New Year’s Eve Hike

You’ve heard of people hugging trees, but have you ever seen a tree hug a person?

Sandy Mines

This video isn't 100% complete, but I wanted to post it before 2012!

Portland Fancy–Christmas Ball 2011

Previously referred to as the Spanish Circle.

Filmed at the 18th Annual Christmas Ball hosted by CHEF-MO. Called by Jeremy Suermann on December 10, 2011 at St. Francis Xavier Church's Ballroom.

A Blast from the Past

The Duke of Kent’s Waltz from the Conference Ball way back in June.

Duke of Kent’s Waltz-Christmas Ball 2011

   We danced the Duke of Kent's Waltz twice at this year's ball and it was our closing dance.  Filmed at the 18th Annual Christmas Ball hosted by CHEF-MO. Called by Jeremy Suermann on December 10, 2011 at St. Francis Xavier Church's Ballroom.

  By the way…

 

 

…Merry Christmas!

 

For fun why not click the snowflake on the player above to watch the dance amidst falling snow?

Grand March–Christmas Ball 2011

The opening dance to the Christmas Ball, the Grand March. You can usually get a quick glance of everyone who attended and you can see all of the great costumes.
Filmed at the 18th Annual Christmas Ball hosted by CHEF-MO. Called by Jeremy Suermann on December 10, 2011 at St. Francis Xavier Church's Ballroom.

Climbing IN a Tree–Dec 16

Dec 16 2011

Back from their adventure...

…details to follow.

Circassian Circle-Christmas Ball 2011

Civil War Ball Intro

I created this clip as an intro to the Civil War Ball videos I'll be posting this week. Stay tuned!
Filmed on Saturday, December 10, 2011 at St. Francis Xavier Church's Ballroom
Dances called by Jeremy Suermann. Filmed and edited by Andrew Wong.

I will be posting videos from Saturday night’s ball very soon!  Creating this intro took more time than it should have (or longer than I expected it would have), as I was hoping to already have a few of clips from the ball posted.  However, it’ll be a month before I have any new dancing material to edit, so I may as well take my time .

Lydia’s “Gotcha” Day–3 Years

   Three years ago today, we brought home a fluffy 2.5 pound puppy into our home and we named her Lydia.  Since then she’s added a lot into our family and we all love her probably more than we care to admit.

 

 

 

 

 

In the car, after picking Lydia up from the breeder

Duke of Kent’s Waltz–Oct 21 2011

Flowers of Edinburgh–Oct 21 2011

Scottish–October 21, 2011

  Well, the CHEFMO Civil War is this Saturday, so we’re busy dusting off of dancin’ shoes!

  Here are both groups from October 21’s Scottish dance.  I was hand holding the camera so the footage is a bit scattered, but it saved me a lot of time in editing.

70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

Arch at Sunset

Wow, what a wonderful view of the arch during a sunset!

Dance-Hull’s Victory Oct 21 11

Hull’s Victory is still my favorite dance.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Dance-Listen to the Mockingbird (Nov 11 11)

Dance-Doo-da! (Nov 11 11)

    Well, I’m not sure if this is the proper name of the dance or if this is how you would spell it so leave a comment if you’re familiar with it.

Dance-Little Ramsay Divey (Oct 21 11)

Dance-Patty Cake Polka (Nov 11 11)

Dance-Virginia Reel & Closing Dance (Nov 11 11)

Dance–Scottish (Nov 11 11)

Hinky Dinky Parlez Vou

     It looks like a lot of the sets were left in the dust, so I was thankful that in the set near the camera there were a few experienced folks.

   Note: As I had said to Meghan in one of my comments, I don’t think that my footage from the square dance turned out too well.  If I knew ahead of time what dances we’d be doing and in what order I could place the cameras in good places, but usually it’s either a hit or a miss.  I’d also forgotten to bring my tripod so I wasn’t able to get the camera shot from above.

Dance - Black Nag

Dance–Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot (Pride & Prejudice)

    Woo hoo! I’ve finally got a hold of my dance footage from the dance lesson Oct. 21!  It’s hard to believe it’s been 3 weeks that I have been dying to see this footage.

      After we had done our closing dance a few of the folks got together to dance Mr. Beveridges Maggot from Pride and Prejudice.  When you see the shot from above you’ve got to love all of the stuff that flies back and forth at the bottom of the screen!

Dance-Circassian Circle (Nov 11 11)

Circassian Circle-This dance is always a favorite and it was a good opening to our last dance this fall before the Christmas ball.  Dance is called by John Ramsey.
Filmed by Andrew Wong on November 11, 2011.

Their First Deer!

Oh, Noah Got a Deer Too!

Benjamin Got His First Deer!

   Today’s the first day of the youth firearms deer season, so Benjamin and Noah went hunting this morning.  We got a call this morning that Ben had gotten a deer!

boy like me, Man Like You - 20,000 Views

   Well, I thought I ‘d repost this video we made from more than 4 years ago.  It has 20,000 views on YouTube which really isn’t that many views for YouTube, but when we we were out in the yard filming it never would’ve entered our heads that thousands would watch it online.

    Here’s what I wrote when I posted this on the blog July 25, 2007:

boy like me, Man like You is one of the very first videos we made; I was 12. This song is from Rich Mullins and is a favorite of ours. Throughout this video you'll see moving shots where the camera is "rolling." We don't own a dolly so we improvised with a wagon.
While I held the camera Benjamin pulled me around the yard. Oh the life of a cameraman!
As you'll see the ride was pretty bumpy!
(No, Noah isn't related to Rich Mullins.)

Way To Go CARDS!!!

2011 World Champions

 

What a history making season they had this year and in last night’s amazing game last night.  I was very impressed by the Ranger’s defensive fielding skills, but we came through at the end to get our 11th World Series title!

Circassian Circles

   The video below shows two different versions of this very fun dance-the first is from last night and the second is from one of the dance practices this spring.

 

   I would liked to of had a few of last night’s videos posted, but I acted like an imbecile on the way home last night.  On the way home we dropped our van off at the repair shop and I left my SD card with the close up footage of the dance (and also my audio source.)  Therefore, it may be a few days or a week before I’ll be able to get my card-I guess it depends on how long it’ll be before the car’s repaired.

    From what I saw of the footage last night it looks like these camera angles will turn out very well.  I had a little more time this week to get everything setup to my liking.

Some Outdoor Fun

   This tree was approx. 15 feet around at its base!

Scuba Diving

 

   This evening we had the fantastic opportunity to try out scuba diving at a special lesson here in St. Louis!

   Our Mom was curious to know whether we’d like scuba diving  and might want to peruse being certified and getting some gear.

   The teacher was great and he gave a quick talk in the classroom before we hopped in their salt water pool.  There were only us and one other family in the class, so we were able to ask any questions we might have.

   Taking our first breath into the regulator underwater was little unnerving, I could easily see how someone who was claustrophobic could freak out, but we did our testing in 4ft of water so if there was a problem we could stand up.

   Then we learned a few other skills like learning how to take out the regulator, clearing it and breathing out of it again and we also learned how to clear our masks of water…while underwater. 

   After we had tried doing these things in the shallow water we put on our flippers and swam into the deeper end of the pool that was 10ft deep.  We had to be careful not to descend too quickly without adjusting the pressure in our ears to the pressure of the water.  It was a bit of a problem with me at first, but we got used to the higher pressure and began a game of catch with water torpedoes.  It was really neat to be able to stay underwater for such a long period of time and I wish that I would’ve had a waterproof camera with me.

    We all had on a Buoyancy Control Device (BCD) that is an awesome vest that can fill up with air until it’s puffed up very large and can then be deflated…I wonder if you could fill them up with helium?

    We were in the water for about two hours and we repeatedly tested various diving skills and learning to use the flippers alone for swimming.   Our instructor was very thorough and we talked with him before we left about how we could pursue diving and what equipment would be necessary.

   This was a fantastic opportunity and my brothers and I had a great time!

Replacing Kate’s Wiper Motor

Still no hair cut!

   It’s a good thing we replaced the motor last night because this morning it rained on the way to work.

Yes, More Dancing Videos II

 

Flowers of Edinburgh

(Thanks for the title Luke, I never would’ve remembered it)

    It was a real bummer that I didn’t have my second camera setup from above for this dance.  A girl’s head blocks this camera’s view and it would’ve been neat to see the figure eights from above (like in Mr. Ramsey’s video below.)

Duke of Kent’s Waltz

   One of our favorite dances…this version isn’t particularly the most elegant .

Jefferson & Liberty

   This dance is growing on me .  I originally didn’t care for it because the moves didn’t seem as unique as some of the other dances.

The Scottish

   The Scottish is another dance we did last Friday night.  This is a very fast, exhausting, long, twirling, polka-ing dance that also happens to be a lot of fun.  I haven’t really learned it yet, but I went ahead and tried it in the second dance.  The group was too big to have everyone polkaing [oh, that’s actually a word?  Spell Check doesn’t have a problem with it.], so we were split in half and did the dance twice.

First Dance

 

Second Dance

 

  Note: One of my cameras died towards the end of the second dance.

    Oct 7 2011

Four Wheelers: Both Fun & Useful

(More fun than useful)

 

Noah comes up with a lot of ideas.  Some work and some…don’t.

   In this video Noah uses his leaf blower to clear the road of leaves using the four wheeler.  Aaron’s the one driving. They also tried getting some air on a steep hill.

Lydia’s [So Big] 3rd Birthday!

   I’ve decorated the blog to celebrate Lydia’s 3rd birthday!  We call Lydia by the many names used in the background.

    Lydia has brought a lot of joy into our family during the past few years and she’s been a fantastic…dog?

Taken a few minutes after we picked Lydia up from the breeder. 

She only weighed 2 pounds.

Gideon & Lydia made friends (despite the 78 pounds of differences from one another.) 

This photo was taken just 4 days after we brought Lydia home, but they were already exchanging secrets.

Christmas Day

Four Months Old

Six Months Old

And there are many, many more photos.  Between everyone’s cameras I’m sure I could come up with 1033 photos to represent each day we’ve had Lydia!

Arcadia Valley

 

    We drove south today to visit Taum Sauk Park and to hike a trail that led to the highest point in Missouri.

    The foliage was absolutely gorgeous along the windy two lane roads we drove as we got lost tried to find the park.  We drove to lookout tower first and got an amazing view of Missouri’s wooded rolling hills.  Then we took a short hike to the highest point in Missouri which is 1,772 feet above sea level.  We then had a picnic in a lookout area where we could see hills up to 15 miles away. 

    This area used to be a large mining operation-some of these hills were known to be nearly 100% iron ore and folks from the St. Louis area would take the train to “the valley” for a nice break from the city.  Scientists from all over the world would also come here to visit to see the mining operations.

Fox

   Benjamin found this fox in our backyard-which in its self is a rarity, so to catch it on film was very exciting.

Yes, More Dancing Videos!

  We got to the dance a little late yesterday, so I don’t have all of the dances on video, however I did bring two camcorders to see if having more than one shot would turn out or not.  With two different angles I was able to cut around some mistakes, add some camera movement and show off the particular highlights of each dance.
    Let me know your thoughts about these new videos or and if you found the cutting back and forth between shots distracting
Juice of Barley
     This was my family’s first time doing this dance and it ended up being a pretty fast moving dance that kept you on your toes (or if you want to be technical the balls of your feet.)  There is only just enough time to do the moves and no more, so you have to think ahead about your next move.  Speaking of ahead….you’ve got to love how on-beat we all are when we clap!  I’ll have to count out the beats next time to make sure that I clap at the right time.



Hull’s Victory
       This is now officially one of-if not my most-favorite dance IF you are a #1 couple.  The moves are fairly unique to this dance (I mean of the dances in my limited repertoire) and it’s very fast moving with no time for a break.  Very, very unfortunately I was not a #1 couple so I almost fell asleep this dance, but it was fun to watch others do it.

Virginia Reel
      Jeremy did mess up one time when he skipped the do-se-do, so a few of the groups are one step ahead of the others.

Computer Back Up!

It's been down for a few days and it feels great to have it running again. I'm looking forward to posting a few new things on this blog.

Courageous

    We’ve watched the newest Sherwood Pictures film, Courageous, in theatres a couple of times since it came out last Friday.  It’s a fantastic movie about how important fatherhood is to a child’s future.
     They did a fantastic job of showing how the root of much criminal activity is fatherlessness, but they take it a step farther and illustrate how a Christian father takes the wheel and guides his family.   They covered so many topics like dating, unemployment, death and the grieving process, forgiving your failed father, integrity in the workplace, drugs and crime, friendship, divorce, etc.
     There were also a lot of laughs in this films-even more laughs than their past films and there are also some times when it’s great to have tissues nearby.
      I think that this movie was absolutely fantastic, but it also has a significance to me when I look at what I’ve experienced in the last few years.   While my Dad was out of work for months on end we really had to trust God for provision that was shown in the film when their house is on the line.  In the film one of the main characters experiences the tragic death of a family member and how he struggles with regrets and lost visions of the future.  Maybe to those who haven’t experienced much death the grieving may have seemed a bit odd, but this is the process that we had to go through when our Dad died last fall.  Forgiving a failed father was also a key lesson to not use fatherlessness as a crutch for mediocrity.
  Anyways, it’s a great movie and I highly recommend seeing this film as soon as you can!

Can Anyone Say, “Time for a Haircut?”

   I also need to get my glasses bent back into shape after last week’s football.

Back Bathroom Flooring

    These photos were taken just a couple of hours after the grout was placed so it dried out lighter than this and we’ve been able to clean up the excess grout.

Mike Riddle

This evening we listened to a few lectures given by Mike Riddle from Answers in Genesis.  His talks were about apologetics and about addressing the most common challenges to the infallibility of God’s Word and to a literal 6 day Creation week.  Mike Riddle has always been one of our favorite AiG speakers and he’s a lot of fun to listen to.
   My brothers and I learned some new things about the Carbon 14 dating and how the evidence does not support the evolutionary theory, but actually dates the world to be less than 30,000 years old.
    He also spoke about the gap theory and how Christians are willing to compromise their faith to squeeze their evolutionary ideas into the Bible.  However, good Bible hermeneutics cannot allow for a “gap” of time between Gen. 1:1 and Gen. 1:2.

¹In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
²And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Among other things we learned that the word “and” in verse 2 is “waw” in the Hebrew and is used to link immediate sequences of events.

Great Plains Rat Snake

   Benjamin and Noah found this snake on our road yesterday evening and Benjamin identified it as at a Great Plains Rat Snake which is a type of snake that we had never seen in our area.

Just FYI-it’s not poisonous.

Lydia

Time for a Fire!

   For the past couple of weeks I’ve been totally getting into the Fall mood (if not into the Winter mood.)  As soon as we had temperatures in the 40s at nights I’ve been wanting to have a roaring fire in the fireplace with some Christmas music in the back ground.

   Well, nobody has really been on the band wagon, but thanks to me they are humming the Christmas songs I’ve been playing throughout the house .

   However, tonight we were planning on making a camp fire outside and cooking some hot dogs over the fire, but it rained all day so we built a fire in the fireplace instead.  Mom made some chili and we had some Chili dogs for dinner.  We could cook our hot dogs in the fire from our dinner table.  Naturally we had s’mores for dessert.

    For those who are worried about my mental health:   Doubtless one reason I’ve been wanting is because we’ve been on a big Sherlock Holmes kick for the past few weeks.  In the movies it seems there is always a nice warm fire in 221B Baker St. that combats the chilling cold and damp fog of the London nights.

   Also, Christmas music really makes Christmas for me.  I love the classic tunes I’ve heard for so long.  I especially like the old hymns that (for some reason) are only sung at Christmas time, but can be heard while walking through Wal-Mart.