TFHS Tennis

Coby and Andy's year in Tennis is starting to come to an end.  They have a few more matches before they start competing at a district tournament which would qualify them for State.  Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. We hope they do well at district so they have a chance to compete at state but at this point, we are not sure what will happen.

The other day, they were playing a match against a local tennis team and a Times News reporter was there taking pictures.  Below are a couple of pictures that they took of Coby and Andy while she was there reporting on the match.

Last Day of Paper Route!

It has finally come to an end.  Our term as paper delivery people is over.  Saturday April 21, 2012 will go down in history.

Below are a couple of pictures of our last day doing the paper route.  I'm going to sleep in as long as I possibly can tomorrow and enjoy my extra few hours of sleep.

Coby at Jive Night

Coby's final Jive performance was last weekend.  We are very proud of how hard he worked and how well he performed.  Coby was the star of two numbers so I took a video of each one to share with everyone.  The first one is called Kryptonite which he performed as a solo with a cameo by one of his friends to help fill the stage.  He did a great job each time he performed.





The second number that Jive performed was Hawaii Five O.  If you listen very carefully, you can hear someone beatboxing in the background.  That was Coby.  There is no background music, no background drums, it is all Coby keeping everyone together and doing the percussion for this performance.

Great Job Coby!!!!

Funeral

It was a difficult week for the Carter and Blake Families because we lost our dear family member Van Holt Blake.  Last summer our family visited him and his wife at their house in Orange County.  He was gracious enough to take us down to the pier where we were able to go on a cruise.  When we returned, Van and Shanna also picked us up and took us back to their house and fed us some lunch before we headed back to Idaho.

Three short weeks ago Van started to have trouble breathing and was feeling ill.  He finally decided to go to the doctor to see what was going on.  After extensive testing they found out that he had cancer and just a few weeks later the illness took his life.

This last weekend, I and other members of our family, traveled down to Orange County California to support Van's family during this difficult time.  Several other cousins, Aunts and Uncles were there as well.

The funeral was really well put together and all of the speakers spoke with love and affection for Van Blake.  Each of the children spoke or prayed and expressed their love for their Dad. It was very touching.  Each funeral I go to, I go away with a firmer determination to be a better husband and father.  I have awesome examples in my family of how to be a great husband and father.

Below is Uncle Van's funeral program for those that could not attend.

We love you Van and we will miss you.  We hope to see you again when it is our turn to pass through this life and into the spirit world awaiting the resurrection.

Temple Baptisms

Our family went to the bountiful temple during spring break to do baptisms for the dead. We met at 9:30 am and organized ourselves and had a wonderful time. Afterwards, I asked if this temple had a cafeteria. I was told that it did so I convinced everyone to stay for lunch and eat in the temple. We had a great time and then afterwards, we went out front and took some pictures. My sister took some really good pictures whereas the pictures I took arnt so great, however, I have my pictures now from my phone. So here we are.

TF Tennis

Coby and Andy are playing #1 Men's Doubles this year on the Twin Falls Tennis Team.  Their first few matches were against some really tough teams and some of those matches went to a tie breaker to decide the match.  Yesterday, they played Canyon Ridge High School, which is the new high school here in Twin Falls, and did very well against their #1 Men's Doubles team.

Below is the report in the newspaper on how well they did.

Our Life

I don't know how they are doing it.  They must have some hidden camera's in our house, in our cars and everywhere we go.  Somehow ABC Television has filmed our life and then made a sit-com out of it.  I swear it is true.

Example number one comes directly from this weeks episode of "The Middle".  This episode is called "The Paper Route".  I know it sounds funny but some of the conversations they have in this TV show match up almost exactly with conversations we have had in our house.  I think they filmed our situation, then got some writers together, and created this episode.

Example number two comes from an episode of "Last Man Standing".  The episode is called "Take your Daughter to Work".  Although the name doesn't really tell you about how it relates to our life, it is unbelievable how much like our life this episode depicts.  This is almost exactly what happened to our family when I almost hit a dog early in the morning while doing the paper route.  If you don't know about this "dog" incident, then you need to read my earlier blog post. http://littleenoch.blogspot.com/2012/02/simba.html

The third example is from another on of the episodes of "The Middle".  This one comes straight out of our life.  The episode is called "The Sit Down".  When I watch this one, it is almost too hard to watch because it happens in our life all of the time.  I don't want to watch my life again.  But, somehow, it is entertaining enough for me to stay hooked on this show.

So, if you want some samples from the Carter Family Life, just watch these three episodes and you will have a pretty good idea what is going on in our home.

Clint

Oliver

Over the last several weeks Savanna has been going to play practice over at CSI where the CSI theater department was putting together a production of "Oliver".  Almost every evening she would go over there and practice her songs and parts with a bunch of other little kids, all cast to be orphans in the play.  As they waited for their scenes, they would play in the dressing room.  As the weeks went by, they started to develop other words to some of the songs that they sang in "Oliver".  As the song developed, they decided to sing this montage in the foyer of the auditorium after their last performance.

Below is that song while they stood on the steps of the auditorium.

Simba

About two weeks ago, I was driving Andy back from his paper route.  It was about 5:00am in the morning.  It was snowing that morning and there was slush all over the roads.  As I turned the corner from Locust on to Falls I noticed a little animal in the road.  I looked closer because most animals in the road are squirrels.  This was a small animal but bigger than a squirrel.  On close inspection I noticed it was a dog.  There were other cars now driving down the roads and I could tell that if he (the dog) did not get out of the road, he would look like a dead squirrel.  So, I stopped the car, turned on my flashers, and tried to coax this little dog into the car.  He was hesitant and refused to get in, however, he was cold and he wanted to get out of the snowy weather so he slowly moved closer and closer to the car.  Finally, he got close enough so that I could scoop him up into the car and take him home.  Once he was home I would warm him up, call the animal shelter, and find the owner.  The poor little puppy didn't have any name tag nor collar.  We had no way of identifying who's dog it was.

The next morning I called the pound (animal shelter) and reported that we had found this little dog which was a mix of pomeranian and Chihuahua.  A couple of days went by and no phone calls for the dog.  I decided to make little fliers and hang them on some telephone poles near where we found him.  Katie and I posted several up all over the intersection.  Still no phone calls.

It has been 2 weeks now, so, as might be expected, all of the family has decided to keep the dog and name it Simba.  Below is a picture of Simba with his new collar.

University

Coby has been filling out applications for the last few months to see if he could get accepted into college. He has applied to Utah State, BYU Idaho and BYU Provo. In his application to BYU he ran into a glitch where they did not attach his High School transcript with his online application. So, with this error, it showed that he had not met the advanced application deadline. He had to call BYU and fix the problem but we were still a little worried that this problem might have caused him to miss this deadline and might make him ineligible to be accepted to BYU. After a few months of waiting, Coby received an acceptance letter from Utah State. He was very excited to receive this first letter of acceptance from any University. So, to show his excitement, he took his letter and taped it onto our front door with a little red bow. Below is a picture of this letter on the window.

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 Later, he found that several of his friends were receiving notice that they had been accepted to BYU Idaho. Again, we were a little worried that the issue with his transcript and his application were messed up but once he logged into his account online, he found that he had been accepted to BYU Idaho Fall Winter Track.

So, the final application to BYU Provo was still out under review. He had not heard any word, he had not seen any notification. However, this week Deanna and I noticed that one of his friends had posted on Facebook that she had been accepted to BYU Provo. We looked at each other and decided to wake Coby up and have him check his application account online at BYU. All of the family was around that kitchen table in our pajamas awaiting his review of his account online. He typed in his username and typed in what seemed 300 characters. He clicked and clicked and finally started to read, "Coby Carter, you have been accepted to attend BYU Provo in the Fall of 2012". A cheer rang out and the suspense was over. He had received an acceptance from all 3 Universities he had applied for. We are all very proud of Coby and his hard work to get him to this point and we are excited for him the choose which University he will want to attend in the fall. With this final response, we have now realized that Coby will indeed leave home in about 6 months. What in the world are we going to do? What in the world can we do to prepare him to leave home?

Malta Idaho

Every few months I travel to Malta Idaho to do some computer work for an electric company. Most of the time these trips are uneventful. Occasionally, however, I'll come across something unusual so I make sure I have my camera at the ready. This particular trip I was met by a herd of sheep so I quickly took out my camera phone and recorded the experience.

Cartoonist

I follow a blog called Mormon Cartoonist. This guy creates creative cartoons that he submits to the Friend, The Ensign and other LDS magazines. Many of his works make it to print. Anyway, as I as reading through some of his cartoons I started thinking about what would make a good cartoon. I can't draw worth a darn so being able to create one on my own would be a disaster, but, I could come up with an original idea for a cartoon. So, I started looking around in my life for something that might be good as a cartoon. One evening while talking to my sons, I came up with an idea for a cartoon. So, I went to Mormon Cartoonist and suggested a funny premise. A few days later I received a response that he would take my idea and make a comic that would come out in February. Well, February is finally here and below is his cartoon based from my idea.

Click on the link below to go to his website and see his comments about this cartoon.

http://www.mormoncartoonist.com/2012/02/eight-bit-love.html

Jive

Coby decided to try out for Jive last fall when the new school year was just starting. We were thrilled that he would want to join this dancing and singing group again. We were very proud of him during the last school year and enjoyed every concert and performance he was in. This year is no exception.

I must say that I was a little worried about this new group because almost all of the girls that were in Jive last year had graduated. So, there was only one returning Jive girl from last years gaggle of girls. However, this new group of girls are just as talented. There were only a few boys that returned as well so there were a lot of new kids joining Jive and performing with Jive for the first time.

Even with these big changes, Jive performed a wonderful "Winter Showcase" just a few weeks ago. We had many friends and family come to watch Coby perform and I think each one of them walked away very happy and impressed with the quality of singers and dancers in this year's Jive group.

As usual, I volunteered to make some videos for the transitions between songs when the Jive kids would have to change their clothes for their next number. Unfortunately I didn't come up with anything really creative but the videos still turned out really well.


Below is one of the numbers they did called Waka Waka. It is probably my favorite song and dance of this years program. I'll also put some links to some of the other videos that I made for the Winter Showcase.





http://youtu.be/hGmqJjjyxR0

http://youtu.be/WjH4fX88634

http://youtu.be/tP2TPxb8tXc

Evidence of Dad Snoring

While we were flipping through the video camera videos to make some room for Coby's Jive concert stuff, Deanna came across this video and had to show it to me.

Mexico Trip

Humm, I just discovered that I didn't write anything on this blog about my trip to Mexico.  So, here we go.  I hope it isn't to much of a repetition of what I wrote on the CAF website or the LDSFamily.net website.

Normally at this time of year I don't have much vacation time and I'm very busy at work.  This year, the busiest time was November to December opened up for me.  I looked at my vacation days and I had 5 days saved up.  The trip to Mexico was from Christmas which was Sunday this year and ended on the day after New Years which was Monday.  At work, we were given both Monday after Christmas and Monday after New Years off.  So, I only needed 4 days.  Coby struggled to get the time off at work but when push came to shove his boss decided to let him off of work the whole week since he was giving service to the needy in Mexico.  Tiffany was generous enough to let us use her "stand by" tickets to fly from SLC down to San Diego.  So, after a little tweaking and some miracles, I was headed to Mexico with Coby, Andy and Savanna.

You have probably seen my video that I made of the work and the play we did while in Mexico so I think I'll just talk about some of the things I thought about while down there.  Here are a couple of things that struck me while down there.  Keep in mind, I've been in 3rd world countries before and the poverty really doesn't shock me anymore.  I searched for things that I could use in my life.  Here are some of my thoughts.

As we crossed the boarder into Mexico it was interesting that I didn't need any identification, paperwork, visa, passport or any other paperwork.  I also noticed that there wasn't a line at all getting into Mexico.  We just walked across the boarder, through the gates and we were in.  I think I really only saw one official looking guy sitting at a table asking us to push a button to see if we were the lucky ones to be "checked".  Otherwise, it was pretty much void of security.  HOWEVER, when entering into the USA, there was a line of people, a line of cars, there were security all around.  There were several lines of people waiting to enter.  When we arrived at the start of the line we were asked for identification, passports, birth certificates and we were asked what we purchased and what we did while in Mexico.  The officer asked each of my kids a question or two and then he waved us in.  We then scanned our bags and were permitted into the United States of America.  Ok, so that seems pretty standard, how can this translate into a learning experience.  Well, for me, it was a "type" or an "example" of what it will be like at judgement after we die.  I believe that there are 3 kingdoms of glory that we can inherit.  Three degrees of glory.  After we die, it will be like the boarders of Mexico and the US.  It will be fairly easy to get into the lower degrees of glory.  There won't be a line, there won't be much security, there won't be much paperwork.  We will be able to just walk across, HOWEVER, to get in the highest glory, I'm sure we will have to have all of our paperwork in order.  There will be a line, there will be security, there will be documentation and questions that will be asked of us to determine whether we are allowed in this sacred location.  Ok, so it is a little stretch of the imagination but it seems to fit, at least in my mind.

Second, I have a new appreciate of rules, laws and police officers.  When traveling in Mexico there arn't man traffic regulations.  Some places there aren't any stop signs or stop lights.  In several locations we traveled the traffic was chaotic  First come first serve was the rule and if you were in a bigger car, you had the right of way.  There were pot holes, bumps, broken roads, speed bumps, and holes everywhere.  The roads were unkept and the drivers didn't obey the traffic rules.  Although it was sometimes pretty cool just to roll though a stop and keep moving if no one was there, it made me appreciate the rule of law in the USA.  Drivers are constantly aware of the laws and rules of the road because the police do a great job of making sure we are safe.  Without the enforcement of these driving laws, the US would not be as organized and safe as they are today.  They would fall in the chaos of what is happening just across the boarder in Mexico.

I had to be such a downer on Mexico but these were a couple of things that I tried to notice and be thankful for once I was back in the good old U S of A.

If you missed my video, you can watch it here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BywKiQNmhqc

Here is something cool.  Below is the hospital we stayed at in Tijuana.




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Below is the little "tienda" where we went for snacks when we were hungry and where they let us use the bathroom.


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And below was one of the little lunch spots where we had "Tortas" for Lunch.



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BYU football game

I just found the best way to watch a football game. I found this on YouTube under BYU TV. These videos show an entire BYU football game with all of the plays and none of the commercials or slow time in between the action nor the time outs. SWEET!

Utah State

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

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

Christmas Letter

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

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

Here is the photo we sent along with this letter.

43

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

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

Happy 43rd Birthday?
Clint

Letter to Santa

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