miscellany and random

history: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." (my kids, studying the beginnings of Islam)

overheard: "I really don't understand why she's acting like this. I mean, she's in school, it's not like she's at home all day. She knows how to listen to a teacher. Why is she doing this?" (a grandmother, talking to the mother of said child, who steadfastly refused to have anything to do with the group activity in question. My children, who are home all day, were managing just fine.)

response: "That kind of freaks me out a little bit." (Andy in response to the shahadah)

creativity: The girls have industriously been making tickets for Elanor's class at church. The big kids' Wednesday night program is a camp, complete with camp store, which uses tickets as currency. Elanor has been very put out that she doesn't get any tickets at church. Not sure if this was her solution or Caroline's but we have a big ziploc baggie full.

space: Did you know that apparently it is no longer necessary to leave two spaces at the end of a sentence when typing? It's because computer fonts are smarter about spacing different size letters than typewriters. I can't seem to stop myself from automatically hitting the space bar twice, though. Does that make me an old dog?

response:"Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." (The Jesus Creed, or adapted shemah (sp?), which the children learned after learning the shahadah)

family pictures

Mylissa's family, not mine. I had a lot of fun shooting them and figured Mylissa wouldn't mind too much if I shared some favorites with you:






I have officially finished up the post processing work from this trip... I was surprised by how much it was! Although I supposed I shouldn't have been, since it was actually 4-5 events wrapped into one weekend. That is one busy weekend, if you ask me! It was a ton of fun, though, and I am hoping to be invited back for another round... maybe next year, when I've recovered.

more traveling for me!

I'm not sure what happened, but I think it means our kids are growing up. Suddenly, I am doing things and going places by myself. I have almost forgotten how. Exciting side note here: I am going to see the David Crowder Band in concert in November! Have never seen these guys perform and boy am I excited. And it's one more thing I'm doing sans kids (and hubby, poor guy, I know he would like to go too but it was his idea for me to go). Yippee!

I just got back from a fun fun weekend in Cincinnati with Jenny... hard to believe that we have been best friends for 2/3 of our lives at this point. That seems like a pretty long time to me! Thursday, I drove north with my dad (getting up at the truly ungodly hour of 3:30 am to hit the road without coffee until 6) and landed at Jen's in time for a delightful homemade pizza. For a late dinner.

Dad left Friday morning and Jenny and I started in on a fun weekend... which kind of felt like being back in high school, but on an extended slumber party, and more fun. Jenny also loves to shoot (you should see some of her rockin' pictures from travels in France), so we planned on "playing pictures" a.k.a. shooting whatever looked good to us. It's a different thing for me, shooting scenery instead of children, and I kind of feel lost doing it, but we had fun. (there are pictures on the sadly neglected flickr link if you click that: see, it's right up there on the side. I labeled who took which ones because Jen's still shooting film, but she played with my camera too). We hit Ault Park, which is a beautiful place somewhere in Cincinnati... Jenny's camera tried to scare us with a lockup so we detoured by her friendly camera store and spent a good half an hour talking over all kinds of fun photography subjects with the friendly guy there... then we headed downtown to her office and the newly renovated Fountain Square. On to Dilly Deli for a tasty dinner and then we tried to go see The Bourne Ultimatum, but yours truly suffered a serious attack of motion sickness (I'd like to know who thought that video style was cool, because it's really not), so we bailed halfway through and enjoyed the pleasant evening outside of the coffee shop nearby.

Speaking of which... let me tell you, the weather was awesome. We had the windows open all weekend... almost warm enough for tees, but cool enough that a jacket sounded good, especially in the evening... wow, that weather was just amazing. I came home and it's still in the upper 90s, no end in sight.

Saturday was a leisurely breakfast at First Watch, followed by a delightful ramble through the fabric store (don't even ask), ice cream at Graeter's, and a relaxing afternoon baking cookies and working on the fabric (again, please don't ask). It was just like being in high school again, except we are (supposedly) grownups. Jenny cooked a scrumptious dinner for her parents and my dad, so we spent a fun evening eating and hanging out!

Early, but not too early, flight home on Sunday, which was crazy easy. It was on a budget airline I'd never heard of and I was a little nervous about flying on it, but the price was too good to pass up. We actually left early and landed even earlier, plus they gave me a front row seat. I got off quickly and was able to have lunch with my family! I missed them, but boy was it a fun trip. Very relaxing, too!

walking in memphis

Sorry, I just had to say it.

I had a great weekend in Memphis with Mark and Mylissa, but I have to tell you, it was tiring, too! I knew they were working hard, but seeing them in action added a whole new face to it. I came home completely exhausted and this is after Mylissa told me it was a light weekend! It was such a fun weekend. I got to take some fun pictures, both portraits and candids.... I was a fly on the wall at a birthday party and a minor league baseball game (for pictures, visit the HFH blog). I feel like there's a lot I could say about the time I spent there, and I probably will say more, but at first blush, it was neat to see this little community of people gathering together, supporting each other, and becoming a kind of family as they are all going through these illnesses together. Mark and Mylissa are crazy busy, and they do have stressful things going on at times, but at the same time I felt like they just have this peace about them... that they know they are where God wants them to be and that they are doing what God wants them to do.

It was an awesome trip. Here's a sneak peek of some shots: