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

========================

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


=======================

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)


===================

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.