Is it summer yet?

Canoeing on Lake Merritt in Oakland, July 2010

Sure is hard to believe it was three years ago that I drove my kids nuts! During the summer of 2010, I took my kids on some surprise day trips through the summer because I knew they were getting older and we wouldn’t always have the opportunity to do some of these things together. Now that Matthew has graduated and is working full time, I am thankful we took the time to spend together on these trips.

So this upcoming summer will be the first time that Kelsey and I will spend the whole summer together, just the two of us. Now it is not that we haven’t spent the whole school together, because we have. But during the school year, there are schedules to keep and definitely things that need to be done. For summer though, my youngest child would probably prefer to stay home just about every day, reading, or creating, or hanging out (literally!) in a tree in our backyard. She is definitely my homebody child.

To combat the homebody syndrome and to help her spend some fun time with a few of her friends, I decided we needed to come up with a plan. We sat down the other day and wrote down some ideas of day trips to go on this summer. Here is the list we came up with:

1. Tubing/rafting in Yosemite http://www.yosemitepark.com/rafting.aspx

2. Exploratorium http://www.exploratorium.edu/

3. Bowling

4. Rafting by Knight's Ferry http://raftadventure.com/

5. Jelly Belly Factory http://www.jellybelly.com/visit_jelly_belly/california_factory_tours.aspx

6. Cable Car Museum and ride Cable Cars http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/

7. Slumber Party

The fun part about this list is for each day trip, she gets to invite one of her friends along each time. I think this will be fun way for us to spend our summer and I am looking forward to sharing our adventures with you!

What plans do you have for your summer? I would love to hear about them!

Capture Your 365

I have a whole week of photo prompts for you today!

Compassion Mobile Experience

ISO 100, 20mm, f/7.1, 1/640 sec

Day 124 – A Wide Angle: My whole family was able to volunteer for a shift at the Compassion Mobile Experience when they were in our area recently. I knew this was the shot I wanted to take to go along with this prompt. Have you had a chance to visit the experience yet?

strawberry jam

ISO 100, 44mm, f/5.3, 1/6 sec

Day 125 – Relaxation: that is exactly what I did after making 2 batches of strawberry jam!

crayons

ISO 100, 36mm, f/5.0, 1/30 sec

Day 126 – Crayons: Crayons in our home are not used very much any more, but it is amazing to me how many we have! Every now and then we bring them out when we are watching little people, or when we are doing a fun project for our Compassion kids.

candy

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/15 sec

Day 127 – Candy: Can you see my favorite candy there on the top right shelf?

macaroni and cheesse

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/10 sec

Day 128 – Snacks: Interestingly enough, I don’t really eat a lot of snacks when I am home during the day, so I decided to take a photo of the homemade macaroni and cheese we had for lunch on this day. Yum!

rabbit

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/40 sec

Day 129 – Animals: This is Kelsey’s bunny, Vinnie. She used to show rabbits while in 4-H years ago, but now she just has two pet rabbits. I can’t believe I didn’t get the very tops of his ears in the picture!

framed

ISO 100, 50mm, f/4.5, 1/15 sec

Day 130 – Framed: I believe it was back on day 68 that I did a photo similar to this one, with just me. This time I decided to have Kelsey join me.

So this wraps up a full week of Capture Your 365 photo prompts for me! Have you started joining in on the fun? Please let me know in the comments so I can visit your post of photos.

I went on a field trip!

Now I know I usually post something about Compassion on Mondays here on my blog, but I just have to share with you what I was able to do on Saturday this past weekend. Since last fall, I have been taking a photography class through a local photographer. He teaches through one of the charter schools, but he is open to having adults join in his classes, which I have really appreciated! My camera now sits in manual mode almost 99% of the time while I am shooting pictures, and I love having the control over the settings.

So on Saturday, our class went on a field trip to San Francisco for a whole day excursion. The city was quite foggy which was a little disappointing because I was really looking forward to going to a spot I had never been before. The plan was to end our day at the Marin Headlands around sunset time to get night time shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. But it was not going to happen, there was just too much fog to make that trip over the bridge. So we started heading back home…or so we thought.

There is an island part way across the bay as you are driving back over the Bay Bridge. We decided to give it a try. So, with all of our camera gear and whatever warm clothing we had with us, we made our way across a hill to set up our tri-pods for some shots of the San Francisco skyline.

ISO 100, 135mm, f/22, 30 seconds

At first, it really wasn’t quite dark enough

ISO 100, 100mm, f/25, 30 seconds

Amazing what a difference a few minutes later can make

ISO 100, 70mm, f/8.0, 13 seconds

Then someone suggested that I open up my aperture and change my white balance settings in my camera. Can you see the light trails in the bottom right corner from a boat?

ISO 100, 70mm, f/8.0, 13 seconds

The only difference between the last picture and this one is the white balance settings. Which one do you like better?

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 seconds

We did move around a bit on the hillside to get just a little different perspective

ISO 100, 120mm, f/7.1, 10 seconds

Again, the only difference in these last two photos is the white balance setting in the camera. Which one do you like better?

We were all out on the side of the hill for just over an hour shooting pictures. I had a great time adjusting settings, moving around to different spots, and learning how many white balance settings I have in my camera. There is always something new to learn, right? Now I have to tell you that these photos are straight out of my camera, I have not done any editing on them yet in Lightroom. I know they need a little work, so hopefully, I will have a bit of time this week to play around with these…or any one of the almost 300 pictures I took on Saturday.

Did you take pictures of anything fun this past weekend?

Be the voice for a mom today

As I sit in my comfortable home, having just mopped my kitchen floor, I have to wonder what life is like for a mother living in extreme poverty:

The sun has just come up and I know I must get out of bed to fetch water for my family before they all wake up. The journey to get water each day is tiring, but I know that my family needs water to drink and there is a pile of laundry that needs to be done today, as there always is.

I am concerned that my children will stay healthy, so many children in my village have died because of the water and lack of food that we have here.

But I am also hopeful. My children have been attending the Compassion project and they come home excited, sharing about God the Father who takes care of His children. I am trying to learn more about God, but there are so many things I must do to take care of my family each day.

This new baby that I am carrying, I want him or her to be born healthy. Before my children starting attending the Compassion project, I had lost two babies because they got sick after they were born and we did not have the ability to save them.

With the help of someone I have never met, I am able to attend the Compassion project also once a month. They teach me about God. They teach me about nutrition and ways to help me be a good mother. I am so thankful for the many women who take the time to pour into my life. Maybe it is time for me to accept God as my Savior too.

This is a fictional story, but one that could be happening in one of the countries where Compassion helps moms and babies through the Child Survival Program. Many children in impoverished areas do not even survive until their third birthday. But with the help of Compassion and the Child Survival Program, many moms are receiving pre-natal care, get proper nutrition, and learn about the love of Jesus.

This Mother’s Day, would you consider helping a mother and her family? You can make a one-time donation or you can make an ongoing monthly contribution. Whatever you choose, I pray that you have a blessed Mother’s Day!

This post has been written as part a Compassion Blogger’s assignment. You can learn more about Compassion Blogger’s here.

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Capture Your 365

Boy has it been a busy week around here, which didn’t leave a lot of time for me to focus on the photo prompts from the Capture Your 365 challenge. Only three photos from the prompts this week, but I do have one bonus photo to share.

garden

ISO 100, 50mm, f/5.0, 1/640 sec

Day 117 – Fresh: Finally had some time to clean up my garden area and get some plants in the ground. Spent about three hours putting in 4 tomato plants, 20 basil starts, 2 zucchini, a whole bunch of marigolds and 3 new rose bushes. Instead of wire tomato cages, I am trying this new thing I found on Pinterest to help support the tomato plants. We will see how well it works.

on the floor

ISO 100, 18mm, f/8.0, 1.6 sec

Day 118 – On The Floor: Just bought a new piece of furniture from IKEA, so time to rearrange things in the school/craft room…again. With Matthew out of school and Kelsey doing a lot of school work in her room, the school/craft room isn’t really being used as a school room anymore. So we cleared out 2 desks and I am currently on the lookout for a big craft table to use in this room. Meanwhile, there are many piles all over the place that need to find new homes.

the price

ISO 100, 22mm, f/8.0, 1/200 sec

Day 119 – The Price: This is why you fill up your gas tank before you get into the mountains around here. This gas station is right outside of Yosemite National Park, which brings me to this bonus picture for you this week!

yosemite falls

ISO 100, 18mm, f/8.0, 1/200 sec

Bonus photo: Last week, I was able to go to Yosemite with three of my friends. It was just what I needed, a little break to enjoy the beauty of this place that God created. The falls were amazingly full, it wasn’t too crowded, the weather was gorgeous…where do you go when you need a break?