Christmas morning...

Happy New Year everybody! I don't have much time to write at the moment since Sarah went to work and I have both kids (this is a lot harder than I thought). She likes to pick up some shifts when I'm off and I usually take Carter and Claire over to my folks' place anyway which is fun.

Christmas was a blast. We tried our best to keep the focus on the Savior especially for Carter who is really beginning to become more and more perceptive as each day passes. As you'll see below, he received a bicycle from Santa along with many other thoughtful gifts from family and friends.

Sarah and I tend not to spend a lot on ourselves at Christmas but this year we indulged a little and bought an in car GPS system which has us both excited. It's one of those gadgets that's both fun and practical. We picked ours up on eCost.com.

Well, we hope everyone is well. Here are a few photos I took with the new digital camera my parent's gave us:


Carter has loved to draw and paint from very early on and he's getting better every day. He's now at the stage in which people's legs grow directly out of their heads. You'll note that Carter has enhanced his mother's appearance by adding a coal train smokestack. Hey, why not?









Claire with Uncle "E." She's been into the 19th century look as of late.





Cater getting his bike for Christmas. He's already had a few crashes, but he keeps getting back on! Excuse the poor lighting, it was still rather early in the morning.

My favorite sites

I don't know how many of you have certain websites that you visit regularly, but I do. When I say "regularly" I mean daily, or almost daily. I think the sites one visits says a lot about your personality. In a way I am a bit embarrassed when I look at the list. Below you'll find a few lists, the first being THE list. Here I go:

Sites I visit daily or almost daily.

1. Gmail.com
The reason why I visit this site is obvious. I use email for work, school, and to keep in touch with friends and family. I think Gmail is by far the best email program because it keeps conversations in "threads" and provides tons of space so you can archive messages and go back to them using a built in search engine whenever you need to.

2. digg.com
Digg allows users to submit content (websites, etc.) and then the other users "digg" the story thus dictating which articles and stories "rise to the top." It divides content into various categories such as technology, science, gaming, videos, etc. so there's a little something for everyone. Digg is full of geeks and "progressives," for better or worse, and comments are cruel and witty all at the same time.

3. google.com/news
I have customized my news page so I see all the world news, etc. as well as news related to particular key terms I chose to have google aggregate news on. It's a great way to catch up on news in general as well as on topics of particular interest.

4. Joystiq.com
A blog dedicated to gaming. I keep up as much on the trends in the industry as I do on the games themselves.

5. mmajunkie.com
This is a blog about mixed martial arts which is by far my favorite sport. I love to watch it and I am going to join a jiu-jitsu gym when I have more time. I know a lot of people dislike the sport, but once you're educated in the various aspects of it I think it becomes clear that it's not that much different than other combat sports. It becomes the most interesting once you get to know the various martial arts involved, the rules, and the individual fighters.

6. mmamania.com
MMA blog


Sites I visit at least once a week:

1. wikipedia.org
2. xbox360fanboy.com
3. cnn.com
4. sherdog.com and sherdog.net (forums)
5. redlands.edu
6. costco.com
7. cnet.com
8. blogger.com
9. facebook.com
10. astralpulse.com
11. bungie.net

I need to go be a dad right now, so here's where this cataloging ends. I'd love to hear which sites you visit regularly.

A photo blog? Yes...

Since I haven't been very consistent about writing and posting here, I've decided to make this more of a photo blog. So to kick things off, I'm going to post some of the photos I found on the particular notebook computer I'm using (I say that because I have two "work" notebooks and one personal machine I use, so my files are spread out between them). So enjoy and check back for more photos which I plan on posting weekly.

-Danny

Ok, I just went through the My Pics folder on this machine and the only photos I have on here are some we recently took at the Los Angeles county fair which, if you haven't been, is a crazy, fun, strange place. Everything from fine art to deep fried Twinkies to demolition derbies are featured for the four weeks or so that it runs.


Jeff Carter, aka "Pappa" (Sarah's dad) with Carter and Ryan at the cow milking station where they demonstrate how cow milking works.

Sarah, Claire, me, Carter, Hayley, and my dad at the demo derby (Sarah left with Claire soon after this shot because of the deafening exhaust notes from the insane, Mad Maxesque cars).

Carter, me, Hayley and Ryan

Happy Halloween!

We spent the morning at Disneyland and had a great time. For Halloween night we went trick or treating, or rather trunk or treating, next door at the church. Carter dressed up as Spiderman and Claire was Super Girl (Wonder Womanesque homemade costume). I'll post some photos soon! For now the following photo from Buzzlightyear at D-land will have to suffice.

Me vs. Entropy

FOUND IT!

Most of you remember the anxious email I sent out a while back lamenting the fact that I'd lost my mobile phone and needed everyone to send me their phone numbers again. I was upset that after all of these years using cell phones I had lost the phone inexplicably. Indeed, I was not only upset about it, I was embarrassed because I take pride in the fact that I take care of three things in life: my wallet, my phone, and my keys. In fact, I used to misplace one or more of those things all the time, but in recent years I had made an effort to make a habit of keeping these precious man accessories in specific places at home, work, and in the car in order to avoid the drama of a lost wallet or cellio.

So, after finally accepting the loss of the phone I moved on, purchasing new phones and extending our contract with AT&T. I still couldn't think of a time or place where I had lost the phone. In fact, it seemed to me that I had the phone when we arrived at my folk's house in Chino Hills to pick up Carter after a romantic weekend getaway to the beach.

Saturday night we were over at my parents house visiting and my dad mentions casually, "Oh, we found your phone in the recliner. It's upstairs on my dresser." My eyes went wide, "What? You found it!"

I immediately copied all of the contacts onto the old SIM and then put that in my new phone and transferred those over. Needless to say, my record of losing a cell phone (for good at least) remains unblemished and I have all the numbers back. Perhaps not the most exciting news, but I thought I'd share this minor victory over entropy.

Baby Claire!

Still no Georgia photos, but I will one up myself by posting the following photos of Claire Susanne Todd, my new daughter! Born 8-8-07 (just think, her first B-day will be 8-8-08) and weighing in at 8 lbs. 7 oz., she's healthy and happy. Sarah's labor was much easier this time around, which has made life a lot easier on all of us since we all know she's the center of it all, you know, the one who keeps things afloat for the HMS Todd.

I need a weekend!

I've only been back to work for two days after a month and a half off and I feel like I really need this weekend! Now before you judge me as completely pathetic, I did just finish up my second full term at University of Redlands, so I have been working on school related stuff. Also, the first few days back as a teacher are a bit more taxing for me than for many others in that I am in charge of helping all of the teachers with technology, and since we just switched over to a web based attendance system, that's been a full-time job in and of itself!

I still can't find that camera cable, so I can't get the photos from Atlanta off my camera, but I did just order a new one, so any day now.

I hope you're all well. Here are some random things I found on the web this evening that I thought we're worth sharing. Enyoy!

Check out the blue hole here. I want to dive this!


Does THIS come as any surprise?
If you want something "bottled at the source," make sure the source isn't the tap. I am not a greenie, but I do think water bottles are a ridiculous waste...although I am known to have one with me most of the time. At least I am cheap enough to refill my bigger water bottles a few times before trashing them.

See if you can figure it out...

...I didn't until the end: