Promotional Video

This is a video I made for the Triple L Band using Adobe Premiere Elements. If you want to see it bigger, click on the button to view my photoshop gallery. Enjoy!

Could it be . . . Global Warming?!!

Just two weeks ago, at the beginning of January, the temperatures dipped to -33F (well, actually, fifty-five below zero was the predicted windchill). Brrrrr . . . that was cold. Even for us Minnesotans. As you can see, I had to dress very warmly if I wanted to be outside at all - any less than this, and I most surely would have frozen stiff. Yes, I know I look like an Eskimo, but in spite of all those layers I still got icicles on my eyelashes. (by the way - for you southerners, those are black snow bibs I'm wearing, and the thing around my face is called a scarf - we don't wear them for fashion up here)

But then, this week, the weather surprisingly warmed up to THIRTY DEGREES ABOVE ZERO!!!!! My mom nearly fainted just hearing that the temp was going to be over 0. We prepared for this heat wave by getting out all our summer clothing and buying lemonade. We even set up our pool (but when we filled it up, the water froze - funny, because I thought water froze at ten degrees in MN . . . guess I was wrong) Yeah, I know there's still snow on the ground, but who cares? It's global warming in action!!

Christmas and New Years

This year's Christmas . . . excuse me . . . LAST year's Christmas (I'm still getting used to the thought of it being a new year!) was a lot like other years to us. We love to just relax and spend time together as a family. :-) The funny thing was, most families had to do that this year (and really enjoyed it), because we had bad weather on Christmas day!! We got over 12 inches of snow, it was very cold, and the roads were terrible! But we had fun, all snug inside our house with the wood stove - we ate leftovers, watched movies, and played with our Christmas presents! :-)

On Christmas Eve we had ham, mashed potatoes, jello and all kinds of other good food.

After supper, we read the Christmas story. Dad read out of the Bible, and Lydia and a couple others read some children's story books we had.

We opened presents next - here's Ethan with his "new" train set (don't tell him we got it at a garage sale for 50 cents). :-)

Here's a couple pictures of our winter wonderland.

On New Year's Eve we had our friends the S. family over. We had a lot of fun together - eating, talking, eating, playing Pit, eating, playing outside, eating, watching Tim Hawkins (a Christian comedian) and . . . eating!! :-) My friend Andrea and I did a photo shoot in my room. That sure was a blast!! :-)

On New Year's Day we went to the Haining family's house, for the fourth year in a row. Sadly, neither mom nor I took any pictures . . . so you'll have to content yourself with me just telling you that we had a great time. :-) We ate, jammed, ate, talked, ate, played games, and . . . did I mention we ate these scrumptious pop overs!? YUM!!!

May you all have a happy and blessed new year!!

Oh, and, by the way, the Botkin family recently made a new documentary called Homeschool Dropouts. I haven't seen it yet, but it looks really good! You can go to Jasmine Bauchum's blog to enter a giveaway, or go to the product page to find out more about the movie.

New Header

A big thank you goes to Andrew Bartlett for designing my new header! :-) Don't you think he did a great job? If you want him to do one for you too, you can contact him at andrew@bartlettuniversity.com.

Christmas and New Year's update coming soon . . .

Video Contest Entry

Just today we entered a video for the ChristianFilmmakers.org 12-hour contest. That's right - we had to film, edit, and download the whole thing in just 12 hours. You might think that's pretty easy (since it IS only a 1 minute movie!!) but when you have a time crunch of only a few hours when everybody is available . . . it can get pretty hectic!

Well, I hope you enjoy this - I am still so new at filmmaking, and I have a lot to learn, but this was a good experience for our whole family and we had fun getting it done! :-)

Recording a CD . . .

. . . is such an adventure!! It's a lot of work - as you're preparing you say "I'll NEVER do this again!" but then when you're finally finished, you realize it wasn't so bad. :-) It's kinda fun being in a recording studio, but it can get exhausting after a while, and - for a perfectionist like me - sometimes frustrating! But overall it went well and Martin (who recorded, mixed, and mastered for us) was great to work with.

It took us four evenings to complete the CD - three of those I recorded straight for about 4 hours, and the last one we worked on mixing. Usually I played through a song once or twice, and then went back and fixed the measures where I had made a mistake. I got 6 of the easiest songs done first, and saved my two hardest for the third night. The first one I did that evening was Carol of the Bells . . . and I didn't make ONE mistake!!!! It was pretty amazing to see God at work - the song I was probably dreading the most He helped me get through perfectly. When you're recording, and you get through a difficult piece without having to re-do anything . . . you just know it's God! :-) So I was able to get four songs done that night, instead of the usual three. It saved us a whole night of recording!

Here's a picture of me and the harp.

And here's one of Caleb with his fiddle - we had three different kinds of microphones (but you can't see them all in this picture), to create a perfect mixture of sounds.

Here's Martin editing the songs - he had quite the system, and he did a very professional job!

You can listen to a sample of my CD on my website. This is your last chance to order a CD if you want one before Christmas!! :-)

Wow! It's a Heat Wave (20 degrees above zero)!

We Love Winter

60 above zero: Floridians turn on the heat. Minnesotans plant gardens.

50 above zero: Californians shiver uncontrollably. People are sunbathing in Duluth.

40 above zero: Import cars won’t start. Minnesotans drive with the sunroof open.

32 above zero: Distilled water freezes. The water in Bemidji gets thicker.

20 above zero: New Mexicans don long johns, parkas and wool hats & mittens. Minnesotans throw on a flannel shirt.

15 above zero: New York landlords finally turn on the heat. People in Minnesota have one last cookout before it gets cold.

Zero: People in Miami fly south. Minnesotans close the windows.

10 below zero: Californians head to Mexico. Minnesotans dig their winter coats out of storage..

25 below zero: Hollywood disintegrates. Girl Scouts in Minnesota still selling cookies door to door.

40 below zero: Washington, D.C. runs out of hot air. People in Minnesota let their dogs sleep indoors.

100 below zero: Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Minnesotans get upset because the mini-van won’t start.

460 below zero: ALL atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale). People in Minnesota can be heard to say, “Cold ’nuff fer ya?”

500 below zero: Everything freezes over. Minnesota public schools open 2 hours late.