theMcMurray's Blog » Scott

The Bird that got away!

Ian — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:59:05 +0000

I am a villain and a very bad man!

My oldest, Scott, was so excited to have found a female canary for only $25 dollars on-line the other day.
He had called the guy and arranged for me to stop by and buy the bird.
I thought I was all prepared by taking an older, cleaned out, cage with a big blanket to keep the bird calm during the drive. I drove with the cage in-mind as to not need to stop too urgently. It was a gorgeous day and so I rolled the front windows down, thinking the bird would still be safe under the blanket. I even thought the bird my enjoy some fresh air! However, my my attempts at ‘safe-driving’ were cut short by somebody who sought to take advantage of the space between me and the car in front.
As fate would deliver, the approaching traffic lights were turning red and I was required to step on the brakes at an alarming rate. In the juggle of gauging distances and anticipating the bird cage rolling and while trying to close the 2 front windows, the bird cage fell over and out sprang the bird!
I was surprised at how quickly it navigated the interior of my vehicle and before I knew it, it had flown right out of my window!
I tried spotting the bird to see which direction to maybe retrieve it, but the car behind me didn’t appreciate the delay.
I turned around and headed back to ‘the bird man’, only to dish out another $25 for a lesson well learned!
Poor little bird, I hope she’s ok, wherever she decided to rest.
I could recover from this little accident though, nobody had to know about it. But then I recall that I had called home and told them how beautiful it was and described it’s colour with precision. Bird #2 didn’t align with my previous statements! Gulp… I headed home and hoped for the best.
“It’s kind of orangey” was the first words uttered from Scott!
Doh – my cover was broken, but I remained calm and collected… “Yeah – kind of orangey yellow” was my reply, “it must be due to the lights”. That seemed to satisfy, but I think he knew that something wasn’t quite right.
Scott and my other kids still don’t know what happened on my trip home with bird #1, however it seems to have caused the giggles with Kristy whenever anything about bird #2 is mentioned.
Therefore I vote I should be banned from future pet delivery services!
Better leave some bird food out for Bird #1, it’ll help me sleep better anyway!

Athlete of the year: Scott

Ian — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:20:58 +0000

We had the chance to attend a banquet a few weeks ago held at All American Gymnastics, which Scott and Toby attend. Part of the evening was an award presentation to gymnasts who had impressed the coaches.

Both Kristy and I were amazed to discover that Scott was awarded with the ‘Beau Bailey Award’, named after the first gymnast to receive it. The award now sits, gracefully, in his bedroom with all his other gymnastics adornments.

Well done Scott.

Proud Mom!

kristy — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:24:02 +0000

My two boys, Scott and Toby had their first meet of the season on Saturday. Scott is currently competing Level 6 and Toby is competing Level 5. It is Scott’s second season as a L6 and Toby’s first season as a L5. They both looked absolutely awesome. Polished and perfect as they could be. Scott ended up with 1st place all around with an outstanding score of 89.1. Toby came in 5th place all around with a 1st place on vault and a total score of 80.1. Their teams placed 1st as well and Toby got to be the trophy taker because of his consistent performance at the meet. What fun it was to watch them both focus and concentrate so hard on each of their events. They were disciplined and gave their all on everything. How can I not be proud of such outstanding boys. We got it all on video and got to show it off to our extended family the next day at Scott’s 11th surprise birthday party. I can’t help but brag about them, but they earned it all on their own. I can’t take any credit, I just get to be sooooo PROUD!!! Way to go BOYS!

Great Children!

kristy — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:18:04 +0000

Yesterday was crazy and I had a lot to do. The kids were locked into what I had to do and not able to do much of what they wanted. We created this little giving tree for our family. It consists of a cut out tree and slips of rolled paper with things we can do for each other to bring the spirit of Christmas into our home. After they complete the action listed they put a colored star (each color representing a different child) on the tree to show something special has been done. When I returned home last night from a long day of gymnastics stuff it was later on and the kids were all hungry. Scott quickly jumped in and helped me make the chocolate chip pancakes. He was able to make them pretty much all on his own while I cleaned up the kitchen. The other children played nicely together and let us get it all ready without complaint. Scott continued to help out by picking things off of the giving tree and doing the things that were listed, which in turn inspired Toby & Alyson to join in. By the end of the night, they had read the girls stories, told each other what they like about each other, Aly surprised me by cleaning the play room, and brought true joy to our crazy disoriented home. We had some treats before bed and shared our favorite Christmas memories and it was truly special to me. These are the moments that make me so proud to be a mom of such fabulous children. It is these moments that help me to realize what life is all about and what this Christmas season is all about. Thank you: Scott, Toby, Alyson and Fiona! You are all wonderful!

Precious Moments

kristy — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:34:24 +0000

I was lucky enough today to have one of those spiritual teaching moments with my boys, Scott & Toby. They had just asked their dad today a question about some extended family members they were concerned about. Scott wanted to know if they would get to be in the celestial kingdom or not? Well, on the way to my niece’s baby blessing today we talked about that subject most of the way up there, which led to missionary talk. They both wanted to know all about missions and were very determined to serve one. We spoke about the purpose of life and why we want to share the gospel with others. We also spoke about respecting other people and how we should love everyone no matter what they believe. It was awesome to answer there questions and hear their responses to such important subjects. What it all boiled down to is what is this life all about! How can we make this life the best possible? They were so receptive to my answers and it was incredible to bear my testimony to them over and over again during that 30 minute ride! These are truly precious moments in my life!

Arduino Fun – Science Experiment #1

Ian — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:37:18 +0000

The Arduino Duemilanove board is such a fun little thing to play with.

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software.

Both Scott and Toby helped out in creating a visual and audible light detector.
We used:

8 Light Emitting Diodes
9 resistors
1 photo resistor
1 piezo speaker

here is what our Arduino experimental board looked like:

We ended up creating the following C file to upload to our Arduino board to test it out. We found that in total darkness, all the LED’s are lit and there is no tone emitted. Whereas walking outside turned all the LED’s off and the speaker output a high note.

GeoCaching Milestone

Ian — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:45:05 +0000

Today, Scott and myself went GeoCaching around the east side of Utah lake. We were in search of “travel bugs” and “GeoCoins” but came up empty handed! We raced to the last cache in the hopes of finding something grand, but couldn’t even find the cache!
But the good news is that Scott was able to place his first Travel Bug into the system. We called his Travel Bug “All American Scott” since that’s the name of his gym and we wanted to add a gymnastic spin to the goal of the travel bug.
We hope the travel bug will make it’s way to Scotland and find lots of people with medals (hopefully fellow gymnasts) that will, hopefully, take pictures of themselves (with their medals) and post them on the travel bugs homepage.
Feel free to join along in the adventure of Scott’s travel bug at the following URL:

All American Scott Travel Bug

Happy travels Travel Bug!

Indiana Jones and the Lost Brother!

Ian — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:52:39 +0000

Granpa Marc wrote about a recent adventure over the Memorial weekend.

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/268273/

Indiana Jones had some help from his Granpa to find Toby, who was the lost brother

Scott’s Las Vegas Meet

Ian — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:54:25 +0000

i Finally got around to editing Scott’s video of the Blackjack Gymnastics Invitational from earlier this year. Scott took 3rd place on vault and his team took 3rd place overall.

Pre Meet Gym Competition: Scott

Ian — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:15:12 +0000