Reid's Baptism...

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

Today was a very special day because Reid made his confession that he had asked Jesus into his heart, public with his baptism.  Julie (Laurie's mom), Carol, (Ian's mom), and Warren and I went to see this fantastic event.  

Tiegann Kai McKelvy makes an appearance...

"A new baby is like the beginning of all things- wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities." -Eda J. LeShan

Little Miss Tiegann (pronounced TE-GAN), made her appearance this afternoon right in the midst of the biggest election day in history.  (I sure hope Romney wins!)  She weighed in at 5 lbs. 14 oz. and 20 inches long.  We are so happy she is here and doing well...

Hello World, here I come!

Right after I get a little sleep.

 Adi.  She is going to be thrilled with the baby since she loves baby dolls.  

Lord, thank you for the birth of Tiegann.  I ask that she grows up to know and love You with all her heart, mind, strength, and body.  May she be mighty in Your kingdom.  May Your blessings follow her all of her life.  Give Zach Your wisdom in the raising of her in Your ways of righteousness and grace.  May she be pleasing in Your eyes, and may her heart follow hard after You, because You are the only Way, Truth, and Life!  Amen!

Mark's Jiu-Jitsu...

"Refuse to be average.  Let your heart soar as high as it will."  Jasmine Star

Mark had a Jiu-Jitsu tournament this past weekend.  I was so surprised and pleased when he sent photos of the event.

Jits is one of Mark's favorite past times.  I think it is wonderful to know all the moves, and I sure would like to be able to throw someone around, but I would not like  the pain involved, or the fact that one might develop cauliflower ear.  I wish I had learned some self-defense moves when I was younger. If I tried to learn them now...I might break.  Especially in light of the fact that I have osteoporosis.   I did ask Mark if he won, and sadly he did not.   I would like to go to one tournament, but I think that would be enough.  Just like with football (I only went to one game), I do not want to see my baby get beat up.

Lesson 2, Advanced Composition...Editorial portrait...

"When we refer to an editorial portrait, we are referring to a photograph of a person that is based on a theme or a story. It isn’t about taking a pretty photograph of a person; it’s about telling their story or using a person to illustrate the story you want to tell."
-Candice Stringham

Lesson 2 of my Advanced Composition class was an editorial portrait.  I had to think a lot about this assignment.  I thought of using my son, Ian, as my subject, but he was out of town.  Bummer.  I decided the best subject would be Warren, my husband.  Poor thing, he always gets used as my Guinea Pig.  I was afraid the indoor photos would not have the right color balance.  I used my gray card, and did a custom white balance, and the exam room had an overhead skylight which allowed natural light to come it.  It helped a lot.  I was pleased with how the assignment turned out.

I asked permission to photograph this patient during her exam. She and her parents wholeheartedly agreed.  She was very cooperative even though she was not feeling very well.  Thank you, Katie. 

Then I decided that Maggie, our cat might make an equally fun subject, so I followed her around taking pictures.  She was not the most cooperative subject, but I got some fun photos.  I did not submit her for my assignment...I just added them to our practice gallery.  

Ghosting technique, and Bitterlakes...

"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have someone click the shutter."  -Ansel Adams

The rule of thirds, polarizing filter, neutral density filter, remotes, wide angle lens, framing, HDR, 

hyperfocal distance, low and high key light. These are just a few of the things I have learned in my Advanced Composition class.  Whew...and it has only been a week.  It has been challenging and fun.   Our first lesson was to take pictures of a landscape.  I chose Bitterlakes.  This assignment had me getting up before sunrise to get some pictures in the golden hour, only to find there was not a golden hour for almost a whole week.  Sunsets were not much better.  I used a lot of gas, and lost a lot of sleep.  (I am not a morning person).  We had very nice gray skies, with tons of cloud cover.  I was getting rather worried about getting something to turn in.  On Friday in the late afternoon, the clouds broke, and I was able to get some nice sunset pictures.  Thank you, Jesus.  I had prayed that He would thrill me with His creation, and He did.  

The grasses interacting with the sun's light.  So breath-taking.

A few remaining flowers before it gets really cold.

Overlooking Bitterlakes.  There was not much water due to the drought.

What a view!  Definitely a "golden" moment.  See the Crane in the upper left.  I could not believe this sight...so amazing.

Gorgeous Fall colors.

The Sandhill Cranes flying overhead.  There are a lot of different birds, and their voices fill the air with lots of honking.

This is the my lesson 1 Assignment that I turned in.

Last night in our weekly class chat, our instructor gave us directions on how to "Ghost" a person in a picture since it was the day before Halloween.  I am not too crazy about Halloween (I prefer a Harvest festival), but I did think it was an interesting technique. My ghost is not too scary.

 

My computer continued...and a new class...

" A thunderstorm is God's way of saying you spend too much time in front of the computer."- Unknown

In my past post, I explained how my computer was so slow...very slow...like forever slow.  I was instructed to take it to South Eastern Business Systems by Apple Support.  I left it, but did not have a good feeling about it.  I went the next day to pick it up.  The man there was not happy with me.  I decided to call Robert Carson, our PC computer expert, and beg him to look at my Apple.  I was so happy when he said he had started servicing Apple computers.  Thank you, Jesus!  My suspicions were right--my hard drive was slowly dying.  I decided to upgrade everything, which meant I had to upgrade software, too.  Well, in a misfortunate accident, my "mother board" (is there a father, and child board, too), was damaged.  So, my options were to: 1. go ahead with the repairs and Robert would pay for everything his company broke.  2.  Get a whole new computer with all the updates anyway, and Robert would pay for part of the computer to make up for breaking the mother board.  I opted for option #2.  Robert will put on all my old files, all my software, and make sure it is running like a top.  I am so glad because I hate trying to transfer and load everything.  Thank goodness for Robert.

My computer failure happened at a most inopportune time--is there ever a good time for a computer to go out?  I started a new photo class (at Jessica Sprague's website)  this past Monday: Advanced Composition.  It is proving to be a very challenging class, but I think I am going to really learn a lot.  I am learning to make friends with my laptop to get the assignments done.  This class has me out taking photos before sunrise, and looking for that golden light of sunsets.  Right now we are learning about landscapes, and there are not many great landscapes around here.  Our first assignment is to take photos  of an interesting place, and designing our photos as if they were for a travel brochure.  Right now I am hunting that "interesting and breath taking" place.

On a side note, I won a photo challenge contest at jessicasprague.com with my tilt and shift picture of the NMMI box.  Yeah.  The next challenge is to do a photo that is part sketch/part photo.  I submitted this photo.  I love this technique!

Warren's 66th birthday...

"I have tried to walk a Christian life.  And now that I 'm getting older, I realized that I'm walking even closer with my God." -Andy Griffith

Happy Birthday, Warren...

Oh my, Warren was another year older on October 20th...he now has 66 years to his name.  I asked him if he had any comments on getting older, and he said, "No."  Maybe next year he will have a comment.

This year he had two birthday parties.  One here, and one when we went to visit Mark in California.
Maggie helped me get the presents wrapped, and the decorations up.  That is why it took me longer.  She loved all of project supplies.  I  had to chase her down to rescue some of them.  After I got everything done, I loved the look.

Maggie...she is giving herself as a present to Warren.  

Maggie had a great time playing in the crepe streamers...too much fun I might add.

Believe it or not, Warren wanted to have Domino's Pizza for his dinner.  I knew the grandkids would be happy about that.  He studied the menu for so long that I thought he was going to have it memorized.

Warren...trying to decide.  Decisions, decisions

I wanted my decorations to be bright, cheery, and colorful.  I made a wreath out of balloons (it took 256 balloons), and pipe cleaners, I painted a big number 66, and filled a jar with M&M's with two 6 candles showing though. I had a topiary made of Dum Dum suckers, and three bright colored candles decorating the table.  I took down the curtains from two of our dining room windows, and strung crepe paper from the top to the bottom.  It all looked very festive indeed.  After all that decorating, I think I am finished decorating for the rest of the year.  Well...maybe.

The table...

The room, and my awesome husband makes a pretty fine addition to the decorations.   His shirt goes right along with the bright, cheery, and colorful theme.

My M&M jar with the two 6 candles inside.

The Balloon wreath...with pipe cleaners.  Pipe cleaners are Maggie's favorite toy.   She kept running off with them.

                                                         

Warren's favorite is Chocolate cake.  This one had a Ganache filling.   It was so very good.

                                             

We all sang Happy Birthday while Erynn played the tune on the piano.  Her piano playing was much better than our singing.

Blowing out the candles...

One of Warren's presents...

Reid gave PawPaw one of his banks...it was filled with a lot, and I do mean a lot of money.   Money that Reid had saved up.  Wasn't that so nice.

Ian made a hilarious card...that is what they are reading and laughing at.

Still reading the card...it had a lot of pages...

More presents...

Another shirt...

I love this picture of Reid taken with my iPhone.  He is playing a game on the iPad.

Good old Ian...and he really is old...He turned 40 this year.  

On Friday, October 19, we drove to Albuquerque to fly to LA to visit Mark.  Unfortunately, Amber was out of town at a Bachelorette Party.  We missed her.

Our plane.  We sure liked the extra leg room.

We went to Star Bucks before we went to get our massages.   Yes, we both got an awesome massage.  It was divine.

Mark...I don't know about that look...ask him.

Mark and Warren rolling out their muscles...

This is the view from the living room window.  That building on the left is not really leaning.  It was my camera lens that made it do that.  I really liked the clouds.

We played Scrabble.  Mark won, scoring 75 points for the word "Zips", can you believe such a little word got so many points.  I came in last.

Mark made breakfast for us each morning...and it was sure good.

Chef Mark...

The eggs...going into the pan.

Our breakfast.  

Fall flowers Amber left to welcome us and decorate the table.  So beautiful indeed.

This is taken in a mirror.  I just wanted to try it.  You would not know it was a mirror unless I told you...Right?

Next we celebrated Warren's birthday.  Mark took us out to eat at a wonderful Italian restaurant.  The wait staff were all Italian and even spoke in Italian.  I was not always sure what they were saying.  Even their English sounded like Italian. We finished off the evening with our own little birthday celebration.  I thought of the cupcakes and Mark thought of the rum raisin ice cream.  It was good and fun!
    

More candle blowing...this one was easy with only one candle.

 I was very excited when Mark said he needed some pictures for his resume.  We took these on the last day we were there.  Hopefully, he will like one of them.  I like them all.                                                

Warren says Mark should be a model.  I did not do any editing of this picture except to remove a small bruise on Mark's cheek and drop in the background.  

So which picture should Mark use?  I can't wait to hear which one he picks.  It will be a tough decision.
Whew.  That was a lot of pictures, but I like pictures anyway, so I do not mind.

Happy Birthday, Warren...again.  I love you very much...more than ever.