Another Exhausting Olympics

I know that this looks like just another picture of Katie sleeping in her bed, but there is much more to it than that. You see, today is Sunday, August 24th, 2008. The Beijing Olympics are officially over. Katie has not taken many naps in the last two weeks. I personally believe that my love for the Games rubbed off onto her and she was always too excited to take a nap. Well, now that the Games are over she is able to relax and finally get a nap in. Thanks for getting into watching the Olympics with me Katie and Aubrey. We had a lot of fun while mom had to work. Hopefully I can continue to entertain you just as much as the Games did!

Olympics - Les Jeux Olympiques

The Olympics are finally upon us. I'm not much of one for watching the Opening Ceremonies, but given the time difference (+15 hours from PDT) by the time NBC was showing it over here the Games had begun and we could jump right to them online. (CBC showed the ceremonies a little earlier and we caught a little of that, but not all that much).
This has to be the best coverage that I have ever seen. I have always enjoyed both of the Olympics and the World Cup since I can remember. With broadcast television being limited in airtime and channels, it's tough to see what you want...and definitely not when you want. Now with higher broadband speeds and such great technology (like Microsoft Silverlight) you can watch any event that you want, when you want. You can watch them live or on "rewind" to catch past events.
So, in opposition to how it used to be when you had one or maybe a few channels to choose from and only what they decided to broadcast, this is great! I can watch ANY event! I've watched handball, air rifle shooting, badminton, and others. I've never even seen any of those aired as Olympic events before on TV. Handball is pretty cool to watch. I have no idea what the rules are right now, but it's cool! Badminton, aside from being a BBQ-in-the-park-playing-with-a-$5-net type of game, is pretty intense.
Anyway, enjoy the Olympics and let me know what some of your favorite events are and if there are any that you can watch now online that you have never seen before or just weren't covered well enough before.

Talking to Jesus

Last Saturday we attended a Baptism and Katie was excited to see the picture of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist on the program. After the Baptismal Ordinance was finished and they closed and locked the doors in front of the font, Katie kept trying to open the doors saying "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ." I think she thought Shianne's dad was Jesus and was performing the baptism, as when he exited the bathroom she also started saying "Jesus Christ."

Later that day Katie got a hold of my brother Devin's cell phone. On it he has a picture he took of a chalk drawing someone drew of Christ. Katie opened the cell phone up, saw the picture and immediately said "Jesus Christ," in recognition of the drawing. Then, she took the phone, held it up to her ear, and said, "HELLO JESUS CHRIST." After laughing for awhile, we asked Katie if we could get in on the conversation as well. I mean, who would pass up the opportunity if He was actually on the phone?! It was hilarious.

Summer Movies

Steph and I went to see Wall-E today. Pixar, the king of animation, definitely did not fall short with their graphics, textures, effects, and opening short story, but the storyline of the movie left me a bit disappointed. There was very little dialogue throughout the whole thing. Although the robotic voices of Wall-E, Eve and the others were cute and funny themselves, I guess I was expecting more. Steph and I were wondering afterward how kids would understand the movie from their perspective. Most kids are thoroughly entertained simply by things looking cool and pay little attention to the plot or what's really going on. With that in mind, though, there were underlying statements being made in the movie that made me question if some rogue environmentalist group had actually written the story. That and other things that were hinted at are what added to my disappointment. Maybe I'm being too critical and I don't want to discuss the whole movie before any of you have seen it, but after you have then please come back and let me know what you thought.
In other news, we saw previews for The Pink Panther 2 and Madagascar 2. The first Pink Panther was absolutely hilarious, so I am excited for that to come out. The first Madagascar was okay. Being a DreamWorks movie I never expect much from their storylines, so I just take each one in stride and laugh at a few scenes or certain characters. The penguins were funny in Madagascar and I think that DreamWorks picked up on them being what people actually liked about the movie and so they seem to be more prevalent in the second one. We'll see. Fox did the same thing with Scrat, sort of, when they came out with Ice Age 2. Maybe he'll be the main character in Ice Age 3. If not then they haven't learned from experience.
All in all, I am still a huge Pixar fan. I am excited to see how Bolt turns out this fall as it is the first full 3-D movie put out by Disney. (Disney and Pixar are basically the same unless you want to talk technicalities.) Anyway, check out this article for some announcements on movies.

Father's Day 2008

Here are a couple of cards that I received today from my two little girls. Katie's is on the left and Aubrey's is on the right. You can tell that Katie sure does love stickers! The smiley face stickers accurately describe just how happy she is and I know that she is glad to have me as her dada. I love their little footprints and Katie's handprint. Steph told me that Katie saw her doing Aubrey's footprints and, thus, wanted her footprint on her card as well. That was so fun that she wanted her handprint on the card after that. I love you all! Father's Day was a lot of fun. Thanks!

Awakenings

About once a week I go sleep on the floor or couch in Katie's room because I love the reactions she has when she wakes up and sees her daddy laying there. She is always such a happy, boisterous little girl that gets so excited to see me there. I'll often be too tired to want to get up, but Katie doesn't mind and will take GloWorm, Cozy Cookie, Turtle Pillow, and Keroppi Frog off her bed and come lay down by me. She'll tuck in her toys, get under the covers with me, and start talking...probably about her fun dreams, but I still don't understand what she is saying...until I get up or talk back with her.
The other morning was particularly funny and it's one that you'd have to have been there for. As I was laying on the couch, half-awake, I heard her rustling around and finally sat up and saw that I was there. I keep my eyes partially open so that I can watch what she does, usually, but this time I was still pretty tired and must have fallen back asleep within seconds. The next thing I know, Katie is sitting on the couch next to me and I feel a finger poking me all over my face. As Katie points to each thing I hear, "dada's nose," "dada's eyes," "dada's mouth," and so forth as she identifies everything on my head. See, it's the funny things like that that I wake up to that make it so fun to wake up in the morning to such a silly little girl.

Aubrey is here!

On May 4th, 2008 at 14:27, Aubrey Mireille DeCremer joined us weighing in at 7lbs 10oz and was 20.5" long. She is doing quite well as she is only ever awake long enough to eat and then goes back to sleep. Katie is a big help with making sure that she is always covered with blankets and gives her hugs and kisses.
Here are some pictures of her and more will be posted soon on our website at http://decremer.org.

Guitar Hero

For my birthday, Steph gave me Guitar Hero III for the Wii. It's a lot of fun, even if objects around the room seem to be morphing after you've jammed a few sessions.

So, here is Steph herself rocking. Just look at that concentration there. One of the tough things is that both of us really only know songs that are from the 80's and 90's, with a few from the 70's as well. All the ones from the 2000's are unknown to us so we just have to pick up on the beat and do our best. A lot of them we just play through once anyway just to unlock other songs.

Steph did buy a second guitar as well so that we can have a co-op career, battle, and faceoff between ourselves and others.

Springtime Tasks

As I am sitting here doing schoolwork and about to wrap up the last two weeks of the winter quarter, I think that this is the first time that I have heard a lawnmower going this year. It actually makes me want to go out and do yardwork and get started on all the projects that I'd like to get done. Last year I was barely able to stand even raking leaves for more than ten minutes because my back still hurt so bad. Now I think that I can get out and do a lot more, even if I need to condition myself to it over time.

I enjoy doing projects around the house. This year I'd like to...

• Put some more shelves up in the garage and organize my tools and supplies.
• I need to finish changing all the outlets and switches throughout the house so that things actually stay plugged in.
• Boxes need to be gone through and sorted. Some stuff to the DI and others to the trash. I am going to put some things for sale on our website soon as well.
• Pressure wash the driveway and roof to get rid of the moss.
• Try out more things on our website and produce some more family DVDs.
• And lots of other things to do...

One of my goals in life is too always be able to park in the garage. So far, so good. I like to get rid of things that don't get used anymore and so that has kept some space free. I used to detest scraping windows on the car early in the morning when I lived in apartments.

Anyway, what are some projects that you all are doing out there this year? I'd like to get some ideas of things that I might be interested in doing around here too that I hadn't thought of.

Needless to say...

"Is a harmless enough expression, but it often draws attention to the fact that you really didn't need to say it."

This one is for my dad who will often start a conversation by saying, "needless to say..." and then he'll stop talking. You say, "what?" and he'll say, "I don't need to say it."

So Stephanie has been reading in Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer's Guide to Getting it Right. It has a bunch of interesting words and phrases. A lot of which have just become common to say in the good ol' American English language.

Difficulty

Sometimes blogs can be so difficult!

Geeks

Steph got this quiz from her friend who took it and she decided she might as well take it too. She actually did pretty good on it, especially for guessing on most of the questions. Here are her results...
29% Geek

Then, I took the quiz. Want to guess who scored higher? Here are my results...

33% Geek

Okay, so the results really should not be that close, but Stephanie guessed on questions when I did not so that could have skewed the results a little bit. Still, it was a fun, and completely random, quiz to take.

Hanging out with Katie

Right now I am sitting here with Katie working on a lot of Adobe projects. Well, she is helping out by playing with her creative little mind and keeping herself busy while I work on the computer here. I work on all of our projects while Katie plays and when I need a break or just need to spend some time with Katie then I lay on the floor with her learning about colors, animals and their sounds, and playing instruments, like her little drum and tambourine. One of my favorite parts about playing with Katie, and most other kids at that, is acting as a Jungle-Gym where I get jumped on, climbed on, and beat with various toys and books. The other day Katie even bent over to give me a kiss which turned out to be more of a slobbery bite on the nose, but it was hilarious and cute.

Summer Vacation

I finally have a decent 6 week break from school now. Anyone who has taken summer courses probably knows how packed it can be, especially if you go full time like I just did with 3 classes (15 credits) in 6 weeks instead of the regular 12! This fall I'll get started more towards my degree in Computer Science when I take CS 210 and learn all about C++. I'm not sure why, but I think they teach C++ at first because so many applications are based on it still. I will probably get into C# when I transfer to UW or wherever. Once I get into understanding these and other languages more, I wold love to converse with those of you who are already out in the field working. I would love to know how you use programming in your workplace and even if you do any little hobby projects.
Now it's time to catch up on projects around the house. We still have a DVD to make from our family vacation down to Lincoln City, Oregon a month ago. It's a lot of fun and a big hobby of mine working with lots of the Adobe applications. Stephanie has gotten into it too with me as we edit videos in Premiere Pro, design DVD menus in Encore and Photoshop, animate graphics and layers in After Effects, and even post the smaller videos online through GoLive.

Fishing, crop circles, and good-byes

We went to see the nearby crop circles yesterday and I PhotoShopped some pictures of that for fun. today my dad, harold, Devin, and Darik went fishing and then afterward cleaned the fish. They were out all day and had a lot of fun. We took some pictures of us with Harold and Sheila and then had to drive back to Western Washington. So, here are some pictures of our last day there.

Inner Tubing on Lake Roosevelt

While spending a weekend (July 19-21) at my Aunt and Uncle's, my dad, brothers, and I went inner tubing on Lake Roosevelt. Here are some pictures of us goofy guys.

First of all, here are pictures of my dad in the tube. Included are him enjoying himself, tipping over, and going into the water.








Then, here are some pictures of me and my youngest brother Devin getting into the inner tube, inner tubing, and in the water...







Here I am in the boat while my brothers Darik and Devin are inner tubing.



And finally, here are all three of us brother inner tubing and then the final picture is of us posing after a day of fun on the Lake!

Our first day in Wilbur, Wa

On the first day at Uncle Harold and Aunt Sheila's place in Wilbur, WA we went to the Lenoir Caves, a park, and the Grand Coulee Dam Laser Show. Here are some pictures of that. After all of our fun we went back to the house and relaxed while watching TV.

Very Busy

I have been extremely busy with my school work. Right now I am taking three online courses and since it is summer term I have to fit into 6 weeks what I would normally be given 12 weeks to do. So, that is why I have not spent nearly as much time on my blog as Steph has on her and Katie's. However, I will get more involved once I have more time. If you speak or read French I go to a French discussion every week to keep my language up from my mission and I started a French blog with my group that can be linked to through our home page. Since it is more educational than fun I spend more time on that. Plus, Steph does a great job of keeping her and Katie's blogs up to date so I will let her keep doing a lot of the work while I am crazy busy with school work.

I have been having fun this summer as well, getting to spend time with Steph and Katie, and last week we took a vacation to Lincoln City, OR. I am working like crazy to get my school work done so that I can enjoy next weekend, when I am going camping with my dad and brothers. It is going to be a lot of fun and I am really excited for it, although I will miss Steph and Katie tons. It will luckily only be three days!

I have been enjoying the heat as it lets me eat a lot more ice cream, as well as trips to the beach! And, that is an update of my very busy life right now.