Bubbles with Yuri

One of our students comes over once a week to play with the kids and help them with their Spanish. She spends an hour or so with them, and she’s always bringing them fun gifts. The other day she brought chalk, which they absolutely love. Since she’s a graphic designer, she helps the kids turn the basketball court into a canvas.

This week, she brought some bubbles, so the kids played with her outside for a while, and I took the video above. You can also watch it on Vimeo.

It’s fun to watch our kids interact with our students. Sometimes being in another country is difficult, but God always provides people who step in and become “substitute family.”

Pulling Teeth


Nathan’s tooth was so loose. Last night it was time.

I think he was afraid, and didn’t want the tooth fairy to take it. So mommy and daddy bought his tooth for 20 pesos and hid it from the tooth fairy.

Seminary Planet

Not sure if it’s because the kids and I have been playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 a little lately, or because I’ve re-discovered the goodness of Photojojo, but I made this little plaentoid of the Seminary the other day.

Planeta STBM

I used this tutorial from the Photojojo site to turn a panorama that I had shot with the Photosynth app on my phone into a planet.

I’m thinking of making them into t-shirts and selling them to seminary students. What do you think?

You should also check out:
Church Choir at the Mall
Panoramic View of the Seminary
Zocalo Ice Rink Panorama (2008)

Documenting your Life


Yesterday our family spent some time watching old videos on our YouTube channel. We easily spent almost an hour watching some milestones from the last few years. We re-lived some special family moments, like Christmas last year, crawling and first steps, blowing bubbles, and other moments we’ll never forget. The kids loved seeing themselves on TV (we have a computer hooked to our TV), and it made me thought of the importance of documenting your life.

I think one of the reasons that social networks like Facebook (and newer ones like Google+ and Path) have become so popular is that we want to document our lives. It’s important to be able to look back and see what’s going on. In fact, we’ve always done it. It’s just changed over the years.

We’ve watched old home movies on old projectors. I’ve looked through shoe boxes of old photos. My father in law has even broken out the slide projector in the past to show us old pictures.

These things may not be interesting to others, but they will be invaluable to us in the future. That’s one of the reasons I’ve posted over 7500 pictures to Flickr, why we have a videoblog, and why I’ve become slightly obsessed with Instagram, and it’s why I’m hoping to document each day in 2012 with a summary photo that I’ll probably only post to Flickr (If I post them at all).

What do you do to document your life? Are you going to do anything in 2012 to do it better?

Oh…I found a pretty cool service called “Pummlevision” that makes a quick summary video of your photos. It’s cool. Here’s one the service made last night of my last 2000 Flickr photos. It took about 5 minutes.

Cows for Missions

This joke from Mikeysfunnies made me laugh this morning. I hope you like it. It also reminded me of a way ranchers can be involved in our ministry. Keep reading for more details.

A farmer had been swindled many times by the local car dealer. One day, the car dealer informed the farmer that he was coming over to purchase a cow.

The farmer priced the unit as follows:

– Basic Cow $999.95
– Shipping and Handling $35.75
– Extra Stomach $79.25
– Two-tone Exterior $142.10
– Produce Storage Compartment $128.50
– Heavy Duty Straw Chopper $189.60
– 4-Spigot/High Output Drain System $149.20
– Automatic Fly Swatter $88.50
– Genuine Cowhide Upholstery $170.80
– Deluxe Dual Horns $59.25
– Automatic Fertilizer Attachment $339.40
– 4 X 4 Traction Drive Assembly $884.16
– Pre-Delivery Wash and Comb $69.80

Farmer Suggested List Price $3336.26
Additional Dealer Adjustment $300.00

Total list price (including options) $3636.26
Tax and Ear Tags $418.00

TOTAL PURCHASE PRICE $4054.26

STEER, Inc., is an organization that partners with ranchers and farmers to help them invest in the Great Commission through their everyday activities. It’s a great way to partner with us and help support our family and ministry.

If you or someone you know are involved in ranching or farming, they could help train youth workers in Latin America by taking a cow for us. It’s a risk-free investment for the rancher. If you’d like to know more, please contact us.