Happy Father's Day!

Thanks for always being there, Dad. I hope this video let's you know how special you are.
love,
Matt

Southwind 2011

"I see, you see, we all seaHORSES!!!" This was the chant of our cabin all week at Southwind. This picture on the right was taken of our cabin on Pirate night. From left to right: Sam, Mark, Paul, me, Max, Casey, Hinton, Peter, Tripp, David, Alex, JW, Freddy, and Chris. We had such an awesome cabin, and we literally sang songs the whole week. It all started on the first night when we realized everyone enjoyed singing. By the end of the week, we had all lost our voices because we had sung so much. Our favorite song was definitely "Lean on Me."

This picture was taken of McLean and I on Pirate/Princess night. Paul is definitely creeping in the back of the picture.

Cartoon Camp

  I had 15 kids participate in my Cartoon Camp this week! It's the first time I have ever tried to teach cartoon drawing, and it was a blast! It made me remember Coach Gentry and when I was first learning how to draw cartoons back in 1995 (I was 10 years old). Here is what we covered. 

Monday: History of Disney and How to Draw People

Tuesday: History of Warner Brothers and How to Draw Animals

Wednesday: History of Hannah Barbera and How to Draw Letters

Thursday: History of Cartoon Network and How to Draw Comic Strips

Friday: History of Nickolodeon and Final Project

Summer is Here!

 This is a picture I took at the beach on Memorial Day weekend! It was an awesome sunset and a perfect way to kick off the summer!!

This is a good picture of the six of us.

Goodbye LE Class

This was my very first Language Enrichment class to teach at St. Mary's. I have a special connection with this group because I got to teach them every day for the last 2 years. Besides having a billion inside jokes, we all got to know each other pretty well during our time together, and I know that I am going to miss them a lot next year. Good luck LE class!!!

First House

This is the house my family lived in for the first 10 years of my life. I have several great memories in this house, but here are some that always come back to me. Selling lemonade and cartoons on the front of our driveway, pushing Mike in the ditch in our front yard, riding bikes around the house, Mike falling off his skateboard head first and getting stitches, playing basketball in the backyard, playing hockey in the garage, building forts and climbing the pine trees in the back yard, running around in the common ground behind our yard, mowing the common groung for Mr. Duke's crouquet tournaments, jumping on the neighbors' trampolines, Samson getting run over in front of our house, Samson getting blown up by a firework's surprise ending in the backyard, Samson eating asbestos above the garage, playing double shot, Sega, pillow fights, and the sheet game down the stairs in the playroom, sitting around the dinner table in the kitchen at every meal, lying in the hallway by the washer and dryer for days when I had migraines from diving in the neighborhood pool, Dad watching countless hours of sports in the living room sitting on the pink chair, the brick fire place where we hung our stockings for Christmas, the old yellow out-of-tune piano in the corner, the tiny room that Mike and I shared our bunk beds(I always slept on the bottom bunk, and he always slept on the top bunk), sports posters on the wall, hiding a Halloween skeleton in the closet so Mom wouldn't find it, drawing cartoons on my cherry wood art desk in the corner behind the door, staying up late talking to Mike, going to sleep on the floor in Mom and Dad's room when we were scared or couldn't fall asleep, the night light that always stayed on in the bathroom in the hallway, fighting over use of the sink, toilet, and shower, always being the last one to take a shower in the morning and having no hot water, the yellow throw-up basin under the sink, and how much bigger Dave and Andrew's room always seemed.

The Van

Being in a family of 6, the van played an integral role in our family. I have many memories driving to school, the grocery store, and long beach trips in the van. Dave always got the best seat right by the broken sliding door which he slammed too hard, Mike got the seat right next to him because he would get car sick in the back seat. Andrew and I were the only ones who could stomach being in the back, but we never got any air back there! I remember pleading with Dave to roll the wheel up on the air conditioner to give us some air, but he would only do it for like 5 seconds. I also remember Dave leaning the middle seat back to crush our legs at random times, and he always thought it was so funny. Dad would ALWAYS drive, and mom always had shotgun. This picture of the red Astro van looks like the first van we had when we were living in the house Cottonwood.


This the first vehicle that I learned to drive. It had several nicknames like the Bean, the Space Ship, and the Death Mobile because it could accelerate so fast. In fact, it was even used by criminals because it provided such a quick getaway! Our family bought it brand new in 1993 about the time that Rena, our boysitter started taking care of us. She was always so scared that she was going to wreck it, and we were too as she got older and her driving got worse. Somehow, this van survived a long time in our family, and this is the van that we have the most memories.