Happy New Year to all my loved ones, family, and friends. May the Lord bless you with your heart’s desire and keep you safe, happy, and healthy this year.

God bless,
Andy

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It’s December 26th, the day after Christmas, and I’m just getting over a massive head cold which limited my cheeriness over the holiday weekend. I’m so glad I made it to my parent’s house to see my family, visit with my baby neice, and spend time with aunts, uncles, and cousins which I rarely get to see.

But, this illness was certainly no fun. I retreated to a back bedroom most of the weekend trying not to spread my bug throughout the family. (I think I succeeded). But, if you’ve ever had a head cold, you know how hard it is to breathe at night. I slept horribly the first few nights.

Christmas Eve night was tough. I probably only slept 3 or 4 hours. While I couldn’t sleep, I tried my hand at video editing. In the wee hours of Christmas morning, I propped open my laptop and compiled this little video which has already garnered some good praise over on YouTube on my brother’s re-post.

God bless you all this holiday season, and may this year bring you your heart’s desire.

Song – Be Still, by Steven Curtis Chapman

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Click here to see the full photo stream.

As I said in my previous post, my father, my brothers and I just returned from the Grand Canyon. It was a blast – truly a trip for the ages. The trip was meaningful for two separate reasons. One, it was my father’s dream vacation. He’s always wanted to visit, and he’s always wanted to take a trip with his sons. To add to his delight, we took the back roads, ate in small dives along the way, and drank beers with the locals in bars most people would be scared to walk into to. It was right up his alley.

The second benefit of the trip is that it was a chance for all the brothers to get together outside of our hometown. (This is a goal of ours – to get together at least once a year outside the presence of our parents or our hometown.) We’re on year number two, and counting. These get togethers have been great at reaffirming our friendship, and making our bond of brotherhood even tighter. We are our own best allies. It’s important to nurture that.

So, as the trip began, we all flew into Las Vegas. We all arrived with a few hours of each other, and it didn’t take too long for us to check in at our first hotel – The Stratosphere, on the Las Vegas strip. This was as good of a place to start out as any. The rooms were only $25/night (thanks to Travelocity) and it had all the amenities you needed to have a good time in Vegas. We settled in. We hit the blackjack tables. Then took off for our first event – a helicopter ride down the Vegas Strip at night. I highly recommend this. You can find tickets online for about $60/person. And, the ride – athough short – was very fun and you get a view of Vegas that is priceless.

The next day was off to the West rim of the Grand Canyon. We setoff by 9:30am, and stopped off at the Hoover Dam to take the tour. Why not, right!?! This was totally cool, although the guided tour was about 20 minutes too long. From the Dam we headed toward Meadview, AZ. Along the way we stopped in Dolan Springs for some food and drink. This was an event. The food was failry good, but we had to walk across the street to the local biker bar for some suds. Althoug we didn’t fit in. The locals seemed to like us. Noah stepped right up to the bar, ordered drinks, then played a few songs on the jukebox which seemed to liven things up a bit.

After the drinks we were off to Grand Canyon West. This is the place which is building the Skywalk over the Canyon. The Skywalk is a U-shaped glass bridge which is cantilevered over the Canyon rim. This allows visitors to look straight down 4000 feet to the Canyon floor. Truly amazing! After a treachorous 14 mile drive down a dirt, rocky, unpaved, windy, bumby road, we made to the Hualippai Indian reservation ready for our tour. But, when we arrived we were informed we had missed the last tour of the day by 10 minutes. UUGGH!!! Before heading to our hotel we were able to get a few photos of the Canyon in the distance, but the sun was setting fast so off we went.

We checked into the Meadview Lake Motel. It was absolutely in the middle of nowhere! It was pitch dark when we arrived and it appeared as if nothing was around for miles. That night I had dreams that we were surrounded by the Sand People from Star Wars. But, when we woke we were preasantly surprised. It was a small town. But, this small town had a geogeous view of the Canyon. It was so beautiful. This is where we spent the next two days. We had dinner with the locals. Took a helicopter ride through the canyon from a nearby dude ranch. Played horseshoes. Had a cowboy sing a song for us. We caught both the sunrise and the sunset. And ontop of all this… we were the only tourists in the town. You can tell from our photos that no one else was anywhere in site.

Here’s a video my brother, Matthew, put together of the trip.

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I just wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know that I just got back from a trip to the Grand Canyon with all my brothers and my father. The experience was epic! I’ll be posting more about the trip in future posts, but I wanted to drop a short note to show some signs of life.

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You know that you’ve made it when you’re mentioned in your hometown paper. And that’s what happened to my brother (and me) this week! Nope, we haven’t been cited for our business ventures or successes, but for a few videos Matt captured nearly 10 years ago.

My brother, Matt, has uploaded a lot of his personal video footage to YouTube. There are several videos that include he and I as we drive into town and talk about the local businesses and beauty of the landscape. The videos continue as we drive into our parent’s neighborhood and arrive home for the holidays. Apparently this caught the attention of one of the Lowcountry Weekly’s staff writers.

When reading this I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought it was pretty intriguing to read the writer’s spin on the video clips. Having people hope for our next installment of “The Denton Boys Visit Publix” knocked me to the floor laughing. That was cute. But, now, I think we must! We must go visit Publix, and we must document the adventure for all of the great people on the internet.

After all the humor, one thing’s for sure. Video online is a big draw. Especially localized and specialized video. I’ll be posting more on this soon.

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It has been a busy week with visitors and some traveling, but I managed to sneak away for a quick trip to visit my parents for Halloween. It wasn’t as much of a visit as it was an answer to the call for help. Each year my parents’ neighborhood in Beaufort, SC gets well over 500 trick-or-treaters. (This is in contrast to the 3 kids I get at my house each year in Charlotte). It’s a mad rush, and something you wouldn’t believe if you didn’t see it with your own eyes. It’s a true picture of Americana.

This year the kids didn’t start coming to the door until about 6:00. And by 7:30 we had over 300 kids come to our door. We ran out of candy and were forced to turn many kids away who were still circling the block. Even after we turned out the porch lights many kids were still knocking on the doors in hopes that we may have a few pieces left.

To chronicle the event, I took photos of EVERY kid who came to our door. Take a peak, and give it the page a few seconds to load. It’s well worth the look.

Update: My brother took these photos and did a short video. Check it out.

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