Thanksgiving Whirlwind

We had quite a whirlwind this Thanksgiving weekend; thanks to Grandma Sharon and Andrew for making the trek clear up here (and thanks to Truman for wanting to come). The gingerbread houses are sweet, the food was tasty-liscious, and now I just have to clean it all up :). Just kidding, it's not that bad. The dishwasher does most of the hard work.




Now the countdown is on for Lucas (3 weeks of school), and then for seeing everyone again. Yeah! We love the Christmas holiday season!

So these pictures are out of order; I'll have to work on that ... not bad for a first post, eh?

August Rush in Theaters today!

August rush comes out today! Yay!

http://movies.aol.com//movie/august-rush/29690/video/exclusive-trailer-no-1/1926108

This movie is amazing and I can't wait to go see it!

Journal week - day 3

Tuesday November 6, 2007
10:48pm

Wow, today was an interesting day. I'd really like to write about how today was sort of frustrating, but it is now 11:53 and I've been letting myself get distracted with other things now for over an hour, and Mom and I are starting work on the DVD early tomorrow so I'm going to get to sleep and update this later. See ya!

Journal week - day 2

Monday November 5, 2007
10:10pm

Today was a pretty fun day. I dunno, we didn't really get a whole lot of editing done for thd day. Mom and I had thrown 3 minutes worth of pictures raw down onto the timeline yesterday at the end of the day and did no editing of any kind, just stock photos down on the timeline. So, Mom and I worked and got all the pictures from there to the end all polished with moves, and screen safe, and added the gaussian blur where needed. We finished that section with the moves that we felt were right, and then we ended up having to leave to go to Andrew's house (Bro. Flint) for the re-recording session for the revised script portions. The script was great except for the portions that needed to be changed after advisory from the church about the material that we could and couldn't use. We ended up revising the script by paraphrasing certain paragraphs, adding new ones and taking out other old ones. So the revisions and all the recording/editing and even a few minutes to hear a fun song that Andrew is working on right now called "Dear John" was 4 hours at his house. We left our house around 5 to 4 or so. and got to his about 4:05-4:10 or so. We got set up, he started the project and got everything set, and begun the recording. It was a fun session tonight. It didn't take as long just because it was only the revised portions of the script rather than the entire thing. All the recording time collectively I think was about twenty five to thirty minutes or so. So it wasn't that bad. We had a couple takes, naturally, that we had to do re-takes a few times but nothing overly repetetive...except the last paragraph of the entire script. They had to re-do it about 10 times, because the way that Dad said one sentence in the script was just so funny, and it was really hard if not impossible not to laugh when you thought about it. It was quite entertaining. Mom and Andrew and Dad and I were all bursting out laughing, till Mom ended up leaving the room so that we could finish the take and get it done! It was quite the paragraph take, but alas, enjoyable to witness.

Aaaaanyway, Andrew finished the recording after we finally go enough sense to calm down and not think about Dad and the way that he said that line so many times over and over. We worked through it and Andrew finished the recording and began the editing process. It was enjoyable for us to both be there when he was doing the editing. I liked being able to hang out with him while he worked his magic with all his toys. It's pretty awesome! I had a lot of fun. We cleaned up the audio with him and got all the pops, and mouth noises, and clicks and ticks and everything. (there were a few that were annoying and were mixed right in with the rest of a word and we ended up having to just turn them down or remove them by adjusting the gain, rather than selecting and removing them) We finished that and then ran the EQ'ing that we needed to in order to get it to match the mixing, the effects, and the levels and such that he had done on the re-mastered version of the initial script recording that he gave us a new copy of. (The first one that we recorded the first time, was really heavy on the low end, so he remixed it and gave a new version to us)

So ya, we finished that and did all the other fun things we needed to do to it before exporting and saving it, and then we exported, saved and burned it to take home. He then showed us Dear John. This is a song he's been working on with his wife. It's really good! It's got a great like techno'y feel behind it, and it's mormon standards too! I'm gonna help him make a music video for it and we're going to see if we can find a way to market it on Meridian somehow maybe, I dunno. Just some fun thoughts he's/we've been tossing around.

Sooooo...ya, then I actually got a text from Carly while I was there reminding me about FHE and kindly asking me where I was. It read: 'where are you? slacker' lol. I was like oooooohhh!! So Mom and Dad and I left, and got me over to FHE where they dropped me off and I got a ride home from Colin afterwards. I got over to Carly's house and they were playing mafia. There was Carly, Colin, Niel, Leslie, Rebecca, Anne, and Nate. (Nate I didn't know and Rebecca I didn't recognize either. I just met Leslie on Sunday and we were just officially introduced tonight, while at FHE)

Sooo, we played a round of mafia then watched the Annandale Stake YSA Video that was made by the YSA's to enter in the YSA Stake Film Festival (which has it's Emmy Awards night on Saturday for a party and dance at a Marriot Hotel in D.C.) It should be a fun evening! They're having red carpets, and prized and food and a dance afterward for everyone to mix and mingle at, it should be quite fun! I'm excited!

Well, I am tired and getting a bit of a headache from laying in bed at this angle, and I'm beginning to have trouble breathing, which again is normal, at this angle whenever I'm laying down. So, I'm going to bed! I've completed my entry for the day and I'm going to sleep now. Night!

Truman's Journal week - day 1

Sunday November 4, 2007
10:50pm

Hey all,
So I had an assignment this week to improve on my journal entry frequency, so this is day one of that hopefully productive assignment.

I had a good day today. Meetings were great, as usual. Sacrament (fast and testimony meeting) was great. I felt the spirit a number of times. There was one sister who got up who just happened to be visiting from Oregon. She had gone through a chemotherapy treatment previously to treat bone cancer, and was sympathizing with a sister in our ward (Seeley) who is going through chemo treatments (she's down to one every 3 weeks according to her husband, so that's good) She's doing well, but is having a hard time. I've been praying for her on a regular basis for a while now and am hoping that the prayers and faith of all those, myself included, are is being recognized and responded to with blessings upon the head of dear sister Seeley. She is like a second (or third or fourth) mother to me. I have adored her since the day we met here in the Fairfax ward so many years ago. (like 6 or so now) She's an adorable woman and I love her dearly for the friend she is to me and to so many others. I pray that everything will work out with her treatment. Anyway, so this visiting sister bore her testimony and told her story with her treatments that she had gone through to treat her bone cancer. She talked about how she was waiting for it to get difficult, and was thinking 'this isn't so bad, I wonder when it will get hard to bear.' She would see so many people coming in to give her love and prayers and express their gratitude to her for being a part of their lives. They expressed their love for her and their faith in her that she would pull through. She thought about it after a while, all the while waiting for the treatments to get hard to endure. When she thought about it, however, she realized why it hadn't gotten hard to bear-- She came to the realization that the reason that her treatments were all going to smoothly and relatively painlessly, was because of the power of all those prayers that were being answered. They were being answered in her behalf, and the difficulty of her treatments was lessened by a great deal. She recognized this to be a significant blessing to her from the Lord. It was a very sweet testimony.

At the conclusion of our ward block, at the request of the bishop, we ended our meetings fifteen minutes early so that we would have time to gather in the chapel as a ward family and have a kneeling ward prayer in behalf of Sister Seeley. It was one of the sweetest prayers I've heard. Bishop Johnson was the voice and it was a truly heartfelt prayer drawn out to sister Seeley petitioning the Lord for his grace and love to be bestowed upon her and her family and that she would pull through and have a speedy recovery. It was truly an incredible thing to be a part of. I felt honored to be able to be a part of something so selfless as that. It was wonderful.

We had a good fireside tonight as well with Elder Oaks (YSA CES broadcast) that I went to the Centreville Stake Center to watch. It was quite the amusing address. Helen and I talked about it afterwards (comparing notes over the phone) and were laughing together as we reviewed each others remembered moments. It was fun. I'll give more details about it later, but now I must get to sleep. I've got another huge week ahead of me of editing like mad so that we can get this DVD on President Hinckley out on the market for sale for Christmas delivery. We're praying for everything to come together, and so far a number of those prayers have been answered in our favor. I see the Lord's hand in my life and know that he knows who I am. I love him and strive daily to become closer to him. I love you all! More info later!