Lots of Zak

I didn't know what to do for Digital Photo class, but I had a bunch of pictures of me, so I made this. Find the real Zak (hopefully you can click on the picture to make it bigger).

I'll give you a hint: the Zak in the giant hole was photoshopped in.

Creepy Family

I was running out of ideas, so mom suggested this. I wish I didn't have to rush a little to finish on time.

Napoleon Crossing The Alps

So I found this picture of Napoleon and thought it was offensively innacurate, so I fixed it to be more like what really happened

(original)
(fixed)

Crazy Animals

In-case you couldn't tell, I made the picture with a lion's body and tiger's head when I was really crunched for time.

Sing While You Read

2 GREAT Pieces of Cole Family News:

1. Quinn scored a goal in his AHS soccer game yesterday!!

2. Zak now has his Driver's License!!

Letter Campaign

This morning, while looking at my e-mail, I saw this letter:

Hello,

I was wondering if you accept guest post for your blog. If you do, I
would like to submit a few. You can see a sample of my work at
LaptopComputers.org under the author James Mowery. I've also written
for several high-profile blogs like Mashable, Performancing, and
CMSWire. Thank you for your time.

- James

So, I responded:

Dear James,

If you had taken the time to even look at our blog, you would have quickly noted that it is mostly family, funny items; really not appropriate for guest posts. We are flattered that you would like to be seen as part of our family, but we will have to see some good referrals before we start to refer to you as a Cole.

Good Luck!
The mother of all

It's good to be a Cole!

We All Have Needs

This afternoon, while going through my Rolodex to find the Orthodontist's phone number, this is what I found: Really, very funny.

We all have needs.

Go find a clever place to announce yours.

Google AdSense

I don't know if it makes sense, but we had a big discussion last night about adding adds to our blog. "We could make money".

Then it was compared to my saving water bottles, etc.
Then someone said that we could make more with the adds per month than the water bottles...that was quickly taken back.

I really think people I know....Christopher, Heather(?) have done this AdSense thing. Did you, have you? Are you glad you did, did you make any money? Have you known anyone that did this and made money? Don't you need a readership of 500,00 people per day to really make $100 a month?

That's my take.
But I am willing to try.
I think the add will pop up in 48 hours, or 10 minutes, who knows?
Click on it when you see it.
Let's give this experiment a go!

I Talked to Chase!

Such news, such stories!

Apparently, he got a new roommate!

His favorite roommate moved out. He moved to another Centennial apartment. So Chase got a new roommate; the kind that actually lives in his room.

1. He is a gamer.
2. He loves playing all types of computer games.
3. He is about 24.
4. He has spent his time playing computer games.
5. He is going back to UVU this semester.
6. His classes start at 8:00am.
7. He takes the bus to school.
8. He wakes up at 4:00am...sometimes 5:00am.
9. He tunes on the lights at the awful hour.
10. Chase has requested that he please not turn on the lights.
11. When he comes home from school he puts his bathrobe on and starts playing games.
12. No one really knows where he comes from. He has given 3 different answers.
13. He snores.
14. Chase guesses that he does not wear deodorant; he needs to.

I told Chase to take notes and write a book. It could be a best seller!




Chase also joined a Water polo Inter tube Intramural team!


They have not played any games yet, they WERE going to play, but it got cancelled.


I am glad he is SO adventurous!

**The picture off the the side ------->
is NOT a real picture of Chase playing
water polo.


It was a delightful phone call. I just wanted to share it with you all!




Enjoy!

Tree Update & Some Discussion

The next day after the whole TREE situation I heard lots of noise coming from over by the "trees". I took a picture. See that little, tiny yellow guy in the tree? I am not sure what he is doing. You probably thought, "wow, I can't see anything, zoom it lady!" Well, I did zoom the picture. This is the original picture. I took these while standing on my front porch.

The tree guy got down out of the tree that same night. Four of them went to jail. The trees got cut down.

Now, on to Oprah!

I saw her interviewed the other night by Piers Morgan. He did a very good job. I enjoyed what I saw. They spoke for a few minutes about marriage and Oprah not being married. She said she was happy about it. Marriage would not have worked for her. She told of a story where she was having meetings at her house the last few nights and when dinner time came she would get up, stop her meeting, go and fix Steadman dinner and then come back to the meeting. She liked doing that. She wanted to make dinner when she wanted to make it, not to have to make dinner.

I think Oprah missed one of the greatest lessons of being married! To do things, (be thoughtful) of the other person even when it is not convenient for you. To do "it" (that can be anything) even if you didn't really want to. Isn't that when we learn to be self-less? Part of the reason for us to be on this earth is to learn to be better people.

Any thoughts?


Well, speaking about doing something I didn't really want to do....

Griffin asked me to please help him make slime the other day. I forced myself up and we made it! It has been fun to touch and play with. I think everyone has had their hands on this gooey, weird stuff.

Ok, this picture should have gone before the other one; whatever.

Who recognizes Kylie's shirt?

Who owned it first?

Really, I don't know.

Ok, Now I am going out to clean out the pool.

I'll have a great time.

McDaniels to Rams?

One day when Mom was picking me up from school we were talking to Christopher and as we were hanging up (he had to rush off) he mentioned that he saw Josh McDaniels was hired by the Rams. We rushed home to see the news, but there was only speculation. I wouldn't mind if he was hired though, I think he can be a great offensive coordinator

REPORTING: From Arcadia!

All day I had heard helicopters flying over my house, wondered why, but never knew. I found out when I went to get my mail around 3:30. I could see and hear a small crowd of people over at my neighbor's house!

They were hooting and calling over their back fence. I went back to my house, grabbed my camera and walked over to the Mead's house. They let me in and I found out the scoop!!

I have known for a while that Los Angeles County needed to clean out the dam up here by Highland Oaks. They need to clear out all the silt. They felt the need to put it back behind my neighbor's back yards all along Highland Oaks. To do this, they need to cut down, clear out about 150 oak trees. Yes, they do. Many people have protested. I guess last night a somewhat famous tree protector plus 3 other people went back there, got themselves in the trees and are staying for as long as they can.

So, from my neighbor's backyard, this is what I saw:

I am looking over their back retaining wall. These are the police officer's to keep the peace. The trees that are being taken down are back beyond that chain link fence.

You see that green splotch there in the middle of this picture?

That's John Quigley, the sort-of-famous tree protector. He once sat in a tree in CA for 71 days until the owner of the land, a developer, agreed to move the tree so it did not have to be cut down. He is up there in a sleeping bag with provisions.

Here is local news station reporting on all the hoopla. In particular, this is John Quigley:

Here is a report right at the top of Highland Oaks. This area was all blocked off. There is an entrance there that will take you right to all the tree action.

Because I am NOT a professional reporter/photographer, I didn't realize I needed to take MORE pictures!! When I got to my neighbor's back yard, there were about 8 people there. One of them happened to be Daryl Hannah (of Splash fame!), but I'll get to that later. There were several big time activists. They are friends of Mr. John Quigley. They were whooping to him, yelling encouragement, waving a towel. I heard one of the girls say that if he needed, she could do something to distract the police like falling off that wall or something. Well, about 10 - 15 minutes later she fell off the wall! I don't know if it was real, but it was a huge coincidence!

Oh, there was a distraction all right. The police came over. Her friends went on the other side of the wall. "Could we get ice, could we get a chair, we need to carry her back over..." Stuff like that. The ambulance was called!


She was wincing in pain. She did NOT want the paramedics to look at her. She did NOT want to go to the hospital. It was a pretty good distraction and some voices were raised.

That is Daryl hovering over the fall-over girl. Daryl is wearing the dark jacket. You can see one of the legs of the fall-over girl.

That's Daryl's camera there on the ground. I never saw her use it. I am sure she did though.

Now the girl is trying to get out of this situation. Her activist friend there is "holding" her up. She wants to leave. I didn't really hear this conversation although it did get loud.

Look how nicely she is holding her leg up.

For some reason they got themselves out to the car then had a nice (probably not too nice), long conversation out by their car. At one point I saw her sprawled over the top of her car. Very dramatic.

Now we can see most of the "Activists" people over at another neighbor's house. They went over there because they felt that they could get a better view of their friend, John.

That is Daryl Hannah there with the Hat on:
You know Daryl from:
Splash

Roxanne
Wallstreet
Kill Bill
Blade Runner
She dated John Kennedy

When I first went over to the Mead's (the first neighbor's house), I recognized the woman that turned out to be Daryl Hannah. I knew I knew her, I just couldn't place her. I guessed she was probably someone from High School. Here we are in Arcadia, what else was I to think. I didn't want her to think me rude or stuck up so I was planning on just coming clean at my not quite remembering who she was. Just before I got all my courage up to ask, I realized it was Daryl Hannah. I knew her from the movies! Very funny. Glad it takes a bit of time for me to build up my courage.

Here is the view from our front porch. After a time the fall-down girl and her friend drove 50 yards across the street to another neighbor's house. Some of them loaded into this car, others got into a truck.

Here they are getting into the car:

Ok, so that's the story!

Pretty exciting!

As of right now, 9:38 pm, it is dark out, but there is a nice, bright spot light shining where the tree sitter is. I have no idea what the plans are. I will keep you posted!!

I failed my driving test because I kept getting marked down for "wide turns" >8-/

Careful for those No Fear guys

I should have been more careful during my test, someone wearing a No Fear shirt could have run into the middle of the intersection and I would have hit him with a wide turn

Interview after my 5K!

It's all of 28 seconds....

Papers

Quinn suggested that I put up pictures of our playoff bracket papers....

so, his wish is my command!

Here are all the TEN papers:

(try clicking on the photo and zooming in...) Mom's then Quinn's then Kylie's

Steven's, Griffin's and Christopher's
Dad's and Zak's

Chase's then Heather's Enjoy!

The first game (Seahawks vs. Saints) was SHOCKING!

At least it was a very good game.

The 2nd game (Jets vs. Colts) SHOCKING also,

but quite boring.

We'll see what tomorrow brings!

Christopher & Griffin both picked the Jets to win!

And NICE for them, Dad and Christopher were the only ones that did NOT have the Saints Defense.

Playoffs - First TWO Games

Here are the guesses for the first two games:

Saints vs. Seahawks - Everyone guessed the Saints would win

Colts vs. Jets - Christopher and Griffin guess the Jets will will
Everyone else guesses the Colts will win

We'll see....

Christmas Lights

Last night, while driving Griffin home from a friend's, we looked down a street and saw these fantastic Christmas lights. We had to drive down the street and take a picture. I am amazed at how many houses still have their lights up on January 7th. I kind of enjoy it; but I am glad mine are down and put away. Twice today, I saw people's Christmas tree still up in their houses too.

Quinn!

Quinn just got home from his soccer game today.

His Frosh/Soph team won!

They won by a LONG way!

Quinn played a lot of the game.

He played well.

He played defensive.

He had a good time!

Congratulations, Quinn.

Or is this picture better?

Let's Look Back....

We started this blog in September of 2007
Let's look back and see what we, (meaning I), posted on January 7th of our previous years....

January of 2010 (Only 2 posts for this entire month!)
They were both about FOOTBALL – Playoff picks

Jan 7 2009 – (24 posts this month)
We were getting our furnace fixed
S & C took a picture of Cosmetology school I went to 29 years ago!
Griffin could read a few words…and, the, like, my, can…
(Yesterday, Jan 2011 he was reading Little House in the big woods!
Yea for progress!)

Jan 7 2008 (12 this month)
We had FHE and broke a piñata that Griffin, Kylie and I made;
it apparently caused great tears!
This was the month that I COMMANDED that all the children
have piano lessons, like it or not!
Zak was into football…shocking


So, what do we learn from all this:

• I am a great wife/mother....always cooking and cleaning, for YEARS!
• We are a family that enjoys Football!
• HEY! Who will set up our Playoff Brackets....anyone?
• Progress is good
• We can come back from a NO when we want a YES
• Taking piano lessons is a good thing!

OK, Now back to the Cleaning.

Oh, and On THIS day, January 7, 2011, Kerry called and asked me to lunch. So nice!

And Then There was Laundry...

Sorting, folding, putting away....

Oh, and there is still more in the washer....

Happy 2011!

We had a GREAT New Year's Eve!

We played our annual game; which we played for over 1 1/2 hours!

It is always a fun and funny time.

Here we are standing in front of the

GAME CATEGORIES
*Zak says he is going to get married the day after he gets home from his mission so he can have a whole category that he totally knows!

Everyone is holding their auction booty!

We are already thinking of new categories and questions for 2011!

Then we watched the movie "Shrek Forever After". It was great! I highly recommend it. It has great music; very funny.