this blog speaks for itself

enjoy this entry, she is such a mild mannered girl!

duck, duck, duck......GOOSE!

Dad took us (me, Caleb, Sammy, Andrew, Deborah, and Grandma) to the goose festival in Delta. youve never seen so many birds in your life! they make a little bit of noise!! Some local kid had a bunch of snakes, scorpions, lizards (serious lizards like hela monsters) and he let my kids and Deborah (i think he liked Deborah) hold an albino corn snake. Sammy wouldn't let go of the binoculars and loved staring at the birds, though i later realised she just liked having the binoculars around her neck like some status symbol or jewelry. it was a good time and Grandma seemed to enjoy the company. i had to show her how to use her new tv converter. i hope she remembers. she seemed a little anxious about it. we were also able to visit grandpas grave, which was pretty cool for me. i haven't seen it for a very long time

Abigail

alright, i am finally able to get this posted! sorry it took so long. Abigail was born Monday morning at 5:00 am. born to classic rock n roll which was playing in the background in the O.R. She was born to CCR, Steve Miller Band, and Def Leppard. she will probably love classic rock for the rest of her life! she has been a very 'mild' baby so far, the only time she has cried so far was the minute they pulled her out and cleared her mouth...thats it!! Andrew is very excited to be a 'big brother' instead of only the little brother... Deena is doing well and is hoping to be home friday night

My Italian Trip (a documentary by Joshua Callister)

Anybody who is interested may click the following link and read my documentary on my Italian trip. I am working on my Yucutan documentary now. enjoy. Just copy and paste this link into your browser.

http://www.box.net/shared/c90b0zgnzu

Rocket Science

Alright, I have built a rocket launcher out of PVC pipe and a couple of sprinkler valves. It has 2 launch booms and i wired a nine volt battery to the sprinkler valves with a button to control opening and closing the valve. i hooked my air compressor to the rocket launcher and had my kids build some paper rockets. first launch, the rocket blew apart. second launch the rocket went sooo far we couldn't see it in the sky!! a minute or so later pieces of it started making their way to the ground. needless to say, i am still perfecting the rockets, they are almost reaching orbit!! i will post a video later on to show you guys what it does! it would be a fun reunion thingy for uncles and kids!!

my custum made doors

I apologize for not posting for a while. i really haven't done much since Italy. recently however i made these custom doors for my reading room. Deena really wanted doors on these very large 'closet' areas. so i put my ingenuity to the test and designed and built these doors. they are 8 ft tall and open from the middle. 4 doors in all connecting in the center. i used 8ft pine planks with 1x4 pine runners as door moldings and side rails. i fastened everything together with my nail gun. i think they turned out pretty good. i still need to sand and stain them, but wanted to hang them to see how the worked. it is neat to see something from your mind come to fruition and actually work!! now i will do the same thing for the window you see on the wall.

Ah Florence...Ah Pisa

Ok, WE took a train to Florence (Firenze) which was pretty neat. (as soon as we figured out where we needed to go..firenze.. go figure. We saw some of the neatest country side of Italy that is straight out of the books! It was beautiful! After about 2 hrs we arrived in Firenze. What a neat city, though totally crowded with people and the CRAZIEST driving i have ever seen, down the skinniest roads i have ever seen, we saw some of the neatest stuff. We passed the 'Duomo' which you see Sammy and Andrew pictures of, what a crazy huge old church with the craziest rennasaunce archetecture!! it was thrilling, inside were some neat frescoes and statues and the Dome was designed and painted by Michaelangelo! everything is Michaelangelo in Florence. we went and saw the David' it was way larger than i was expecting. i took a picture of Deena right before i found out you weren't supposed to take pictures...oh well. I probably would have taken one anyway! i didn't use my flash for all you art junkies out there!......But the highlight of the trip was the hour and a half more trainride to Pisa! That place was awesome! the leaning tower of Pisa is soooo much taller in real life than you would believe! I think it is something like 400 feet tall. of course this is where Galaleo dropped the different sized balls from the tower to prove the velocity of different sized objects is the same. The babtistry is the other building in the pictures, it is the biggest in the world! the archetecture is just incredible! I must say i was in heaven and thinking that my mother would be in heaven here too! though more on that in my next blog of San Marino!!