From Jamie

Today after church, before our potluck, our youth group had a car wash to raise money for www.kidslake.org . They were able to raise $190 that will go toward helping an HIV positive child's adoption through fromhivtohome.org/!

Here's Mariah making a face for the camera.
Megan's pose while rinsing a car.
Megan and Christopher making sure the car is good and dry. Don't want any spots!
Carli wondering what to do next?Thank you to everyone who donated and received a somewhat clean car:).

More Football

Another collection of pictures from a weekend of football.

We didn't get the facemask call on this one. Jamie thought I should have shown the ref the picture on the camera screen.

Lynden's team had a...big kid. Someone said he was 6-2 255. Pretty big for an 11 year old. He was bigger than all the refs.

Here Kobe is going up against the big kid. His hands are almost bigger than Kobe.


And onto Colton's game.

Bank Crisis

It is a long video, but well worth your time to watch.

Tennis

Well, we weren't really playing tennis, but we were using a tennis ball. Last week our neighbor at work had a large crate full of dry ice that carbon fiber was delivered packed with. We had a little fun at the office playing with the ice. So after telling some of the stories Sunday night at my nephews birthday party, we decided to run and grab some more to run additional tests.

After the typical dry ice in the plastic bottle tests Royce and John decided to play McGyver and see what else they could come up with. Their cannon worked better than I thought it would. It would shoot tennis balls up far enough that we lost them in the sky a few times (not literally, or Jeanna would have been mad at us). It started getting late towards the end so the last video is a little dark. Jamie thinks they should only sell dry ice to women...

Football weekend

It's September now, which means weekends are spent at the football field. Two weeks ago I brought my camera to the Nooksack varsity game but most of the pictures turned out a little dark. The next day Scott and family came to Colton's game in Ferndale and he brought his wheel barrel of lenses. After a short camera lesson and touch of lens envy, Jamie and I headed to Seattle Friday to rent one lens and buy a second. I (with the help of Jamie and Jennifer P.) took about 400 pictures at the NV vs. Concrete game on Friday night. We added about 350 more pictures at Kobe and Colton's games Saturday. the rental lens (300mm F2.8) took some great pictures Friday night. I split the pictures between that lens and my new lens on Saturday (70-200mm F2.8). I learned quite a bit about what not to do, but still was able to snap a few good pictures.

We'll start with Colton's game on Saturday morning. They played at Mt. Baker against a Bellingham team.

Here Colton is staring down his opponent (he's the one just to the right of #90).

Here he's about to unload on #75. The kid never knew what hit him.

After a few plays, nobody even wanted to go up against him. Here everyone is shying away from him. Actually, about halfway through the second quarter he came off the field and was motioning for his mom. Jamie ran him over his water bottle. He told her he didn't need a drink, he just wanted to know where we were going shopping for his cousin's bday present after the game and if he could get a new Star Wars action figure.

I like the lack of concern by 34 and 98 on this play. Maybe they were going shopping later too.

This play we fumbled the snap. The LB for the other team is trying his hardest to get the ball but there were a few people in the way.

Then came Kobe's game. They played against a Lummi team that was HUGE. They are supposed to be in 6th grade but I'm pretty sure I saw most of them drive to the game. Kobe plays center and has a couple kids on the line that are smaller than him. Most of the Lummi line must have been about 200 lbs. On this play I think #24 was telling the QB he was on his own.

It's tough to hold a guy back that weighs twice as much as you.

Many of the Lummi runs looked like this. 4 or 5 guys hanging on the RB with the rest of the team squished somewhere behind him. Despite the size difference, and Nooksack missing their best player, they only lost by one score. They were a questionable clipping penalty away from tying the game.

The varsity had better luck against Concrete Friday night. Here's the big D-line at the start of the game.

The offensive line with Tyler lined up at slot on the far side.

In the end the varsity won 34-20 in a game that didn't seem that close. Next week they play Friday Harbor on Saturday afternoon so I won't have to worry about low light.

The boys movie

Kobe and Colton had their first football games of the year on Saturday. I broke the video camera out to catch the action. When I was uploading the video to the computer Sunday I noticed a couple other clips on the camera. The boys have been known to grab it from time to time and make their own home videos. In this one, Colton is the camera man (and director I think) catching his brothers in action. I guess Jamie was in the shower (but makes an off camera appearance at the end) . It doesn't take long for the boys to get themselves into trouble.

Newsboys

The family went to the NW Washington Fair tonight and watched the Newsboys. The fair always does a pretty good job of attracting good Christian bands. The past couple years we've also seen Jars of Clay and Third Day. I was planning on posting these in order, but I'm too tired to move them around so in no particular order...


Right before the concert was supposed to start there was a lot of commotion and people were all having their pictures taken with this guy. I thought it was lead singer Peter Furler, but it wasn't (though they do look a lot alike). So if anyone recognizes this guy let me know.

Jamie and I saw Paul Colman in concert back when he was with the Paul Colman Trio. Now he's lead guitar for the Newsboys.

He ventured off into the stands about halfway through the show.

I was able to walk up pretty close to the stage and get some good close up shots.

Quite a few of the pictures include the drummer, Duncan Phillips, with a warrior face. Peter and Duncan had a pretty good drum battle at the end of the concert. Unfortunately being in Lynden it didn't include their signature revolving set.

They had a big smoke screen at the end. The rounded cover kept all the smoke in and you couldn't even see the band for awhile. Well, off to bed.