Mom and Dad

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

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!!!!