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E.D. and the Girls recording with Gramps

The Saturday prior to the Festival of Trees we recorded the two Christmas songs. I have this portable digital studio that I usually use to record the band and other bands. I've also recorded other little projects. I never use the regular programs on a computer like Pro-Tools, or Q-Base to edit to the tiniest bit of perfection. I use the tools available on this thing to capture a rather raw sound. Think ala MUDCRUTCH ( Tom Petty's original band and their latest recording).

The nice thing about this is that I am now starting to fulfill the dream I had when I originally bought this piece of equipment. It was to record my grandkids singing. Thanks to my buddy Brian for the percussion and drums on the track of "Must Be Santa". Tony was on the bass, I was on the 12 string and the girls and I sang. We did it in stages. I recorded Brian on the drums and one 12 string track at the band room with Brian and also a scratch vocal track. Then we laid in the shakers followed by another track of sleigh bells. Afterwhich I laid in a slide acoustic guitar track. Then, we came home to the basement and recorded the girls and their vocals and redid mine. Now, Wha-la!!!! You have it.

We recorded Hali singing "Are my ears on Straight in our front room with first Julie playing the piano and then followed it with Hali singing it twice. We made two versions. One with her singing alone and another with her singing in unison to herself on the chorus. It sounds really wonderful Of course. We are so biased!!!!!

Critter heard it yesterday in our car and couldn't believe it was us singing. She was blown away!!

Festival of Trees Nov 17-21-2008

What a blast we are having. Annette, Seth and Rene Callister, Mike Toombs and me are all part of the Festival of Trees 2008 entertainment committee. That meant that the band was playing in various forms. Little 1/2 hours spots where we wouldn't have time to set up the whole band. We just basically plug in and go. No sound checks nothing. We are in charge of the sound this year and also the performers.

With that we debuted the Tony and July Perez family entertainers. Our granddaughters did great. I mean it was touching to see Hali Ann Perez sing her first solo outside of church. She did great. The girls and i did Must be Santa by Raffi too. It was fun. I will try to include the clips. They're working!!! They're working!!! Enjoy

Our Trip to the BIG APPLE!!!!

Last Week Annette and I went to New York (Manhattan) with one of our mutual fund families that we represent. It was an absolute blast. We stayed at the Embassy Suites off of Vessey right next to Ground Zero and the Hudson River. Every night we would look out toward Jersey City and at the Ferry's that would cross the river. Oh, the Hudson River makes the Snake River here in Idaho look like a small creek.

We went to the Empire state building and enjoyed every minute of our visit there at the Empire. One thing that we noticed right away was the white people there in line with us, spoke other languages other than english. Mostly tourists out on the town. And what a town it is. After that we went to Little Italy and ate. We went via the subways both to and from. That my friends is an experience in itself. One thing I noticed is that people in the city for the most part, have money because they haven't got anything else. Small living arrangements, no vehicle, no place to store stuff. I guess I wouldn't trade our fewer dollars earned for the lifestyle that we have. It is certainly fun toi visit but not to live. At least not for us.

Saturday, we slept in and had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel (It should be for the $500 per night that it cost us). We once again boarded the E Train to Central Park and got off and walked through this beautiful park. The colors were stunning! I mean stunning. We felt we were in an episode of Law and Order and waited for Gorin and Eames to appear!! ha ha. Anyway, we went to the Museam of Modern Art. All I can say is O-M-GOSH!!! It is huge. I mean really huge. We were there for 4 hours and all we did was skim the surface. We were completely overwhelmed. From there we went to Lexington Ave and found a little Deli to eat att. The food again, was excellent. We hoped the Subway back towards the financial district where we had our luggage and a Limo waiting to take us to the airport. We made friends with two cute little ladies from Ireland that were there in NYC to shop because it was so much cheaper than Ireland!!! Go Figure???!!! Anyway, they were so warm and friendly. They were headed for Century 21 to shop. They asked if we knew where it was and neither Annette or I knew what they were talking about!!! I thought they were buying Real Estate!!! Ha ha ha ha!!

Anyway, it was good to come home to a blessed City like Idaho Falls and our family. We brought the typical gifts that you buy there in NYC. Oh man, what to get a growing family of grandkids and inlaws!!!

Our Annual Deer Hunt 10-19 thru 22-08

What a great time we all had. We missed many of our friends who were not able to come up and spend time at the "Man Camp". Dad, Scott Wilde, John Carpenter, Todd Pitcher (Sorta, he was there but left early because of miss communication by me), and various of Tony's friends were not able to come. we especially missed Missy's beau Tom Soran. We did have our beloved Uncle Kevin, Greg Nichols, Conner Klassen, Tony and I.

We left after church on sunday to set up the camp. of course, we did it in the dark and got ready for the next day. It was nearly 2 am by the time we set it all up. We did not wake to early the next day but, our camp is right there where the deer are. At least in other years. We actually didn't see any bucks all day long on the first day. We hunted all of our usually good areas that are consistant producers of deer and found nothing but elk and does. we made it back to camp in the dark at around 8:30 or so expecting to see our buddy Todd waiting for us. We didn't but Kevin did prepare the absolute best Taco Soup on the planet. It was so good we ate it for breakfast the next morning.

The following day we deecided to hunt lower as we were'nt seeing anything that was up high that was worthy of taking. Amazingly, it was blowing a freezing cold wind that would cut you to the bone. We climbed to the top of where we last left off and kept hunting the ridge down. we tried to stay on the leeward side of the wind. It worked! we got down by Monolithe rock and in the bowl behind the Monolithe Conner connected with his first 3 point buck. He was guided by the best guide in the world, Tony! Congrats Conner boy!!!!

We also got to play hide and seek with some Bighorn Sheep down low. they were nearly tame.

Hunting with the Carpenters 10-18-08

Ok, we went out to our Sacred, Sacred Rattlesnake Canyon and started our hunt with Jackson and John Carpenter, Conner Klassen, Tony and I and we saw deer about 3/4 of the way up the road. We got the boys in place because we knew that they could get these does (yes does because they are youth under 17). The deer were about 250 yards away and it was fu n to watch them get all buck fevered as they shot. Jackson connected with his and brought the deer down with once shot. He later dispatched the deer with another shot. Conner hit one but even after all 5 of us looked and combed the large sagebrush hill for 2 1/2 hours, we were not able to find her. It was sad but Conner learned the value of placing a shot because he did get one later. I'll save that for another post.

Tony, Conner and I continued up to the top of Rattlesnake ND WE HAVE DECIDED THAT THAT IS THE STEEPEST MOUNTAIN IN THE WORLD!!!!

Ellory @ Gramps 10-16-08

Ok, She is feeling pretty safe here with gramps. I worry about her and how she will be influenced in this life. I like that Critt brings her over often and just hangs out with us. I think critt doesn't trust me yet because she knows that I will feed her what she wants and that would be anything sweet and delicious!!!!

Tagged by Marissa!!! You're next

So, the rules are:
1. Link to the person that tagged you.
Marissa
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random facts about yourself.
4.Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged.
6. Let the taggers know when your entry is up.

1. I secretly really enjoy soft jazz and classical music. I am a solid rocker but I do listen to quiet stuff while I'm driving or trying to think.

2. I am the oldest son of my mom. I am also the most uneducated of all my brother and sisters.

3. I love taking high quality pictures and sharing them even if I didn't take them.

4. I do not like the markets because of how they make my friends and clients feel. They will get better, as they always do.

5. I am not as bad A.D.D. as i have been in the past.

6. Life is really good to me.

Soo. I tag Tammie, Annette, Karen, Tony my Bro, and Kayla my niece

Stealth Cam Retrieve!! What a ride

Yesterday late afternoon we made our way to go retrieve the cameras that we had in place. All six of them. Dean and LaRayne and Sarah went with us to get 4 of them before they took off because of the time. That left just Annette, Julie, Tony and I to go to South Creek to get the 2 cameras that were left. We were certainly surprised by what was on the cameras. Take a look at the surprise. Usually we only see Deer, Elk and an occasional Antelope but this time!!!!

Also, I got one shot of the kids with us! They look like saddle tramps!!! ha ha

Ellory & Gramps on the 22nd of Sept

Ok, I don't know who is sillier to listen too, but, Ellory was over playing with us and she started laughing at these silly little wind up toys from Energizer Battery packets. Critter grabbed the camera and caught the two of us laughing. I never realized how silly I sound. It's cool, because Ellory is just rolling with the "funnies" at these silly little toys. Oh, almost forgot, she also gave me a big ol slobbery kiss right before this. She loves her gramps because, our house, it's my rules and she can eat what she wants, when she wants. Her mom Critter, hates that! No matter, it's the way it is! ha ha ha

Sept 27th 08 Ride

Well, I awoke early this Saturday and went to view the Stealth Cams. Once again, none of my family could go but my friends Scott Wilde, Greg Nichols and the Gonzalez family all went with me. We started on th east end of where we placed the cameras and went to see what we had. We had pics of critters on several of the cameras. It was good to see activity. Also, we saw mountain lion tracks and black bear tracks right by where we camp. I did set up another stealth cam by where a bear had been frequenting the area. There was poop on the road that gave him away. They were eating currants as they were thick up there this year.

We also took aride up to the top of Mormon Gulch again. Whew! We went a total of 85 miles on the 4 wheelers yesterday! I ran out of gas because I forgot to fill the digger up before we left. Also Scott and I were made fools of agin chasing both chukars and huns. I'll tell all of you that those partridges are birds of the devil!!!! ha ha

Foriegner with Marissa & Tom

Last Tuesday I went to SLC to join Missy & Tom and caught a Foriegner concert. Talk about a fun venue! The place, The Depot. It was a very nice, clean and smoke free enviroment. It was small too. It is definetly a place I will go to again. Also, it was on a Tuesday night. Only hard core fans there. If you go to Missy's blog you can get more details because she is a better writer than I am. Here are some shots that are duplicates from Missy's blog

I also was completely surprised at how Mick Jones at 63 is still rockin the house down. Good clean solid chops that are ever in style. It gives me, a 51 year old rocker, hope that I can keep rockin for a long time! ha ha ha... Annette is so tolerant of my little boy ways. I realize, I STILL HAVEN'T GROWN UP!!!!

Stealth Cam Review 9-20-08

Well, I awoke on Saturday to go hunting, ALONE. My sons bagged out on me, my lovely bride just needed a day to herself, my friends were all busy and I was left the lone man on a rainy Saturday. I loaded the smaller 4 wheeler and went to the place where I placed a few cameras ( Stealth Cams) to retrieve them and see what kinda critters were roaming around.

I was rather dissapointed in that there were very few pictures taken of critters and a whole bunch of Chukars again and also plenty of blowing weed shots. All in all, if I total the number of poictures taken or images captured, it was 236. Of those 236 there were only a few big game shots. Here they are.

I did see some beautiful country and got one good snap shot of it all.

Missy's Tagline game

Ok, Got this from Missy the other day and I'm Gonna pass it on!!!!

A TAG ABOUT ME
I am: mostly crazy and a little selfish (we all have ton's of flaws)
I think: Getting older is not for wimps
I know: That my Redeemer lives
I want: I want a couple of my kids to "Get It! (life).
I have: a Dulcimer that I play just about every morning.
I dislike: Liars...but I love a good story teller..there is a difference!
I miss: My Kids
I fear: losing my health.
I feel: great .
I hear: The washer and dryer going and Annette sniffing (allergies).
I smell: Butt, feet and pumpkin cookies
I crave: Going and getting my stealth cams..No truck..in getting a new tranny! Ouch $$$$
I cry: Every now and then and when the spirit touches me. Usually at church.
I usually: am late for everything.
I search: Deals on music equipment, music, hunting and fishing stuff and knowledge about where I belive the next opportunities lie in the marketplace for my clients.
I wonder: how to format my stealth cams????
I regret: not finishing my college degree
I love: Annette, all my kids, my job, my Lord and Savior, Horchata, Tacos Mexico, Chinese food, my new Chrysler, my folks and my brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts...well, you get the story!
I always: get sidetracked because i'm ADD.
I worry: about my retirement.
I am not: Skinny nor am I a democrat like my folks are.
I remember: The good ol days when my kids were little and Annette and I were poor
I believe: in Truth
I dance: Only when threatened to be TAZED
I sing: In the band at times. Mostly harmonies and a few lead melody lines
I don't always: express my gratitude like I should
I argue: like an idiot...I learned it from my mom.
I write: on pads of paper and later (about 3 weeks) I haver to consoladate to one sheet and clean my desk off.
I win: always at some point
I lose: Patience
I wish: I had the fence done
I listen: Not very well...I'm ADD
I don't understand: Science sometimes
I can usually be found: Working, playing guitar, planning the next event and blogging
I am scared: Liars and mean people
I need: my buddy Greenie (the truck)
I forget: to take out the garbage sometimes.
I am happy: That my kids live close and that Annette and I are close to them !
I tag...Crit, Steph, Bonnie, Hanna, Ali, Tammie, Kim, Nat & Jer Bear Coon
I know.. nearly all girls but they at least will do it!!!

Mini Perez Family Reunion 9-5,6 &7-08

We were all invited to go to the Hammond Family cabin (Steph's Family) for the weekend and celebrate with Dave & Steph their 1 year reunion. It was so much fun. We went through Yellowstone park, well, to Old Faithful anyway and we saw plenty of wildlife and of course, saw old Faithful go off. and had Ice cream cones at the Old Faithful Store.. On Sunday we just relaxed and had a nice time laying back and playing games. All of Tony's fam was there, Tom & Missy and of course, our hosts, Dave & Stephie were there as well as Annette and I. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed every minute of it. One of the funnest parts was watching Tom looking at all the animals. I think my kids have been hunting with me often enough that it was a rather normal experience to see them out in the wild. Of course, in Yellowstone, they are nearly tame and so much less wary of man as they are completely protected from man and only have to worry about natures predators. Which by the way, is not a pretty site if you've ever come across a predator kill. It's scary and you can nearly feel the fear. Here are a few samples of the weekend.