Capture Your 365, or not

Usually on Wednesday, I share my week’s worth of Capture Your 365 photos. But not this week. I knew we were going to a Civil War event this past weekend, so I thought I would take a break from the daily photo prompts and share some photos from our weekend.

corpsman

ISO 200, 55mm, f/4.0, 1/160 sec

Kelsey and a couple of the girls decided to go out on the field as corpsmen with our 20th Maine group this past weekend. Basically, they are responsible for bandaging up any of the fallen soldiers on the field.

43rd Viriginia

ISO 200, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/160 sec

This past year (even though we have only been to two events), Matthew has been ‘playing’ over on the confederate side of the field. Which means my children were on opposite sides!!

Matthew getting instructions

ISO 200, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec

So here is my son, Matthew, kneeling, getting ready to ‘fire’ upon the ‘enemy’.

Kelsey is wounded

ISO 200, 165 mm, f/5.3, 1/320 sec

Right in the middle of the photo, Kelsey is holding onto her ‘wounded’ arm.

At one point during the ‘battle’, Kelsey came to the front of their line and shouted, “Brother, stop shooting at us!” I could hear here all the way on the sidelines! Then ‘shots’ were fired, and over she went. Eventually, Matthew ended up being ‘shot’ and ‘died’ out on the field too.

full moon over camp

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/500 sec

Overall, it was a beautiful weekend! This was our seventh time at this event! Civil War reenacting has been a great activity for our family. We have learned a lot about the Civil War, and we have been able to spend time with some wonderful people.

Photo Treasure Hunt - Orange

Since we are in October, a lot of people around the country are already seeing some great fall color. But here in Central California….not so much. However, I was able to find a few orange treasures to share with you.

marigold

post it note to do list

candy corns and peanuts

tigger

pumpkins

candy corn flower pot

peach tea

fall leaves

Are you ready to join in on our weekly Photo Treasure Hunt? Here is what you need to know:

Link up by posting your blog post URL- not just blog URL

Link back to one of us (grab button if desired)

Visit other blogs and leave comment love.

Be sure to take note of next theme and start collecting more photos. Jill always has a fun transition photo, so be sure to visit

her blog

to see what the theme is for next week!

We reserve the right to remove any links that don’t fit the link up theme or that we find inappropriate

So over the last few weeks, we have been selecting colors as our theme. But this week, since Jill and I are both Compassion Advocates, we thought it would be fun to join in with a special photo treasure hunt that is going on right now on the Compassion blog!!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about One Meal One Day, which is the focus of the photo scavenger hunt announced on the Compassion blog. We will be searching for photos which focus on blessings, waste, need, and advocacy.

refrigerator

Like this photo which shows the inside of my refrigerator.

So the Photo Treasure Hunt theme for next week is….One Meal One Day!! Be sure to hop on over to the Compassion blog to get all of the details (and if you post a link to your photos in the widget on the Compassion blog, you will be entered in a contest for prizes from Compassion!) This next link up will start on Tuesday, October 29th.

In the meantime, come back and share the blog link with your orange photo treasures below:

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...

October Compassion Share & Tell

Last month, I introduced a new thing here on my blog, Compassion Share & Tell! Each month, I want to be able to share with my readers what I am sending to my sponsored and correspondence Compassion kids. In return, I am hoping that each one of you will share what you are sending to your Compassion kids! Also, this will be a great way to help us all be accountable to each other, making sure we write to our kids on a regular basis.

So here is what I put together for this month:

First, I printed off the printable Christmas ornaments from Compassion’s Second Friday Letter Writing Club Pinterest board. (This is a great board to follow! {wink!}) It took a bit of time to cut out all of the ornaments, six in each set.

Since I happen to have a laminating machine (found one really cheap at Costco), I put each ornament through the laminator, then cut them out….again. If you don’t have a laminator, you can just as easily cover these with clear contact paper.

Since we can’t send a lot of ribbon in our mailings, I did hole punch each ornament near the top, then tied a bit of ribbon to just one of the ornaments in each set. Then each set of ornaments went into a ziploc bag. On the outside of the bag, I placed a label. I print out a sheet of labels with my name and sponsor number, as well as my child’s name and sponsor number. This makes things go a little quicker when you are sending multiple items at one time.

Since I typed out my letters last month, I wanted to handwrite my letters this month. So I went on a search for some printable Christmas stationary. Here is what I wrote in each of the letters:

Dear Lina (or Abner, or Victor),

It is only October here, but by the time you receive this letter, it might be Christmas! For Christmas, our family likes to decorate a Christmas tree with many ornaments. I am sending some ornaments to you. These ornaments all have Bible verses to remind us that Jesus is our Savior.

I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Do you have a favorite Christmas song?
2. What special Christmas traditions are there in your country?

I am still spending a lot of time studying the book of Ephesians. One verse from last week was from Ephesians 4:7 - “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”

You are a special person, created to do amazing things because God loves you!

And I love you too!

I stapled the ziploc bag to the back of each of the letters, folded the letters, and placed all the letters in a 6x9-inch manila envelope to mail. So for just a little bit of time, and a little bit of money, my October letters are on their way!

Are you ready to join in?

Here are the rules:

• Link up by posting your blog post URL- not just the blog URL
• Visit other blogs and leave comment love.
• I reserve the right to remove any links that don’t fit the link up theme or that I find inappropriate

Blog hop will remain open until Friday, November 1, 2013, so be sure to come back and share your blog post with us at the Linky Tools below:

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...

Capture Your 365

Here are a few of my photos from the latest Capture Your 365 Photo Challenge:

two become one

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/100 sec

Day 278 – Two Become One: the ‘task’ for this day was to combine two photos using Photoshop Elements or Photoshop. Since I don’t use either one of those programs, I thought it was rather appropriate that we were attending a wedding on this day. Perfect! While I didn’t get a photo of the bride and groom, I was able to capture this photo of their wedding cake table. Very cute cake topper don’t you think?

repetition

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/3200 sec

Day 280 – Repetition: In our little makeshift beach area in our backyard, I have a cute little table that we found at Hobby Lobby last year. It has a great repeating heart pattern.

mirror image

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.0, 1/10 sec

Day 281 – Mirror Image: One of the things I love to do with this challenge is to take a little bit of creative license to make the photo prompt for the day work for me. Since I have started burning fall candles, I thought I would capture the reflection of the candle burning.

spider webs

ISO 400, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/13 sec

Day 283 – Spider Webs: Now, I am sure there are a few spider webs in my home right now, but I decided to see if I could find any in our backyard. Looks like this spider has been quite busy!

Grab your October Photo Challenge list and start looking for your everyday photos!

Photo Treasure Hunt - Purple

For the past two weeks, my friend Jill and I  have been on a photo treasure hunt to find purple objects as we travel through our days. Purple is one color that I don’t really have a lot of in my home. Little snippets of it here and there…

water jug

apron fabric

tea cup

toys

tea cup

Are you ready to join in on our weekly Photo Treasure Hunt? Here is what you need to know:

Link up by posting your blog post URL- not just blog URL

Link back to one of us (grab button if desired)

Visit other blogs and leave comment love.

Be sure to take note of next theme and start collecting more photos. Jill always has a fun transition photo, so be sure to visit

her blog

to see what the theme is for next week!

We reserve the right to remove any links that don’t fit the link up theme or that we find inappropriate

The Photo Treasure Hunt theme for this next week is….orange!! So get out there and find some fun orange items to share with us!! The next link up will be Tuesday, October 22nd.

Be sure to come back and share you blog link with us below:

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...