Happy Easter

T'is the season... for lilies, l'il marshmallow chicks, and chocolate bunnies.

Happy Holidays!

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve Block Party, Tempe Arizona
Left to right...
Back row: Ryan Panitz, Todd Anderson, Joe Kelsch, Chase Hutchinson, Jeff "JR" Carter, Scott
Front row: Jody Kelsch, Julie Braegger, Stacy Stuart, Laurie Carter

Santa's li'l helper...

Micron Childrens Christmas Party

Under the mistletoe
Baja Reindeer


Find the orange duck, win a prize!



Coney Island
Going to see Santa!
Santa's Lap

Typical Evening

A typical evening in the Carter house goes something like this:

I get the best seat in the house and channel surf with the TV remote...

Daddy gives me a massage...

I eat a snack...

Then I give daddy a turn with the remote and treat him to a massage...

Two-Bit Haircut (* 2^5.3219 to account for inflation)

I'm here to get my first haircut!
"Is this going to hurt daddy?"

"No, son. It kinda tickles, though."
"Just a little off the top, please."
"...I said a little..."

"Wow! Look at all that hair fly!"
"I'm lookin' gooooood! Whuddaya think, mommy? Am I handsome?"
"I feel like a new kid! Where's my big brother? I'm a chick magnet now. Let's go to the mall!"

Hurry Up!

Jack sits *patiently* outside the bathroom door while waiting for daddy to finish "business" and come back out to play.




(Captured on a 1.2MP cell phone cam.)
Mommy got the shot from the "unscented" side of the bathroom door.

Splish-Splash

Ahhhh... a refreshing dip in the pool with mommy and daddy!

Let me go! I wanna dive Dive DIVE!

Keep Out

I'm helping daddy put locks on the drawers to keep me out. I'm making my last stand... errrr... "sit."

Practice, practice, practice...

My daddy and my big brother Nick are helping me learn how to walk.
In this picture, either Nick was very surprised as I got a few really good steps in, or it was a very close call as I fell into his lap. ;-)

SCUBA

Like I said, this was a business trip for Laurie, and a vacation for me. So I persued a life-long dream to go SCUBA diving.

Here I am in the SCUBA pool learning rule #1: BREATH!! There's like 5 rules... really, I can't remember 'em, but bottom line is when you're out there you need to pay attention to the instructor's visual signals and don't touch anything not handed to you.
My instructor handed me this sea creature. It's called a Pencil Urchin. It's very stiff. When turned upside down (and the right side up), it's spiney arms move so fluidly, like a flower trying to face the sun light, only faster).




Notice the rusty color. You can see in the next photos that my fingers are stained with a chalk-like substance that rubbed off while handling this creature.


This is so awesome... to feel practically weightless and soar through the ocean like I'm flying.

Guess what? I ran out of air!! I looked at my air guage and noticed it was in the yellow zone. Not to worry. That means "10 mins of air left... turn around and head back." So, we started heading back. Breathing felt harder, and I looked at my meater again and noticed it was in the red zone. That means "5 mins of air left... get your head above water." No worries. I reached for my instructor's extra resuscitator and shared his air (like I was trained to do (twhoo!)). After a while he gave me my reciscitator back when we were just a minute or so from the spot where we disappeared into the deep blue. Yeah... breathing felt real tough! Then, my instructor pulled these valves to add air to my vest so that I would float to the surface. There wan't much air left. When I surfaced, I had to manually blow air into my vest to keep me boyant. :-)

It was the end of the dive anyway. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and I can't wait to do it again one day!!

Merry Christmas!

Trimming the Christmas Three

 

Reminiscing...

I was just looking back at some beautiful pics taken of Laurie and I on our wedding day. Enjoy! :-) 

Dentist...

I wet hoo huh dentish hoday.  Had a couhle uh cahidies filled.  My mouwh aches uh lihhle.  <sigh>

My daddy, my rock

One of my favorite pics -- Jack Douglas (3 weeks) sleeping in his daddy's arms.