stevens super awesome blog

Project

2008-12-30T11:40:00.001-08:00

Here is a project that I worked on recently. Hope you like it:

Gracie on a Treadmill!

2008-12-04T22:20:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm almost positive no one reads this anymore since I haven't blogged in about two months. I'm sorry

But, I wanted to tell you guys that we recently bought a treadmill for gracie puppy.

It works really good

check out this video

Jamaica Video So Far

2008-09-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

Dwayne the Beach Grill Chef - Dancing it up!

2008-09-18T15:37:00.002-07:00

More Jamaica photos!

2008-09-18T15:37:00.001-07:00

So last night we found this towel goose and towel heart on our bed with rose petals and a note from the hotel manager (whom we met today) welcoming us here on our honeymoon and offering us breakfast in bed. What a great suprise (for courtney - I knew what was goin on)
breakfast in bed

our fridge and bar - stocked daily

the vew of us on our personal patio!

the goose and heart again

Steve

Jamaican Honeymoon

2008-09-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

Here are a few shots from our honeymoon so far. We are saying at Sandals Negril, in Negril Jamaica. It's just perfect here
This is a photo from a steel band orchestra that we saw on our first night during dinner. Most nights there is live music in this restaurant.

A Picture from the Beachside Grill - serving up bacon cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, and chicken quesadillas to courtney and steve everyday for lunch :D

The main pool and simup bar
Courtney on the patio through the curtains
Steve on the patio with a little of courtneys artwork on my back

The weather is quite odd here. This was taken off of our balcony - it was not doctored with for colour or contrast - weird eh? Sometimes for about an hour a day it will get a little odd out like this.

Thats it for now!

Steve

Wedding Shots

2008-09-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

Here are a few shots from the wedding day that i'm sure you're all waiting for.

Pics from our time in jamaica here to come!

Gotta Run! Pina Coladas are Calling!

Steve

Hockey Night In Canada

2008-08-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

I know it's been a while but I wanted to take a minute and encourage you to all go listen to and vote on a submission to the anthem challenge that I recorded.

This is a submission composed by Chad Joiner from MEI and performed by about 70 people from the MEI Screaming Eagles Marching Band. It's honestly my favourite submission and by far the bets sounding but you be the judge - go listen and vote and come back here and let me know what you think!

Hope to hear fromy ou all.

Here's the link!

HNiC Generation Next - MEI Screaming Eagles Marching Band

Takin it easy in white rock

2008-08-03T15:02:00.001-07:00

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Test from the iPhone

2008-07-28T19:20:00.001-07:00

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Greetings from the Tallin Airport

2008-06-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Well, Today is Monday and i'm on my way home from out european tour. It's 4:57am and I have 4 flights to take today. Now that is exciting. err - not exciting. I can't wait to get home and say hello to courtney!!!
One of the concerts we played there were so few people (in Turku, Finland) that we ended up deciding to set up our computers so our loved ones could watch the concert from home. That was a lot of fun. Half way through the concert courtney took her laptop outside and was showing me tricks with Gracie our puppie. She's doing such a great job training her!

Two nights ago we played in Tallins biggest night club called Cafe Amigo. There was about 400 people there who danced the night away to our music. We opened the set with 3-4 worship tunes which were recieved very well and people still danced all the same.

Last night we played at a place called Oleviste Church. The oldest church in Estonia. It was built in the 14th Century. We got to climb this high tower similar to the Dome in Florence.

Anyways, that about wraps up the euro posts. If i get home and am missing something i'll be sure to post it. i hope you are all well and I'll talk to you later.

Steve

Greetings from Tallin Estonia (and germany too)

2008-06-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I hope that you are all doing well. I'm currently in Tallin Estonia at a dinner party. We're having some sort of chicken. At least we've got some good wireless and i have a chance to blog. I have a few pictures to post from germany and then i'll post a few Estonia photos as well.
On Sunday morning we played a a big outdoor church service in Hamburg. It was a lot of fun and it seemed that the audience really enjoyed us.

This is the Indra music club. This is in Hamburg near the red light district. It's known as the first location that the beatles played publicaly
Here is a shot from "Tru: Young Television" in Hamburg. We were interevied on a two hour TV program and will also have 4 songs filmed in the studio air in a few weeks.Here is a photo of a Tallin Estonia sunset - this was taken at about 11:30pm. It really seems that the sun never goes down here. It dissapears, but it is ALWAYS bright out. We have super thin curtains in our room at the apartment we are staying at so our guitarist went to bed with his sunglasses on!
Here is another few shots of the Tallin sky.

Germany

2008-06-21T03:58:00.001-07:00

Hey Everybody. I'm currently in Luneberg Germany on a Perry and the Poorboys tour. So far its going quite well. We play every night at a festival / cafe / or club. We also played four songs on a german TV station for youth in Hamburg. Here are a few shots from the trip so far
This is an old church that was built something like 500 years ago or something
Our first morning Jared wanted to wake me up nice and early because he couldn't sleep anymore so I got up with him at 5:30am and we went out for breakfast at a little cafe. As you can see... The coffee was a MUST

This is a picture of a stage we played on yesterday at the Luneberg Stadtfest. It was a great time. A lot of people stopped to listen to us even though most of them couldn't understand what we were singing about

Take a look at this guy - two beers, no shoes, cross legged and a cigarette. That pretty much sizes up german culture!

We welcome you Gracie!

2008-04-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

Yup, you heard right. Courtney and I have a dog! Here are some shots of our 8 week old pup who still needs shots come to think of it.

Gracie loves people, she also is learning to love her crate as we are crate training her. She knows not to go to the bathroom in it already, so that is great! right now after 15 minutes of crying she's fallen asleep in her crate and i have some time to make a blog about a dog.

CoCoa Beach, FL

2008-02-05T07:43:00.001-08:00

We met this guy yesterday at an Episcopal school in a place called Melbourne, FL. He was our angel of encouragement - his name was William Gibbons. He was just a janitor at the school - but he came up to us and just unleashed a blessing of encouragement. It was neat because he said stuff like 'i dont know who you are, i don't care, the only thing that matters is that we love Jesus and you need to be encouraged.' It was really cool because both our drummer and i have been feeling quite worn out and so we were especially encouraged.

After meeting William we went 20 miles up the coast line and checked into our hotel at Cocoa Beach, FL
Here is our Holiday Inn pool. One of the biggest pools i've been it. We had a really great swim there.

This is the view from our hotel. Although our building was the one closes to the beach we were on the side the was facing west, not east - but the beach was just a 30 second walk around the building
guys were here surfing until the sun went down

Key West, Florida

2008-02-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody, we made it down to Key West and visited the southernmost point of the continental US. Steve, Nathan and myself walked down to a huge pier then went out for lunch at a place called Salutes. We then met up with Perry and we all rented bikes and rode around key west. Here are some pictures from the day!

this was a sculpture outside an art gallery

beautiful down here!

Jacksonville, FL

2008-01-31T15:32:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, we had a pretty amazing experience today at a school called Providence Christian in Jacksonville, it has about 1200 students. We played for about 800 of the higher grade students and saw at least 125 kids get sponsored. That means that on our first 3 days of tour we've seen over 330 kids get sponsored. Things are crazy here, we're super tired and a little bit bickery with eachother so please pray for that.

I'll tell you a quick funny story. We played the world vision video and met a female teacher afterwards who explained to us that she was a breast feeding mother of a 4 month old child. She went on to describe that when she saw the world vision video she wanted to "take her breasts to africa and say 'here they are'" (cup breasts and bounce here). She then said that she was "emotional" and needed to go deal with something and cupped her breasts again. Let me tell you, Steve and Nathan and I got a real kick out of that! As funny as that story is it was really neat to hear another way on which that video reaches people.

sorry no pictures today. We stayed at the school for the whole school day and then drove 3 hours to some free lodging in Orlando - unfortuneatley no wireless there so i'm using the wireless at a restuarant we're at called "Moes"

We're all really tired but tomorrow we get to sleep in before driving another 3 or 4 hours down to Kendall, FL for an evening concert.

I love you courtney. I miss you mom and dad. I love you aimee and cara

sometime homes feels a little easier then today.

Drive Times

2008-01-31T00:14:00.001-08:00

Hey everybody. It's 3:17am and we just checked into our hotel in Jacksonville , Fl. Northern florida. We've spent probably about 6 or 7 hours in the car today in addition to playing 4 concerts. The first concert we played this morning was my favourite concert yet. Kindergarten to grade 4 or so. They were so responsive and just had a blast! they were all calling my name when they would run into me later in the day. Today we played at a school called DADE christian academy and we saw the world record for world vision sponsorship get broken. The old record was 162 at a school in minnesota. DADE in miami broke the record and got 6 more sponsors to achieve 168 sponsors at one event. Wow. it was crazy.

Anyways, we're up at 6 am tomorrow but i didn't want to leave you without some photos. Here are two maps with all of our driving mapped out. Today we're in the middle of a 3 day push with approximately 30-35 hours of driving to do within those 3-4 days. The top map is the florida tour overview (north to south) and the bottom map shows only our souther stops.

I'm pooped. goodnight all!

Florida Jan 2008 Tour

2008-01-30T06:07:00.001-08:00

Hey everybody! I'm down here in sunny florida writing to you from the SunRider hotel in Deerfield Beach florida. I'm about to go swim in our pool which is a hop skip and a jump away from the atlantic ocean, take a look at the first few pics below.

House of the Sun

2007-11-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Courtney and I rented a car so we could make the 2 hour trek to Mt. Haleakala, a 10,000 ft. peak that is an active volcano - responsible for making up 75 percent of the island of Maui. We left at 3:45 am this morning so that we could go and see the sunrise. Haleakala means house of the sun. These pictures will do a good job of describing why

It was interesting being so high up this morning. It felt like we were in Whistler at the top of the mountaint. It was sooooo cold! We wore hoodies and jeans. Then, as soon as we got down the mountain the weather was great and we went to the beach.

Surfs Up!!

2007-11-02T00:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we had an awesome day off today. courtney and i went to a beach called "D.T Flemming" near Lahaina on Maui with our friends Steve and Kristen Goold . We all rented boogie boards. Steve and I were out there almost all day long. While i was working on my sunburn in the ocean on the boogie board courts was taking some pictures of me and some of the surfers. I'll credit courts pictures - she got some really great ones!!Courts captured these two surfers greeting eachother in the water. Thought that was a cool one
At the end of the day after being crushed by a few too many waves i needed a rest.
This gives you idea of how big some of these 'shore-break' waves are
if you're lucky, it will push you out from being crushed, if you're not, all that water there pounds you onto the sand

Here are two of my favourite surf shots that courtney captured
apart from the funny look on his face this looks like its right out of a magazine
this is a surfer shot that i grabbed before i headed out to the water myself

Here are Steve Goold and i boogie boarding beside eachother

Here are a few shots of courts and i in the pool yard before we went to the beach this morning

Courts @ DT Flemming
Another Surfer shot i grabbed before going boarding
This is a beach we went snorkelling at the other day
This is a very poisinous centipede that courtney found. perry smashed it 12 times with a rock and it still wasn't dead.
This is courtneys favourite beach so far. it's a secret beach near the spot we went snorkelling. she calls it the wedding beach - i wonder what she means by that. actually, a lot of people do get married on this beach.

Greetings From Maui

2007-10-29T22:31:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. Courtney is finally here! Early this morning Nathan, Perry and I travelled to Maui where we would later meet up with Courtney as well as perrys family. Courtney travelled with Julia and the kids to help her in the airports and taking care of the kideos. What really sucks is that courtney and all their luggage didn't arrive. we suspect that it didn't make the transfer of planes in Seattle. What really sucks is tomorrow is a day off and I wanted to go snorkelling and how courts what its like but she doesn't have a bathing suit. Here are some shots from our new hotel complex and our condo that 5 of us are staying in.View from the pool yard of the sunset
Courtneys cameras version
View of the kitchen from the living room couch
living room
view from our patio
This is Emma, courts took this on the plane
view of our patio
the bathroom
happy peoplel
courtney in her new tank top

Hawaiian Day Off

2007-10-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, saturday, was our day off, we had a lot of fun. played some beach olympics, snorkeled with colourfull fish, and swam with sea turtles and a big tiger shark. for real, well, kind of.

So we went to this one beach called "Turtle Beach" when we arrived we saw this sign. we asked around about what kind of shark it was and how long ago it was last seen. Apparently it was a 12-15" tiger shark that was not much more 100' of the shore. The Tiger Sharks main sustenance is Sea Turtles. The Tiger shark is one of the only animals that is strong enough to break the shell of a sea turtle. Local authorities were so concerned about this Tiger Shark being so close to shore that they called in a police helicopter to monitor it. About 2 hours after all of that was when we showed up. What did we do? We went swimming. This is one of the only beaches where you can actually go snorkeling with Sea Turtles. Ryan was the only one of us who swam with a turtle, and none of us got eaten by a shark.

Here are a few shots from our beach olympics! Ryan won the long jump event

The beach olympics took place on our beach at the military base we had a great time.

see you tomorrow courts!

More Hawaii Pics!

2007-10-26T17:57:00.001-07:00

Alright, so courts was saying that i haven't posted enough pictures of stuff around me, so here they are. some shots from our home on the base and abroad.

These two shots were taken last night at midnight or so. for the picture below i had the shutter open for 10 seconds. Even though it looks like day time it was actually really dark out, just like the picture above of the moon and a tree in its way.

Here is a photo of the runway that we cross to get to our hotel on base
A plane we had to wait for as it was taking off
this is how we packed the van one day. packing tape to hold a merchandise bin on the roof. now we have a lot of bungee straps and it seems to work a lot better.
ryan, your hair looks so lovely today
our 'hotel'
This is our beach front view from our Hotel on the Marine Corps base

Hawaii!

2007-10-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well, here i am in hawaii. let me tell you, this tour is rough. already on my first day of tour we had a day off, i had to do tasks like, relax on the beach, go snorkelling, jump in nice waves, and take pictures of beautiful scenery all the while hanging out with good friends.

Today is also a day off, we're going to be doing things like, going to costco so i can buy a snorkel set and find some industrial size hummus. then going to another beach where we'll have to do more relaxing and stuff.

On wednesday though we play 3 times in one day and that gets pretty draining, so i guess its good that we're going to be able to have some time off while we're here.

Courtney is coming to hawaii on monday. She's going to be helping out perrys wife Julia and her two young kids Emma and Ryan. Courts should i buy you a snorkel set too?

Hawaii here i come

2007-10-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

Well, life has been really rough these days. releasing my bands CD and having overwhelming response - 340 tickets - a sold out event. Playing at a big youth conference in grand forks BC - thats real rough, and today, i'm sitting in the airport waiting to board my flight destined for HAWAII. didn't i tell you? life is super rough eh, i just can't seem to get a break ;)

i'll blogs some pics soon!

sk

2007-09-21T16:28:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody. I'm writing to you right now from a suburb of Minneapolis Minnesota called Excelsior. We're staying in a barn that was converted into a house. it's very nice and they have highspeed internet on wireless so i'm excited to share some photos with you. This first picture is of our drummer from minnesota and his daughter betty. Betty is only just 2 years old and is amazing at talking, she's very smart and very kind. she got to hang out with us all day yesterday.Here is a picture of perry presenting world vision to a group of students at the minnehaha high school.
There was an amazing response to the world vision talk
Kids were signing up to sponsor a child left right and center
162 children were sponsored - this is a world record. It was so amazing.
Yesterday we went to guitar center to look for a bass for me *which we found one by the way, my dream bass* but while we were there the air raid sirens for tornado warnings started going off. we looked outsid and saw this crazy green sky! then the rain started going almost straight sideways! it was super scary!

more world vision presenting
old way of navigating
new way of navigating

here is a video of me at a health store called trader joes, i was drivng a cart. good times. no one kicked me off. i love minnesota.

Last Florida Post

2007-08-02T17:54:00.000-07:00

Well i'm back from florida! It's good to be home. I wanted to post some pictures of Gatorland - a place we went yesterday to see and feed some aligators. check out these picturesThis was during a 'gator wrestling' show. You couldn't pay me enough to do what that guy is doing.
We payed a bit of extra money and got to get within 3 feet of these gators and feed them chunks of chicken. It was really cool to see how they feed. They only eat out of the sides of their mouths and they can't see anything straight infront of them

At the feeding hole they all try to climb on top of eachother to get closer to the front. So, if you throw your piece of chiken to the back row they all splash around and fight for it!
Here's an example of them eating with the side of their mouth
Here is Shanna throwing a piece of chicken into the crowd. The only that seperated us from them was a little stick that the guide was holding - yet somehow we all felt safe. HA!
How's that for close?

Here's a good part of the group that was on tour. Nate on the left from houston texas (electric guitar), Myself (bass), Shanna (Jareds wife, and Merchandise Girl), Mike from Minnesota was flown into do a promotional video for the band and my good friend Jared (drums)

Everyday we were in florida it rained. Usually just around mid day for 2 or so hours. Except for yesterday - just after we got to feed the gators it poured rain like you would not believe - it basically poured like this late into the evening. Even the airport flooded on their bottom floor and escalators were shut down and flights were delayed! But we got home safe and sound!

Who knows what my next adventure will be! There's word of an October Hawaii tour!

Till Next Time,

Steve

Forida - Tour Days

2007-07-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

ey Guys, Sorry it's been so long. The tour has come to a close, tomorrow we have a day off - going to see some alligators at at an alligator farm then we travel home on thursday.

We've played 16 concerts in 3 days. no, i'm not kidding. By the end of the week we will have played 20 events in 7 days (we're playing 4 services at Northview in Abbotsford this week)

For those of you who don't know, I've been on tour playing bass with Perry and The Poorboys. I've known Perry a long time and we've recently started to play together quite a bit. It's a lot of fun and i get to travel and play with a good band so i enjoy it.

For this particular tour we've been blessed to only have to play one built in venue - the LCMS Lutheran Youth Gathering, It takes place once every 3 years and this year there are 27,000 or so kids at the event. I've never seen so many people in one area in my life. We did do 1 off site concert for 600 kids from kansas, that was a lot of fun. here are some pictures from our busy time here thus far.

This one is for Courts. I found this gecko on the screen meshing around our swimming pool. I florida there are so many creatures, mosquitos, geckos and alligators that out door poolyards have these huge framed in mesh things like this. i'll get a better picture to show you guys tomorrow. The body of this gecko was only about an inch long, maybe a bit less. The thing was just tiny

This is the main auditorium to the youth conference

On the first day of the conference there was a pilot writing messages in the sky! he wrote Got Jesus, God = :) and a few other things - just goes to show how much of a big deal this youth conference is
This is a picture from the night that we did the Kansas District Concert. These kids were really responsive and really got into it.
Our merch table
This is a photo for my Mom, Ricka, and Carolyn. It says MN essentials you do not need in Orlando.
This is a picture of perry with a few of our new fans. If you look closely they have orange buttons on their shirts that say 'kiss me, i'm lutheran' i don't think i understand that. mom? do you get that?

Talk to you guys soon, - also, feel free to comment! It makes me feel like blogging more often if i know someone is reading!

Floriday Day 2

2007-07-28T17:52:00.001-07:00

Once we got to florida we found that we didn't have to play until Sunday. So Jared and Shanna and I decided to spend some time at Universal Orlando . We went on tons of rides and had lots fun. We went to the hardrock cafe for dinner and saw a person with 2 heads. i'm not even kidding. 2 heads, 2 names, one body. Here are some pictures from the day!
I tried to get this guy in the weak spot but he got kind of upset with me
Dad, this ones for you! I know you love the blues
I got to volunteer to sail on a boat for a blue screen demonstration, i'm pretty sure i'm a natural.
Jared was to scared to go on all the big coasters, so shanna and i went on them. This particular one is called the Hulk. It was intense. Another we went on is called Dueling Dragons - a feet free coaster that battles against another coaster. At one point the coasters come within 12 inches oc eachother

This guy would turn his jet ski around and spray people
In one of the twin parks there was a huge lake and they did water sports on them - a big show. It was lots of fun

Gotta go - going to see a movie!

I love courtney nickel.

SK.

Florida Day 1

2007-07-28T17:05:00.001-07:00

So a few days ago i travelled to florida with a few friends to play some music. Jared and Shanna, Perry, Julia, Helen, Emma and Ryan and I all travelled down to Sunny Orlando to play at a huge youth conference - there are 26,000 kids at this event. It's the largest set up i've ever seen. I'll post pictures of that later
On the way to landing there were about 80 or so thunderstorms going on. There were massive thunderstorms everywhere. when we were above the clouds the sky looked amazing! when we landed in the airport it was pouring rain like you wouldn't believe. Jared said it was the worst driving weather he'd ever experienced while driving from the rental car place to the airport.
After we left the airport the sky cleared and this is some of the sights that we got to see
Here is the mirmaid, trust me, you don't want to see whats behind those tree's.
more sky
we're staying in a 5 bedroom villa with a private pool and hottub. its lots of fun, except for nate from texas, he kind of smells funny. but i'll get over it.

Thats it for now.

Airport Posting

2007-07-16T02:52:00.001-07:00

Well, we're on our way home. we're all sitting in the airpot at bologna waiting for our flight. i have a few minutes left of internet i bought so i thought i would give you all some photos and an update.

Please pray for those of our crew who don't travel well,

The two young families, mama toews, courts and ricka, jenny, and maybe some others. also, please pray that i can be awarded an exit row for our next 9hr flight from london to vancouver. check out the shots and see you soon!The other night we went to dinner in a dungeon that we'd ate in before. look at this bruschetta! mmmmmmhm

Prince Ali
look at those big monster lips!

For Megs Joy

2007-07-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

Megs - i only have a sec - but this one is for you. i heard you wanted a photo and i know you always appreciate a real nice haircut. you may want to show this to your boy jared and see if he'd be keen on a few horns.

talk to you all soon!

Steve

last day of camp

2007-07-13T04:18:00.000-07:00

Well its lunch time on the last day of camp. It's going to be a quick lunch because we're having a slideshow for the kids of camp pictures from our two weeks here.One thing we've been noticing here is that they have alot of unique signs. We've been slowing down and taking pictures whenever we see unique ones. i've seen at least 3 different signs for a school zone. this one is my favourite - i love how the kid is sooo excited to go to school that she is pulling her dad across the street - italian elementary school must be quite something! When i return home i'll try to do a big post with all the different signs we've taken pictures of along with the descriptions we made up for them.
Last night we went to a pizza place in Faenza where a good friend of Phil and I lives. His name is Mario, he helped out a lot 2 years ago and his daughter Antonia is one of our translators for this week. In a few weeks she's actually moving to abbotsford to live with the kaspers. It's great that the team gets to know her here - she'll have lots of friends at home now!

I like this picture because phil seems like he wants to eat his pizza so bad but finn stole his fork so he could eat it and becky is also feeding finn some other food. phil is definately getting the shaft.

Ricka got a little fruity cake with a candle on it for her birthday. too bad it wasn't chocolate. we'll have to all go out for some good chocolate icecream when we get home i guess.after dinner we went to a fruitteria - a place that you just order fruit from. it was pretty amazing really - people were ordering just wahtever kind of fruit they wanted - even huge platters of fruit.

a bunch of us just got this slurpee's. In italian they're called "Granite" - menta, limone, or a fruit punch with mostly cherry. sooo good!!Thats pretty much it - pray that we find courtneys kick pedal so it doesn't feel like she's drumming with someone else's underwear. i probably won't post until we get back. but if i do then i do.

i'm only just starting to miss home today. love you mom and dad! see you on monday.

sk

quick post

2007-07-12T05:16:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few quick pics from the last few days. Some events include, going river rafting with some of the kids, courtney and my one year of dating (7/11) and another trip to bertinorrowDad - this ones for you. i know you love a good sail boat.
Steve Schulz - this ones for you. i know you like fast food - i don't think it gets much faster than this.
here are some of the rafts the kids took down the river. only some of the leaders could go because only half of the kids were allowed to go rafting, so i had to hang out back at the lake with the kids.
This is a sign by the river. The river seemed really funny because it was almost dry. apparently when this company is taking rafts out they have to open a dam and let water out. there is only a period of time that the water is high for - the rafters got started a bit late and ended up getting stuck 13 times in the rocks due to low water.
This is the lake that is spent the day at with a few other leaders and the rest of the kids, it was really beautiful
ok, courtney is afraid of a lot of things - but i can't believe she let this butterfly sit there this long.

some shots from bertinorro

I got courtney this watch out here for our one year. its funny to buy an american made watch in italy - turns out i payed probably double what i could've got it for, but none of the italian watches were very cool. oh well. she's worth it.

today the italians put me in goal. great. the outofshape canadian playing a sport that italians seem to rule. not to mention the other team had a 20 yr old goalie who plays that position in a league

the REAL italy

2007-07-09T11:28:00.001-07:00

alrighty - dinner is over and it seems we are still here. i'll take this moment to tell you all about the camera disaster that could've ruined all of my photos. The one major difference between film and digital cameras is that the part of the camera that recieves light on a film camera is the film. this means that each time your camera advances a new frame of film comes out of the film canister which is lined with a soft fabric brush so as to remove any dust that may have gotten on it while it was in the film canister. A Digital camera has a permanent sensor called a CCD . This is a sensitive instrument that recieves the light images it see's while the shutter is open and translates them into digital information. If any dust gets on your CCD it will reveal itself in all your pictures. It's virtually impossible to have a perfectly clean CCD so often you have to remove a few specs later - but its not a big deal. The other day i tried to clean my mirror in my camera (a part of the camera that reflects what you see, into the eye piece) this sits just in front of the CCD. I guess while i was cleaning it a whole bunch of dust ended up on the CCD - this is something that you can only clean with special tools that i don't have.

I ended working with stan to phone a few camera shops to see if they were able to clean it, they all said no. Stan then left and i was left to call people on my own. I had to use my limited italian and pursuade someone to help me, well after many phone calls and hack job italian conversations i found a guy who could do it that evening. So, with the help of 'Jane' our GPS and Elmer, we went to the camera shop downtown and my camera was fixed within 10 minutes. take a look below at the before and after. ISNT THAT UNREAL?!!!

before:

after:

2 posts in one day.

2007-07-09T09:17:00.001-07:00

Ok Viv, you wanted a picture of Lorenzo and Behn, well here is the series.
This photo was taken during roll call, not even 10 minutes after camp started. Lorenzo and his friend Luca just refuse to pay attention, they also only participate in events that they select as 'good enough'
This picture is taken during games time, maybe 30 minutes after roll call, Lorenzo and Luca are in trouble again - running away from the rest of the group - behn chases.
Here is a bit of a nicer moment. Luca and Behn on the way to wide games (later in the day).
Fierce Faces before wide games. I must say, i definitely win this one.

Here are courtney and her friend Ilaria. She speaks english quite well so courtney and her have become good friends. In this picture Ilaria is showing courtney the italian lyrics to a kids song and translating them into english for her.
In florence courtney and i bought matching shoes made in Italy. they are called Superga Shoes. Mine are green and courts are black.

Bye for now!

SK

I hope you missed us!

2007-07-09T03:57:00.001-07:00

On Saturday we got to travel to florence. we took some extremely windy hillis on the way there. It actually took us 2 hours to go about 100 kilometers. Take a look at Jane, our GPS guide and you will see the kind of switchbacks we were dealing with.When we got to Florence we got into a bit of trouble when Phil followed us into the underground parking, however, his vehicle was about 10 centimeters higher than hours. we got some pretty bad damage on the roof and actually had to deflate the tires and load everyone into the van and go out the entrance just to get back out. this lead to some trouble later on (getting the air back into the tires) which we will address afterwards.

Even though the longer than expected drive, and the disaster with the van occured, the view was beautiful.

After our limited amount of time in florence, we had to find a gas station with an airhose. Phil was driving around almost on the rims. We drove to about 8 gas stations, all of which had air, but no hose and no attendant. after many prayers and cries for help we found this ERG station, that had air, as well as food, like you would not believe. this gas station had a full bar in it! It truely was an answer to prayer as people in Phils truck were chanting a chant that jenny wrote 'air and food...air at least! air and food... air at least!' WHAT A VICTORY!

After our stressful travel day on Saturday it was nice to be able to go with the goertzens and our translators up to a park on the hills overlooking forli and have church in a small gazebo. we sang songs and english and then italian, sometimes both languages at the same time!

The park had a small bbq area set up with a public tap - this made for some cool pictures. We had a picnic after lunch and hung out and took some pictures, check 'em out.

After church we went swimming to Bocconi, a nearbye swimming whole which some of you will remember. If you don't, check the blog archives and you'll see some pictures from my last visit here. infact, you will recognize alot of these locations from older pictures.

On Sunday evening after the swimming hole Doogie and I took a walk around the hills surrounding Montecino (the agritourismo at which we are staying) here are some shots from that walk.

Alright guys. Thats it for now. I think that encapsulates our weekend. I'll get that picture of Lorenzo and Behn up as soon as i can. Keep the comments coming! we love hearing back from you!

Lunch is over! Back to Camp!

Day 3 and some news

2007-07-06T04:40:00.001-07:00

Things have been going quite good here! Sorry i haven't posted. Yesterday we went out for pizza and i was unable post. The other night we had a huge storm in town and when we got back to our place we saw this just beyond our mountain - just at the edge of the storm clouds.

One of the wide games we play with the kids is 'canadian squish' where the kids have to run across the field and we try to pick them up. If we get their feet of the ground, they then have to stay and catch the remaining kids with us
Here's robby picking up another leader, Bogden, I love this picture simply because it shows that robbie is clearly as strong as an ox.
Ok ok ok Viv, so ben isn't that much of a slouch, but he sure does smell. here he is running hard during canadian squish.
Bogden playing one of the campers like a "Chitarre"
Italy through Phil's "Eyes"
We've been employing small italians as slaves - getting them to carry gear. In the above picture, robbie was trying to help out Jacapo but he wouldn't let him!

Kevins first bite of italian pizza
The first smile after a first bite of italian pizza
The pizza that john is eating here is called "America" it has hotdogs and french fries on it

After pizza we went out to the town center and took a few shots and walked around

We found this little GPS unit in our rental van. it actually is really effective and helps us to get around. Quite a step up from the ol' map eh Rick?!
So, if i don't post many pictures in the next few days, its because i'm frustrated. if you look at this picture you can see tons of little black dots, these aren't flies or fragments in the air, they are in fact pieces of dust on my CCD (the part of a digital camera that would be equivalent to the film in a film camera).

Needless to say it needs to be cleaned and quick.

SK

Camp Day 2

2007-07-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

So today was a super crazy busy day. We took all 50 daycamp kids on a field trip to a place called 'Sky Park - Parco Aventura' or Adventure Park. it was a totally rad ropes course with three levels 1.5 meters, 6 meters, and 15 meters. Each course has multiple objectives and most end with a big zipline. what is unique about this course is that its self led. you have 2 short ropes attached to your harness and each have a caribeaner (sp) one is your lead and the other is your safety. as you go through the objectives you always ensure that at least one caribeaner is secured at all times. There were only 4 or so staff from the adventure park on the ground watching all the kids so we were also helping out. there were a few frustrating moments coming from the language barrier when we would see a child unhook both caribeaners without being too careful. mama mia!!

All in all no one was hurt and the kids had an awesome blast.

we'll start off with a few random shots, and some of montiCINO, our agritourismo at which we are staying.

This is Montecino, it looks very different from last time. emilio the owner has renovated some of the outside so that the metal stairway is gone, now its nice stone with a new awning. as well as their are 4 new rooms up in the attic. one of them has a 5'x5' or so sky window that opens with hydraulics. super nice!
The stairway

This is the kitchen at Stan and Annamarias where Ricka and Becky are cooking for like 20 or 25 people. its pretty crazy.On the way to the Skypark we kept seeing this signs, warning us of this strange man that takes a stick and stirs up poop on the side of the road.

The bus ride was mental. 1.5 hours driving into the italian mountainside.
Here are the kids getting briefed on safety instructions and such

Italy is bringing out a new side in everyone it seems. Elmer is wearing makeup now.

On the way home we saw a field fire, so we took some pictures

Thats all for now! Make sure you guys comment!

SK

More Photos

2007-07-03T09:49:00.001-07:00

quite possibly one of the funniest pictures i've taken. can you believe that these 2 cleared immigration with no issues?
Wide games
Mikaela
Me and Kiara (kee-ah-rah)
tree monkeys
Jesse is my favourite, i know... i know... we're not supposed to have those. but he is awesome, he and i hung out lots 2 years ago. Today was his last day of camp because he is going to norway with his family. oh well, at least he said goodbye!
even the older kids at the camp get into the actions. except for behn jonstone. this guy is a slouch. (kidding)
stud #1
Stud #2
after lunch all the shops close down and people just relax, so we follow suit at the camp as well. because it is sooo hot we all just take a break, here are some of the girl campers chilling out on the field
This picture is for ashley nickel. she works at a salon in abbotsford with the same name. this place is a tanning studio. go figure, a tanning studio at one of the worlds hottest locations.

We Made It.

2007-07-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

Well, after about 27 hours of straight travel, we made it to Italy. Everyone is here and only a few bags are missing. On the way we were held up on the tarmac @ heathrow for about an hour. this made our 3 hour transfer to gatwick only 2 hours. Not to mention the 1.5 hour bus ride from airport to airport. On the bus I worked with the bus driver, on his personal cell phone, to try to contact british airways to let them know that our group of 16 was indeed on their way. this would mean that when were to arrive we would have 15 minutes to check our luggage and get our buts on the plane. when the bus arrived at gatwick i ran in and found a BA representitive, told her ' I NEED YOUR HELP ' so the 16 of us handbombed our luggage up 2 escalators and we were then rushed to the first class check in to avoid any lines, then rushed through security. However, the Lord was really providing - our flight was delayed an hour and 45 minutes. so we were able to rest for a little bit in the airport before rushing to the gate and getting going.

Camp is going really great today and its exciting to be here. Forgot that there was no protein served for breakfast, so we'll correct this problem for tomorrow - you lose a lot of energy out under this pounding sun.

anyways, lunch break is over. back to camp! here are a few shots!

SK

Oh yeah, - also, some of the kids are pretty troublesome. which of course is to be expected, but if you think of it pray for them, so they will exercise respect and such, particularly a little guy named Simone (sim-oh-ney)

2007-06-07T08:38:00.001-07:00

and MORE

2007-06-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

More May Long

2007-06-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend Cara, my sister, had the idea of making a scrapbook of all the families and friends and keeping it at grandpa and grandmas. So, aimee took pictures of all the families or couples and then we printed them off and each made a scrapbook page with a bible verse that was important to us. Here are some pictures of most of the famililes along with a few others.

Had to throw this one in there - Elijah just loves to sing!

May Long Weekend

2007-06-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

Every May long weekend my entire extended family goes and takes over a resort and spends a few lovely days in the sun together. This year Courtney came and it was a really great time.
Here are some shots.Elijah, one of my sisters twins. They had a birthday yesterday and i didn't phone them. crap.
gotta go.
one night, all of the men went to some stock car races and courtney wanted to come but she got sick, so she sat on the beach and took pictures
Courts and i with hungry breakfast faces.
uncle dennis - yes, his face is stuck like that

Aimee and Eva, Eva is her other twin baby.

STERR shoot

2007-04-04T23:51:00.000-07:00

hey guys, here are another few fun group shots from the STERR photo shoot. Adam is going to edit the ones we like the most and then they'll be ready for print and web and marketting. i'll just post a few goofy ones here for now.

Photo Shoot

2007-04-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, my band STERR is working on a new record and we recently had a photo shoot for the record and promotional material. our photographer is still working on editing all of the pictures but here is just a lil fun one of me when we were goofing around. the photographer is named adam hendrik.

mom, i thought you'd like this one.

I built a shed today.

2007-03-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

recently two band members acquired motorvehicles that really stink up my bedroom and take up space in our practicing area. i proposed the idea of building a shed to store these smelly motor vehicles. we split the costs and i spent about 7 hours today building this. Kris helped me in the morning a bit with picking the stuff up and cutting a few boards and then i went at it for the rest of the day. we'll paint it and put rubber shingles on the roof just so it matches the rest of the house.

cool eh? i told you i could build it ricka.

tired

2007-03-30T03:07:00.000-07:00

I just got home from working a big show. every year i provide the audio / visual for the envision financial 'view' awards. A 600 person staff awards banquet. its a lot of work, it took about 32 man hours to set up all the AV and 12 to strike it all. its now 3:09 am and i'm hyper cause we just ate slurpee's. another cool thing about the awards this time is that i got to use a lot of my friends as techs and teach them more about the lighting and sound and how it all world. tonight Jason, Shane, and Mark were all there. we really had a blast. yes, shane wiebe, canadian idol. ha.

here are just a few shots from the camera on the laptop. i forgot my camera again. i have to get back into the swing of things here with the ol' blog. but ya can't blame a guy for tryin.

they seem pretty dark, oh well.

Photobooth

2007-03-27T23:40:00.000-07:00

hopefully you guys can see these too. these are just a few shots from the power book. there are some funny filters you can put on the pictures to make us look silly. i love the one of ricka. pretty funny.

hopefully i'll get some new shots up here with my real camera sooooon!

2007-03-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

can anyone see this picture? if you can, its of a soundboard i got to use recently, its worth about 750,000. pretty cool eh? anyways, just testing if this picture works

The Place

2007-03-27T23:04:00.000-07:00

Hey kids, i think i've finally figured out this stupid new blogger thing. First off i've had major issues ever since they shutdown hello. then i bought a mac book pro and it didn't help with being able to blog because they don't run picasa for a mac. soooo, i installed a program called parallells (or however you spell it) which allows me to run windows on my mac. Anyways, i've been hilariously busy lately and one of the things 've done is movvvveeeeddd out. i'm living with my band sterr (myspace.com/sterr) and i happen to live in a garage. here are a few quick shots from the garage. i put in a nice burbur (sp) carpet with underlay so its quite nice.

check it out dudes

Copeland Concert

2007-02-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

Hello friends. I hope that you are all doing well. I know i haven't blogged in a while. a long while. i'm sorry that i suck. Lots has been happening lately! i moved out, bought an amazing truck, still enjoying doogies company, and got to go to an amazing concert of one of our favourite bands. not only that but we got to meet the lead singer, Aaron from the band Copeland. eat sleep repeat is the title of their new album. Aaron is an insomniac, so even though it was 8pm it was his morning. here we are making inquisitive faces

2006-11-28T16:06:00.002-08:00

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2006-11-28T16:06:00.000-08:00

SNOWWWWW

2006-11-28T16:05:00.002-08:00

even the trampoline broke! well ok, not really, elmer undid the springs cause otherwise they stretch too much

2006-11-28T16:05:00.001-08:00

white winter blankets

2006-11-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

2006-11-28T16:04:00.002-08:00

Snow Snow Snow. Sunday night i was stranded at doogs' house. Here are a few pictures from the crazy snow storm we got.

2006-11-28T16:04:00.001-08:00

Elmer, what a fierce oponent!

2006-11-28T16:04:00.000-08:00

2006-11-28T16:03:00.001-08:00

Thats her specialty move

2006-11-28T16:03:00.000-08:00

For those of you who know us, Doogie and i take our ping pong pretty seriously. After returning last summer from Tai Pai Majong (an international, invitation only ping pong tournament held in ping nang China) we haven't been training much. Well, November 23 was the first day that we were back in the sadle training for Tai Pai Majong 2007. We're pretty excited. Our training partners were doogs' parents - elmer and ricka.

2006-11-28T15:52:00.000-08:00

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The Fray

2006-11-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

The roof of the paramount

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2006-11-28T15:50:00.000-08:00

The Paramount Theatre. A great big classy venue. Doogs and i will head down there on december 8th to see comedian Brian Regan. oh, for those of you who don't know, doogs is courtney.

2006-11-28T15:49:00.000-08:00

November 19. enroute to seattle. Here are some pics from a trip that courtney and I took down to seattle with some friends. We went to see a band called the Fray. At the concert a band called the Damnwells opened. I felt they really did a superb job. Much more enjoyable than the Fray.

2006-11-22T01:11:00.000-08:00

the blue beast has served me well. amazingly well for many years. i'm grateful for its kind and generous service to me. however, tonight was just another reminder that it may just be time to part ways. if anyone out there has a few thousand dollars they'd like to contribute to a downpayment on a lease of a new truck or something, that would be great.

leave a light on for me...i'll be home soon.

2006-11-22T00:13:00.000-08:00

leave a light on for me...i'll be home soon.

wow. where do i start... maybe first i will tell you a little bit about my idea that i had this evening. most days i like to see doogs and spend a little time together - mostly just debrief our days and talk a bit, the usual. tonight she was busy practicing for a worship gig she has this weekend (she's a drummer, and a great one at that). so i took some time for myself and thought i would follow some words of encouragement a friend told me a day or two ago about getting back behind my camera and taking some pictures. I had planned a photo shoot called 'leave a light on' where i would take a power inverter (converts a cigarette lighter in the car into a normal AC outlet) and a lamp and go into weird parts of town and take a picture of the lamp in its setting.

i had planned to go out after 9 or 10 when it was dark and miserable and take the lamp to places where light didn't normally expose itself after dark. I did a test run on my lawn to make sure the inverter and extension cord worked. this is that shot. what happened from here on out is a pretty cool story, so get ready.

doogs called at about 930 and asked if i could come over for a bit to look at some of her grad pictures - no problem. so i packed up my camera stuff and started heading over there with the intention of going out to take some photo's afterwards.

on my way over to her place (she lives about 10 or so minutes away from me) i was reminded that earlier in the day a problem with my vehicle flared up and i should call a friend - i'll tell you about that conversation in a minute - first i'll tell you about the problem with the vehicle - my beautiful 1993 plymouth voyageur - what a precious project that car is...

as many of you may know, abbotsford has been getting a ton of rain lately. some areas of town have drainage systems from the stoneage that clog up and cause massive puddles on the roads. some of these areas are on our 'main drag' this puddle i encountered today happened to be on 'south fraser highway' (not many people know that its actually a "highway" not just a "way"). as most young guys (and old, for that matter) like to do, i decided to drive through this big puddle and make a big splash! sure enough, the splash was exellent! i was filled with excitement as i got to watch the water pour down my windshield and windows. immediately after my adolescent escapade i realized that my power steering had completely stopped working. because of my vast mechanical knowledge i decided it had stopped functioning soley because of a little water that had gotten into the power steering mechanism and after being parked at home for a while it would fix itself. well - when i jumped into the car into my way to doogs' house - like i said above - i was reminded that it wasn't fixed... i had to phone jason, my mechanic friend (its funny how its not what you know, but who you know).

i called jason as i was about half way to her house. here's a brief excerpt from our conversation

"Hello"

"Jason! my mechanical friend, hows it going"

"good whats up"

"well, i drove through a massive puddle today and my power steering stopped working, it just needs to dry out right?"

"i've never heard of it 'needing to dry out.' it sounds to me like your belt probably popped off"

-balls. even though i'm car retarded - i did know that this belt is what makes the car work - it turns the alternator which feeds the battery power to keep crucial things running and recharging your battery - it also propels the fan and keeps your car cool - nor is it cheap to repair or easy to fix...-

"do you think so? how could i tell if thats it"

"well if it was your belt, you'd probably have some sort of light on your information center telling you so, or to check. are there any warning lights there?"

"no man, totally normal - are you sure it couldn't be just a 'dry off' kind of fix"

"hmm"

-10 or so seconds later-

"dude, my dash just lit up like a christmas tree"

"what does it say"

"check gauges!"

"well look at your gauges, what is your heat gauge at"

"crap man! its totally maxed! what do i do?"

"turn your heater on to full blast, and pull over"

"ok, -pause- ok its on full blast, but its hardly blowing... woa, more warnings, now my lights are dimming"

"your battery is running out of power - your belt must have come off"

BALLS! stranded now. thank goodness for cell phones eh?

jason walked me through a few more steps before i could hear my fuel pump choking, my battery was nearly dead. so i shut the car off.

i decided to call elmer - doogies dad. he knows a little bit about everything. i told him it was the belt and that we could probably put it back on if he brought some tools and a light (cause that is what jason told me). i then phoned jasons old shop (a wonderful auto place that is open till 12 or 1 on west railway in abbotsford). i talked to a guy there who kind of owed me a favour. i asked him if this was something elmer and i could do on the side of the road. buttttt - due to my bigger engine the right front wheel would have to come off to provide access. - not to mention, there was no diagram under the hood on how to put the belt back on... it wasn't a feasible option for a makeshift side of the road repair...

by this time elmer had arrived and we talked about towing options. i looked in my insurance and realized that i have 'roadside plus' which covers me for up to 50 dollars for a tow, 2 times a year. i've never used it before, so that was cool - i called a tow company to come and asked how much, the answering service couldn't give me an estimate, so i just hoped that it would be near 50 bucks or less. she said and i quote "the driver will be there really soon!" how soon is that i asked "45 minutes" HA! what a joke. so elmer and i got to spend nearly an hour together waiting in the warmth of his oldschool wood panel station wagon. it was actually really fun, we talked about lots of stuff and just chilled (thanks elmer - i enjoyed that). after 45 minutes of waiting, i called the tow company again, "let me call the driver and ask.... pause..... pause.... he'll be there in 10 minutes or less"

by this time its almost 11 pm. sure enough, about five minutes past the phone call a tow truck was pulling up. but it was for the wrong company! so a bit more waiting and finally the truck destined for the rendevous with my blue beast had arrived. within about 2 minutes my van was up on its hind legs and ready to go. elmer and i parted ways and the tow truck driver took me to the latenight shop.

on the drive i asked the driver how much it would cost - he thought it would be about 58 bucks. i asked him if we could do 50 even and he sounded hesitant. oh well, whats 8 bucks to get your car towed. we were talking about the pros and cons of working lateshifts and all that stuff. then he asked 'what time did you call in?' i told him just after 10. he flipped out! the dispatch lady never called him until i called back! he showed me on his cell phone the time he got the call - 10:56 pm. so he actually came really fast once he got the call. he apologized many times and only charged me for a 1km tow (in actuality it was 4.6 kms) and it came to a total of $50.45

i arrived at the shop at about 11:15. i asked how much it would cost to put the belt back on. "oh, we'll work something out"... ok. i was just happy that it was going to be an easy fix and that the shop was open at this hour. the shop was swamped with repairs and i was sure they'd tell me it would be ready tomorrow. but no, they put me in front of all the other repairs and pulled my beast into the shop. pulled out the belt to find that in the kafuffle the belt had warped and cracked. BALLS. 'how much to get a new belt, and when can you get one from lordco' i asked... 'well, we'll work it out. one second' the guy said. he came back a few minutes later with a brand new belt that was for my engine. 'how much is that one?' - 'we'll work it out'

within a matter of minutes, literally 15 or so - the job was done. the wheel pulled off, the hatch opened, the new belt put on (after printing a diagram from the internet) hatch put back on and the wheel replaced again.

'what do i owe ya'

'nothing'

it's funny how God decides to put people in place to help you out right when you need it.

needless to say, i didn't get a chance to go and take the 'leave a light on' picture series. just this one test photo. but i think the story speaks a lot too.

thoughts? comments?

2006-11-15T14:26:00.000-08:00

2006-11-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

I can't tell you guys how many times i've tried to blog some pictures. i'll select a bunch in picasa and then get ready to do it and i just run out of time, or then i'll close picasa by accident and the ones i had chosen previously will not be selected any more. anyways, i obviously didn't take these but this guy did at one of our shows - his name is Paul Hammill. i thought he did some cool shots. here are two of them.

2006-10-13T13:30:00.001-07:00

the weird black things around the bottom of the picture are my eye lashes. they sure look strange.

2006-10-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

So i payed a guy 100 bucks today to tell me that i need glasses. it's true. but, i also got these cool pictures taken of the inside of my eye! i convinced them to email them to me. that center point where all the veins are running to is where all the optical nerves exit your eye and head out to your brain. millions of them! the dark smudgy part is the part of your eye where most of your optical receptors are. there are as many receptors in that part of the eye as there are in entire eye put together. i guess its kind of like the milky way. so, i have a picture of the in side of my left eye and my right. this is my left, the problematic one that needs lenses, the other one is basically fine. cool eh!?

2006-10-11T12:27:00.003-07:00

we're a bit of a crazy bunch...

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8... finalyl got it right! no blanket on grandma, everyone looking.. perfect.

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here is the evolution of a small family photo. i was just setting up the tripod checking the lighting, and looking back at the photos its pretty funny because people show up in the photos kind of one by one, t hen all of a sudden everyone is there...its funny.

2006-10-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

this is doogs. i like her yup.

2006-10-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

the originals, these are my uncles and aunt, and my grand parents. merv and dennis are holding hands, who would''ve thought you'd see that on the internet. oh silly brothers.

2006-10-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

Here we are!! this is the crew, all 50 or so of us!

2006-10-11T12:12:00.001-07:00

lil Mack

2006-10-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

This is malachai, my cousin ben who is about 6 months younger then me made this baby with his wife... they make good babies.

2006-10-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Lance and Elijah

2006-10-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

i like this picture because it looks kind of oldschool, just a random candid.

2006-10-11T12:03:00.002-07:00

Aimee and Elijah? i'm not sure...

2006-10-11T12:03:00.001-07:00

This is Eva and brother in law Lance

2006-10-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

This is my beautiful sister aimee and my niece Eva. they're both gorgeous.

2006-10-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

there's something about the love of a family that really bids people together. this is my brother steve, giving my mom a hug. steve joined our family when he was 16. i was 11. he's been a part of our family ever since. i always prayed for a younger brother, then i got an older one. thanksgiving this year has really reminded me just how amazing my family is. i love you man.