Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

Ain't it beautiful?!!!
(Not me. The snow.)

The Black Hole Tree

That's what I'm talking about!

Christmas at the Carters 2009

This was the first Christmas in 38 years that it was just me and Kathy in the morning. We kinda slept in at least by our standards. We spent Christmas eve with Kathy's sister Barbara. Had a great time eating dinner and playing games. Just the 3 of us! She came over at 9:00 AM in the morning. Di and Sam also showed up about the same time. We then opened our presents and went over to Barbara's to open hers. We didn't have any more visitors until afternoon when all our local adult children and spouses dragged in. Lynda and her family were the exception. They're spending Christmas in Cedar City with Jason's family. We had dinner and the usual Carter game night well into the evening. No grand kids! That was the only downer, but Josh and Matt will be along this week so we'll get some quality play time in when they show up. Maybe even a little winter back yard camping experience! We call our tree the "black hole" because it seems to suck in more light than it gives off. I'm not so sure led lights are such a hot idea after all. I'll try to remember to add a night time picture of it. You just can't see the effect in this day time shot.

Merry Christmas to All!!!

Musical Thoughts

Some recent Facebooking got me thinking it might be a good time to throw a few of my latest musical findings out for whoever might find it of interest (if there are such people!). I was a bit bummed when Nickel Creek decided to disband and go there own ways so some of this listing will reflect music that at least for me fills that void. I won't bother to try to categorize these artists, so you'll have to take a listen to figure out to which ones I'm referring as Nickel Creek replacements. Some I've mentioned before, so pardon the repetition. Here's the list:

Erin Bode
Sarah Jarosz
The Green Cards
Adrienne Young
Crooked Still
The Lovell Sisters
Sierra Hull
Diane Birch
Colbie Caillat
Bonnie Bishop

I know, I know, they're all females. Some things never change!
I also had some exposure to new local singers. New to me anyway. My apologies to the many I'm leaving off. There are just so many I can't begin to list them all. The Hammer Hands concert series is a great place to catch on to many of them. He's planning another series next summer, so check it out! Here are just a handful:

Shaun Barrowes (Hammer Hands himself!)
Ryan Innes
Richard Lee Cody and Mary Kaye
Debra Fotheringham
Nicole Sheahan
Danielle Hyde Vaughn
and of course April Meservy

It's been a fun year. I've taken many opportunities to support local musicians. I hope to be able to continue the same next year!

Amazing news stories.

There have been two recent stories in the news that have inspired me. One was Elizabeth's Smart's 2 hour testimony in court giving evidence against her former captor. The other is Paul Cardall's recent heart transplant and recovery after living with congenital heart disease his entire life. Learn his story at:

http://mytricuspidatresia.blogspot.com/

Lori McKenna

This picture is of Lori McKenna playing at the folk and bluegrass festival at Snowbird last summer. It was great to get to see her live and even more so to have the privilege of meeting her. Lori is one of the premier songwriters of our time and has a very distinctive vocal style - Heartrending! That's a pretty good description of most of her songs too. She has a very gritty, down to earth way with a tune that really gets to the emotional center. She claims to only know how to write sad songs. It was quite a shock to find out her personality is quite the opposite! To get an idea of her approach to a song check out her cover of Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L3GYAaqbGA. It put's a very different spin on a song I always though was pretty frivolous. She would probably still be relatively obscure if Faith Hill hadn't gotten ahold of some of her music and based her "Fireflies" album on several of Lori's songs including the title track and "Stealing Kisses". This got Lori a major label deal and an appearance on Oprah with Faith. Tim McGraw produced her "Unglamorous" cd. This all resulted in some air time on country radio although she never had a major hit (not surprising; her sound isn't typical radio fair). Apparently her major label deal wasn't to be. She recently switched to an indie label. Probably for the best. She's much too eclectic to follow the dictates of main stream music. I'm looking forward to her next release. She's been writing up a storm all summer. She does an amazing job balancing music and family. She still resides in the small town of Stoughton, Mass, 30 minutes from Boston with her husband and 5 kids and rarely makes it out West, so it was a real privalege to have her out here last year. Anyway, there you go. Another worthy member of my top 10! Do yourself a favor and give her a listen!

Scouting

Did a little Scouting with Josh and Matt this weekend with permission of Josh's Scoutmaster. They passed off 3 1st Class requirements including orienteering and lashing. Now is Josh's troop will help him pass of some cooking stuff he'll be done with 1st Class! Nice to be back in the saddle again. The broken rung is from Grandpa try out the ladder. So much for cottonwood. We replaced it with a piece of pine we found in my wood pile.

Jewel Lake II

We went on our annual excursion to Jewel Lake last Friday and Saturday. Those who went this year were: Lynda and Jason’s family (Josh and Matt), Di and Sam, Scott and Mary Ann and me. I’d been watching the weather reports and didn’t like the look of it but was talked into going anyway. Big mistake! We spent most of the time in our tents due to the 30% chance of rain that parked over us most of our stay there! 2 out of 3 of the tents proved to be leaky. Scott and Mary Ann’s tent (shared with Di and Sam) was fairly new but they’d failed to read the instructions and hadn’t sealed the seams. Not sure what house Scott grew up in! They had a very wet, miserable time. So the night was spent in card playing and in my case listening to the last 2 episodes of “Everything Creative” on my Ipod. To be totally fair about it, we actually were able to eat dinner and breakfast during the brief times it was dry. We also got in and set up before the storms hit but got in little fishing. We were anxious to get out early in the morning but stuck around due the nice fire I got going. That was another mistake because after getting packed up and starting to head out, we were hit with a snow storm. It even made the nightly news. We almost made the nightly news ourselves due to my arrogance and stupidity! I thought I knew my way out from many years of camping there so failed to follow a compass course even though the landmarks I use for reference weren’t visible. We ended up wandering North of where we should have been and subjected my family to crossing one the many nasty boulder fields in the Uintas. I realized we were lost when things continued to not look right and finally got my compass out. I could have sworn it was reading wrong. It looked like we were going North when I thought we were going East. I asked Jason to get his compass out so I could verify that mine was ok. He couldn’t readily find it and it was snowing so hard he didn’t want to go searching through his pack. About then someone suggested we pray. Sam quickly volunteered. After the prayer I made the decision to head East and trust my compass was right. It wasn’t but a few minutes later I realized the meadow we’d come to was looking mighty familiar. Sure enough it was the meadow on the back side of our favored Jewel Lake camp site, a place I’ve fly fished on the meandering stream that runs through many times. We’d gone in a complete circle and found ourselves back where we started after about an hour of hiking! This time I checked the compass and since the storm was lightening up was able to see land marks and stick close to the mountains to the South. It was nice enough by the time we got back to Ruth Lake that some of us made a few futile casts in an attempt to recoup some of the money spent on fishing licenses. The trail out was full of running water so feet already sodden were made even wetter. …altogether a miserable experience but one that made a lasting impression of the power of prayer. Maybe it won’t be an annual event after all!

Suzy Bogguss

Here are a couple of shots of Suzy Bogguss performing at Charleston, Utah last Saturday night. It was a delightful evening. Scott and MaryAnn came with me and commented that they enjoyed it and even liked Suzy's singing! I wasn't really surprised. Suzy is one of the most easy to listen to singers I know of (and I know of quite a few!). I came to know Suzy's music much the same way as I came to know Nancy Hanson's. Thank you Orem public library! Right after I bought my car cd player I became restless musically and started branching out to different stuff than the oldies rock from the 50's and 60's I'd enjoyed most of my life. The local oldies radio station also booted me in the rear by cutting way back on 50's music and adding 70's music. Who on earth considers 70's oldies? Anyway, I started exploring country, bluegrass and folk music and in doing so stumbled upon a country tribute to the Eagles that had a cut of Suzy singing "Take It To the Limit". Hardly my favorite Eagles tune but I was mezmerized by her voice. Such purity and clarity of tone. As a bonus the picture of her in the liner notes was pretty darn cute! After hearing that I went back to the library and checked out everything of hers I could find. Since then I've built up quite a personal collection of her stuff. I found it interesting that she and Kathy Mattea are best friends and both are friends with Alison Krauss. I guess it's that birds of a feather thing. I picked up her latest release, "Sweet Danger" at the concert and had her sign it. It and the previous album are not at all country but it was apparent that she is still a draw among the country crowd as evidenced by the location ("horse barn") and make up of the folks at the concert last week. She played to the crowd, doing mainly a greatest hits collection of her old country songs. The only number from the new cd was her cover of chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" which by the way, is really beautiful. I was impressed with her guitar playing. That song required a variety of difficult chords that she played with ease. I'd never seen her self-accompany before and was duly impressed. She had husband Doug Crider play mandolin on "Night Rider's Lament" and sing harmony. For the finale they invited the opening act Richard Lee Cody & Mary Kay to come out and sing "Red River Valley" as a sing along with the audience. Those are the people in the last photo. I'm quite impressed with Richard Lee Cody. He sings cowboy music and his voice has an uncanny similarity to Marty Robbins'. So there you have Suzy Bogguss. A most worthy member of my top 10! Next up Lori McKenna (whenever I get around to it).

17 Miraculous Months

Whoda thunk we'd have the 4 last of our unmarried children hitched in the space of 17 months. Truly a miracle! Here they are in chronological order:

Scott and Mary Ann! (It was worth the wait)

John and Megan! (She must be on a step)

Di and Sam! (Typical Di pose)

Sandy and Jacob! (Open the doors of the temple)

We are so blessed! All 8 of our children have been sealed in the temple. Thank to Scott for the title correction.

Oregon or Bust!

Here are some pics from our trip to Oregon. First time for me.

The Portland temple.

Blow it up. You might be able to read it.

Gotta see roses in Portland.

Where else would we end up in a new town?

If you look carefully you just might see Kathy in her element.

The lovely bride!

The Hillsboro 4th of July parade is, shall we say, unique?

A coupla old duffers.

'57 T Bird

This shot's for Jacob!

This parade is one candy fest. Better than trick or treating. I came back with a haul!

We made it to the beach on the 4th of July!

Lost in the rain forest.

A Little Late

Yesterday we had the coolest rainbow here in Orem. It was actually a double but wasn't easy to see from our place and the photo didn't pick it up at all. Utah's been so rainy this spring you'd think it was Seattle! It's actually been nice to have it cool. It's made it a little tough for evening concerts. I hope Shawn Colvin's is dry next Saturday!









This is the really late part. Tuesday we saw Matt pitch for the first time. He does a great job. His team lost 7 to 2 but it was mainly due to poor hitting and too many failed attempts to steal bases. He also gave up the best hit ball I've seen since Matt started playing little league. The guy nailed a hard thrown ball and knocked it out in left center past the 2 outfielders his team had (they played with 8 people that night). It rolled out to the fence for an in the park homer that scored 2 runs. Can't really fault Matt for that one. Like I said it was a well thrown ball. The guy swung hard and level like I always preach to Matt. Bat and ball met perfectly. It really was a thing of beauty. Too bad it was at Matt's expense. Matt really has about the best control I've seen among the pitchers we've watched this year. He oughta stick with it!

SUMMER OF MY DREAMS

Last night I picked up tickets to see Shawn Colvin at Thanksgiving Point on the 20th this month. I've wanted to see her perform live for a long time. This is the first real opportunity I've had, so I jumped on it. I'm going with a friend at work who like me has a wife who doesn't share his musical interests. He's seen Shawn before and was more than happy to go with me. He describes her playing as: "Where's the second guitar?". Judging from her "Live '88" cd I'd have to agree that she really rips it up and her singing ain't half bad either. Those who are unfamiliar with her may know her from her one big hit, "Sunny Came Home". She's really not a pop artist and kind of lucked into having a major hit. It's never been her ambition. Prefers to be her own person. Anyway, I'm really stoked to see her and the venue's pretty cool too. Saw Peter Breinholt there last fall.



The other cool news is Suzy Bogguss is coming to Utah July 18th. She's taking a nostalgia tour with her family reliving her days touring the West in her Toyota Chinook camper before she became a Nashville star. Thus the old picture. They're touring their favorite national parks and picking up a few gigs along the way and just happened to schedule one at an equestrian facility in Charlston. Who knew?! I've been intending to do a write up about her for my top ten. I guess my procrastination proved providential. I'll do it after the concert and kill 2 birds. Again, I'm stoked! There are a number of other great possibilities for concertizing this summer. I'll keep ya'll posted.

More Matt

5/30/2009

Left fielder.

Covering second.

Looking to steal home.

Stealing home. Slide ------- Safe!

Idol thoughts

As I guessed, Kris Allen won AI the other night. My theory is that he had a combination of things going in his favor. He and Danny Gockey are somewhat similar and probably many of Danny's voters chose Kris. AI is one of the few family friendly programs out there in tv land these days and Kris has more appeal to middle America than Adam. The third factor would be the cuteness of Kris. I'm sure he garnered many more of the female voters than Adam. All of that being said, I believe Adam to be the most gifted vocalist to ever appear on the show. I don't think he need worry one minute about his future as a singer. It was similar to last year in the sense it didn't really matter who finished first. The top 2 are both sitting pretty. On a similar "note" I recently learned that Randy Jackson for the first time ever is promoting and producing a former Idol - none other than my favorite Idol of all time, Brooke White. She's looking pretty savvy from where I sit. I believe she has a bright future ahead of her.

Matt's Photo

Just for Shae. Here's Matt at bat from the previous game we attended. I would've taken pictures yesterday had Matt pitched while we were there .

Father's Day in May

We decided we needed a new weed whacker to take out the overgrowth that used to be our garden so we went to Lowes and got a nice Troybilt. It was last years model on sale and we also got 20% more off for taking the display because it was the last one left. Kathy used a gift card she got for Mother's day so it was really father's day for me! I guess her payoff was getting the weeds knocked down. I think I got the better of the deal. It's one of those manly tools kinda like a Sawsall - arrgh, arrgh!!! Too bad I didn't get a "before" picture. You don't really get a good idea of the job that thing did from the "after" pic. We also checked out Di and Sam's new railing. It's beautiful. Sam doesgreat work. We then went to Matt's second ballgame today. If we'd know he was pitching the 1st game we'd have been to that one instead. People gotta let us know! I also threw in a picture of our new bedroom ceiling fan. That was a real Mother's day gift. It fought me all the way. Who knew a ceiling fan could be a pain to install. Anyway, we're loving it. We're heading for a 90 degree day Monday so we'll really appreciate it. Don't have the swamp cooler hooked up just yet.