falls City Park Easter Egg Hunt. I took my phone this time and recorded some video footage of the event.



Below is a link for my Facebook Friends.

http://youtu.be/tjN9J6MTjGs

KT gets a hit

Katie’s bat FOUND the ball, but she LOST her race to first base.



Link

Wordle

I love playing around with wordle.net.

Which one of these to you like best?

1>

2>

3>
4>
5>

Piano Duet

Katie worked on a piano piece this year for Festival that included a small duet. Somehow I was chosen, volunteered, or forced to play the other half of the duet. Luckly I didn't have to play my part for Festival but I did have to perform in front of a live studio audience at her recital. Below is a video clip of our performance. Notice that Katie didn't mess up once and Dumb Old Dad messed up several times. Aaarrgghh!





Below is a link for my facebook friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz61FCIIjqs

Tennis during Spring Break

Coby and his friend Dallas were out playing tennis this week during spring break. While they were out there a photographer from the New York Times, oops, I mean the Times News, jumped out of the car and went over and started taking pictures of them. Well, yesterday this picture showed up in the "local" section of our newspaper. Because we have a paper route, we clipped all of the pictures out of everyone's papers so that Coby could make wallpaper out of it for his room. JK

Alma and Korihor

For some reason, this video really shocked me. I know that it shouldn't because the world around us continues to fall into disbelief. As I watched this segment on TV, it reminded me of the story of Alma and Korihor in the Book of Mormon.

Watch the video below starting at time segment 130. Then, read the segment of the Book of Mormon to see what Korihor said in opposition to Alma's belief in God and that Christ would come again to the earth.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Alma 30: 13 - 60

Korihor says:
13 O ye that are bound down under a foolish and a vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things? Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can bknow of anything which is to come.

14 Behold, these things which ye call prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers.

15 How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ.

16 Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of your sins. But behold, it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so.

24 Ye say that this people is a free people. Behold, I say they are in bondage. Ye say that those ancient prophecies are true. Behold, I say that ye do not know that they are true.

Jimmer

BYU has reached the sweet 16 in the 2011 NCAA Basketball Tournament. Jimmer Fredette has become a national star and continues to shoot outside shots that are several feet behind the 3 point line.

The BYU Harold B. Lee Library has taken advantage of this success and has used him in several videos.

Enjoy these great videos about the BYU Library.





Here are the links for my facebook friends.

http://www.youtube.com/user/hbllproduction#p/u/3/hSxpYGcUU7U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JTysCSBFCo

Birds

Spring is here and the sounds and sights of Summer are here. We saw some birds drinking from a bucket of water in the back yard so I setup my tripod and recorded some video.

Here is a link for my facebook peeps.

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

Tsunami Video

We pray for the people of Japan and there loss of life and property at this time. Below are some of the most amazing video footage of this terrifying event.







Here are the links for Facebook:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_6iDBoOvb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-zfCBCq-8I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APEsVeE7FGk

geocaching

It has been a long long time since I pulled my GPS out of my Swag Box to track down a cache. I've just been so busy with other stuff that I just haven't had a chance to go geocaching. Last week the Scout Master in our ward called me up to ask if I would teach a class about geocaching to the scouts in our ward. I said yes and started to rummage through all of my goecaching stuff.

I found a bunch of stuff that I had almost forgotten about including the fact that I still have a Travel Bug out there in the geocaching world. So, I logged into my Geocaching.com account and checked it out. To my amazement, this little travel bug named "Tree chain" had made quite a few trips around this small world of ours. Below is how many miles this little travel bug has logged and below that is a picture of where it has been.

Tracking History (23,462.8 miles)


Click on the image for a better view.

Andy and Bball

Andy was fortunate enough to play on the 8th Grade Basketball team for O'Leary Middle School. I should have a bunch of pictures of him playing ball but for some reason, the season passed me by and I didn't get a good shot of him. I did, however, take a picture of a picture of him and his team. It is a horrible shot but I guess it is good enough for historical evidence.

Exciting Stuff ! ?

Ok, the title of this blog is a little deceptive. Nothing really exciting has happened since my last post which is why nothing has been posted. I guess there have been a few moderately exciting things so I guess I should make you aware of them.

Coby made the Twin Falls High School Tennis team. Not just the tennis team but he made the VARSITY TENNIS TEAM! He has been very jazzed about that all week.

Savanna went to a clogging competition in Boise and received a 1st Place award in three of her four clogging performances. This qualifies her to go to Nationals this summer to compete for a national award.

Andy has been playing basketball and was excited that he made Coach Jones' team. He has played #6 all season and even got to start in one of the games. He has enjoyed his time playing 8th grade bball even through they didn't have the winning'est season.

Katie has been practicing hard on the piano and will participate in her very first "Festival". Then, after the festival, she will be playing in a recital where her Dad will be playing a duet with her. I don't know who is more nervous about the recital, Katie or her Dad.

Well, there you have the "exciting" stuff that is going on. Ok, maybe moderately exciting occurrences in our family.

President's Day

While listening to the Kid Kraddick Radio program this morning I was reminded that today was President's Day. We are supposed to be honoring our Presidents, as in the Presidents of the United States. Sure, there are POTUS's out there but there are also other Presidents, like Class President, School President, President of a business, etc. So, I started to think of instances of when I was a president. It hasn't happened very often but I was the President of the Deacon's Quorum, and a Young Men's President in my church, the Mormon Church. While I was working for my Dad at the Truck Driving School he said I could be President and CEO of the business so I might count that one. I'm also President of my online webstore business called eCarters.com. But, I think that is about it.

When have you been a "President" so that we can honor you today? Maybe you ran for President of something at some point or had a calling of being President in your church. If you have, and obtained the title of President, we can salute you today, President's Day!

Mailbox

Another little video I posted on my "Neighborhood" project.

This is entitled, Our Mailbox.



Here is a link for my Facebook Friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAS5WzsOQM

Photo Project Gone Rogue

My friend Clark posted on his blog last week about a project that was started for photographers. The project was stated as follows:
"Taking photographs is fun. Sharing them is even better. Sticking with one theme a month, upload one photograph a week that somehow represents that theme.
One theme a month.
One photograph a week.
12 x4 = 48 photographs.
You in?"

I am definitely not a photographer, however it did sound like fun so I clickity clicked on over to the website and asked to join. After seeing a couple of the photos posted, I decided to go rogue and upload videos instead of photos. I hope they don't mind. It will give me a chance to try out some video production and video editing skills. Below was my first post.



Here is the URL for my Facebook Friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNoD0M2yTEY

Jive 2011

Coby has been working very hard in Jive over the last few months for the production of the "Jive Winter Showcase". This is a show that Jive puts on to show off all of the songs and dance steps that they have learned since school began in 2010. Normally Jive practices their songs during 8th period at the High School and then they practice their dance steps every Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7 to 10 pm. However, on the final week before the showcase, they practice every day from 5:00pm to 10:00pm. It is a long and grueling week of practice but it all pays off on the finally day (Saturday) as they present their musical performance to a crowd.

As a "Jive Parent" I had volunteered to help out with something. I thought I was going to help with a picture montage or something. As we talked with the choir director he mentioned something about putting together some video of the members of Jive between songs, just like BYU's Young Ambassadors do in their production. So, my video brain turned on and I started putting by ideas together.

Since I had kinda built a studio in my garage, I had the lighting all setup. And, I had my new flip video camera from Christmas, so, I was ready for my first official "GIG"!

I interviewed each of the members of Jive and then every night that week I edited the video into 6 short clips that they could use between songs.

Below are all of the clips I made. They aren't perfect but it was the best that I could do in just one week. Now that I know what I'm doing, I'll be able to make a much better set of videos. So, my mind is already thinking about the "Spring Showcase".

















Here are the video links for my facebook friends.



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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgu3av1AWmQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp-lLFImk2A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POeMm9B6im4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpqVlRbsap0

Epic Fail

Recently I have begun to notice that the younger generation (my kids) have begun to use a word in a different way. My kids now use the word "Fail" as a noun. Maybe it is due to the website called failblog.org or maybe because of this YouTube Channel, I don't know. This is how the word is now used around our house, "That is a fail!". Yes, it is very strange to me too. Usually fail is used as a verb in a sentence instead of a noun so it just doesn't sound right. However, over the last few months I have become accustomed to this misuse of the verb and have even come up with a few "fail" nouns myself.

The most recent occasion to use this new found noun was when I was headed to the grocery store with my 3 kids. Andy and I had just been to Great Clips where we had our hair cut. Our journey took us over to the west side of town to an establishment known as Walmart. As we were rambling around the parking lot looking for the most epic parking spot ever, Andy remarked with much enthusiasm, "Thats a fail!". I didn't notice what he was talking about because I was completely focused on parking positions. So, when we got out of the car I asked him what he was talking about. He said that as we entered the parking lot, he noticed on the ground that it said "YIEED". Humm, what in the world is a Yieed? Well, you can look for yourself. This is what the youngsters of today would call an "EPIC FAIL!"



This is an actual photograph from my camera phone at Walmart in Twin Falls Idaho.

2010

I thought about doing the same thing I did last year and give you some statistics about what happened on my blog. Well, it looks like I had a lot more time last year than I do this year. I was able to check out all of my posts and tell you how many comments each one received and what posts were my favorites and which one's failed miserably. This year, I barely have time to type anything into this year end post. I guess I can say that I am glad that this year is over and I hope next year is much much better. I guess I should really focus on the happy exciting things that happened to me instead of the downers. I was able to witness the wedding of my Brother Blake to Estee Blatter in the Denver Colorado Temple. I was able to baptize my youngest daughter this year and confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. I was able to walk in the footsteps of the Willie and Martin Handcart companies and ponder the hardships they suffered while returning to my nice air conditioned hotel room. I should focus on the advancement in the Priesthood of my two son's. One becoming a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood and the other being ordained a Teacher. I still have a job that I enjoy and that help pay for the necessities of life. I have great people to work with at my job. I am able to teach a strong work ethic to my kids by taking on a paper route. And finally, I should be thankful that our dog healed from his broken leg and continues to be excited to meet me at the front door when I come home from work.

I have begun to ponder why I continue to write a bunch of stuff on this blog. A part of me likes the opportunity to make fun of myself. Part of me wants to make people laugh. Part of me wants to share experiences that might match things in their own life. Part of me just wants to unload thoughts that come to me during the day. Hopefully there isn't a "Clint Overload" out there in the bloggosphere. If there is, please, just unsubscribe or ignore me in your reader, or delete me on facebook, or stop following me on twitter or watching my videos on YouTube or reading my posts on LDSFamily.net. Hummmm, I guess there is a lot of ways I can invade people's lives with my blathering.

Age 42 hit me this year and I don't know what to think about it. I remember when my Dad was 40 and I'm not sure I'm as far along in life nor as successful as he was. Maybe I'll catch up later. A friend of mine taught me about how trees are different and mature at different times. One tree might stand dormant even though all of the other trees around it had blossomed and bloomed. I guess I'm just one of those trees that will mature later? There is also a little story about a vinyard that was pruned back by it's Gardner. The plant that was pruned down to the ground looked up at the Gardner and said, "why was I cut back so far to the ground?". The Gardner looked back and said, "I'm the gardner and I will mold you and prune you as I see fit to make you a strong plant". Ok, that may not make sense.

Am I still writing? I should have stopped long ago.

100th Video

It is official, I have now uploaded 100 videos to YouTube!!!!

The very first video I posted on YouTube happened December 02, 2008 it was entitled Christmas Morning 2007. I don't know why it took so long for me to upload my first video. I didn't know much about videos, uploading, youtube or editing at that point. The video was actually shot by my brother Blake.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc_HGl-vdoQ

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The most recent video I shot and uploaded to YouTube was from Christmas 2010. It is a small video of my parents playing our new game on the Wii called Band Hero.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjJM2OTbJQE

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The video with the MOST hits came from a brief visit to a robotics competition. It was called First Lego League. It has now had over 5,300 hits!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNRUh7U5Vyg

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And finally, in honor of my 100th video on YouTube, I'll put a few of my favorite videos to date.

Andy at Camp Bradley (Old Spice Commercial)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsMli_p6Jes

Savanna, Katie, Andy and I doing the Wass Up commercial with our own twist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCgqL0hgo7g

And finally, me and Coby doing the Banadana Skit at a Carter Family Reunion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXg6PNHaI7w

If you like some of these videos, click on the subscribe button when you get to YouTube and you will see all of my latest videos each time I upload a new one. (You have to be a member of YouTube of course)

Christmas 2010

I was in Costco with Deanna walking through the isles when I saw a huge bin of these bears. I thought it would be a cool gift to give the girls this year so I checked out the price. Well, the price was right so I told Deanna I would come back later and pick them up.

Below is a picture of my shopping cart.




I couldn't post these pictures until after Christmas but I just had to let people see how ridiculous I looked when trying to buy my girls a Christmas present this year.

I believe

There was a constant buzz around our house about Santa Clause last year. Fortunately it hasn't been such a big discussion nor argument this year amongst the kids. Whenever we got into the dialog about Santa, I'd always side with the youngest members of the family and state that "I believe".



I still remember the excitement of waking up early in the morning with the hope that Santa Clause had brought me something cool for Christmas. I remember that there was MAGIC in the air because it was always such a mystery. Now that I am older, Christmas has lost some of its magic and glitter, however, I don't ever want to loose that feeling that I had when I was a young child. So, whenever one of my kids, old or young, asks me if I believe in Santa and the magic of Christmas, I always say, "I believe". Deep down in my little kid heart, I believe. I hope that my kids never grow too old to believe in the excitement and magic of Christmas.

Ginger Bread Houses

The other day I was browsing through the Bloggernacle again and found a cool web page that has craft ideas for little kids. I thought some of them looked easy so I forwarded the link to Deanna at school. Later, I found out that when she scrolled through the ideas, she came across ginger bread houses made from gram crackers and frosting. Immediately she remembered her childhood and that her family had made little gram cracker houses when she was little. I thought it sounded fun and cheep, so a rushed down to the store and bought a bunch of Gram Crackers to use for Family Home Evening.

We took the Gram Crackers over to my parents house, and we decorated these houses with the Hirschi Family on Monday night. I didn't have a camera ready so I had to take some pictures with my phone. They aren't great but they do that job.

Is it worth it?

Many of you know that recently our family started doing a paper route. Since I would much rather have bamboo jammed under my fingernails than to get up at 4:00am every morning, I have been continually asking myself if it is worth it. Well, I now have my answer.

I had the opportunity to take the girls out for dinner at Wendy's the other night. We stepped up to the counter to order our meals and surveyed the choices. After ordering each individual meal, Savanna looked up at me and said. "How much was my meal?". I replied, " Oh, about $6.00". She looked back at me and commented, "That's about two days worth of doing the paper route". A grin came to my face because I realized that she had just learned how much a dollar was worth. So, now, when we are about to spend some money, I ask Savanna how many days of paper route would it take to pay for it.



Yep, just for that one lesson, it has been worth it.

This is Life.

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

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

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

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



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

Pictures in a box

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



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



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

Thanksgiving

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

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

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



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

Grandma's Stories

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

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

The Little Orphan Annie
Epamandas
Johnathan Bing

Memories of Grandma Blake

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

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

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

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




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

The Little Orphan Annie
Epaminondas
Johnathan Bing

Backyard Baseball

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



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

First Lego League Video

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

Below is the video.



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

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

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

Professional Photos

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

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

Adventure in a Semi-Truck

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




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

Panda Bear Pumpkin

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

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



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



Happy Halloween to all!

Halloween 2010

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

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



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

Kids Run 2010

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

Paper Route

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



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

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




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

Twitter Feed

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

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

Bruin Football

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

really?

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

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

Signing off for today.

Clint