Inside the House of Baldwin

Jed participated in his first track meet yesterday at Lone Peak High School against Willowcreek Junior High. He participated in the 100 Meter race, and the Long Jump. He did a great job, especially since it was soooo cold. Brrr.

Grandpa Graff, Grandpa and Grandma Baldwin, and the Babcock family joined us on Sunday evening for some Easter Egg Hunting, dinner, lounging, and nonsense in the backyard. Enjoy.

I took Abby and Bridget to the city Easter Egg Hunt. It was supposed to start at 11:00 a.m. We arrived at about 10:50, and took our place in a section with around 50 children waiting for the signal. This was just one area, by the way. There were many others with just as many children. Some of the older children (who I’m sure were older than age 10, the limit) started rushing a few minutes after we arrived. This caused everyone else in the park to rush. If you didn’t rush, you missed out. So we rushed too.

It was a frenzy! If you were just showing up, you had no chance to get even one egg. After it was all over, I was talking with some friends and looked at my watch. It was 11:03. The hunt was supposed to start at 11:00 and we were done by 11:03. Crazy. The parent comments around me as we traversed the park were pretty funny. Needless to say, I think that there were a lot of “private” Easter Egg Hunts afterwards. But what do you expect in a city whose median age was 18 in the 2000 census…I can’t imagine what it is today.

Bridget sacrificed her reputation to do a dance number with Abby at this year’s Primary in Excellence. They performed the Wiggerly Woo. Abby wouldn’t practice days before the event, so I was worried that she wouldn’t participate. But she didn’t seem to mind performing in front of a large group. Abby did a great job.

Bridget was then put upon one more time when she “had” to sing a number with the Activity Day Girls. The things we have to put up with in this life! Honestly!

Jed has been in the beginning orchestra class at Mountain Ridge all year. He is part of the 1st Violins group.

This is their spring concert. The group is progressing and showing improvement from the beginning of the year. You can’t see Jed, he is in the very back. But you can catch a glimpse of him walking off the stage at the end of their performance.

I told Jed that if he continues with violin and orchestra through junior high, then I will buy him a brand new violin to play in high school. He seemed pleased with the deal.

I was impressed that Dallen didn’t appear to know the lyrics in this song. Of course if it were classic rock, that would be a different story. Enjoy.

Since purchasing a diesel, we have been feeling the harsh effects of the recent rise in crude oil prices at the gas pump…ouch! Trying to find ways to save money on fuel, I decided to sign up for a gas card at Macey’s since I usually do my grocery shopping there. You can save anywhere from .05 to .35 cents/gallon on gas depending on how much you spend in the store.

I wanted to try out my gas card, so I purchased $66 worth of groceries at Macey’s. I received a .05 cent/gallon savings on gas. If I had purchased just $9 more, I could have saved an additional .05 cents/gallon. I had just above 1/2 tank of gas left, so I could really only add 12.613 gallons of diesel. I excitedly looked at my gas receipt after it printed out to see how much I saved: .63 cents off of $48.17. My excitement deflated.

I started doing math in my head and realized that if I filled my tank with a .05 cent/gallon saving, I would save only $1 on a 20-gallon tank. If I filled my tank once a week, I would save only $4/month, or $48/year.

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Bridget had been born just two weeks before, and Brad was in Europe for a 10-day business trip. I was alone with a 3 1/2 year old, a 15-month old, and a newborn. Whenever I watch this video, my stress level rises because it reminds me of how stressful it was to take care of three children born within 3 1/2 years. But it had it’s pros and cons. It was definitely easier in many ways than raising one young child with no built-in playmates.

By the way, I purchased a video converter that allows me to export straight from my analog video camera into Final Cut Pro on my Mac. It’s called DAC-200 Digital Video Converter, and is sold by Datavideo Corporation. It looks like the DAC-200 is discontinued, but they have newer products that do the same thing. I had no problems with my real-time import. Pretty cool.

A few weeks ago I had to explain to Jed what the cigarette lighter in our GL is used for. It is situated between the two front seats in a fun drawer at hand level, so it’s readily available to curious front passenger hands. In our Sienna the lighter is in the ashtray because I always had my iPod charger in the lighter outlet. Furthermore, the lighter is below the stereo on the driver’s side, so it’s not easily accessible to curious hands.

Yesterday Dallen was in the front passenger seat of the GL while I was ordering food at the Wendy’s drive-thru. I heard a pained cry from Dallen and turned to see smoke rising around him, and I smelled something burning. It was flesh. Dallen had been playing with the lighter. He didn’t realize that when he pushed it in the outlet, it becomes very hot. So after the lighter popped out he pulled it out of the outlet and pushed on the button, branding his middle finger on the other hand.

I couldn’t understand why Dallen didn’t know what the lighter was, and why I had to explain it to Jed earlier. A friend was in the GL with us and leaned forward to hear my explanation to Dallen what the lighter is used for. He didn’t know either. These are all teenage boys.

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Our pool had been finished just a few weeks before. Our friends, The Caslers (Chris, Karen, Cory, Ryan, & Eileen), were visiting Arizona from Illinois where they had moved within the previous year. Leslie and kids (Kendra and Pax) were up from Tucson for a weekend visit. It was Labor Day, so no school. The temperatures were typical of an early September day, probably between 110 F and 115 F. Thus, it was a perfect day for a swimming party!

Did I mention that I miss living in Arizona?

This is a word of warning. There’s a new student driver in our midst.

Jed has been dabbling in a lot of movie-making lately, using our worn-out, worn-down, finicky old digital video camera. He has his own web page, called J&T Productions. It was previously RobotStorm, but there was a fall-out with Jed’s original partner. Presently, the main authors are Jed and his friend, Thane Pearson. Bridget and Dallen have also contributed to some of the work.

I showed Jed how to export and upload his movies to Blip.tv only once, and Brad showed him how to update his page just once. Since then he has done everything on his own. You can either access Jed’s page here, or from our Blogroll on the right column under RobotStorm. Enjoy.

Dallen recently finished the play Tom, Dick and Harry, a British Comedy by Ray and Michael Cooney, at Mt. Ridge Junior High. His character was Constable Downs. Dallen made the cast of nine from about 120 people that attended try-outs. His British accent was very helpful in securing the part.

In a nutshell, the scenario of the play is as follows: Tom and his lovely young wife Linda are expecting. Expecting a baby? Not quite. They are expecting a visit from a social worker, the draconian Mrs Potter to assess their suitability as adoptive parents. Linda has carefully stage managed the home and learnt by heart the health and safety leaflet but Tom’s brothers will cause mayhem and rampage with the help of two stowaway Kosovan asylum seekers, a dismembered corpse and a policeman (source).

Our movie highlights Dallen’s parts in the play. For a Provo Daily Herald review, click here.