2 pictures

Warren and I recently went to a barbecue at the Alvarez's. They had a pear tree that was loaded with fruit and soon couples started picking pears to take home. I noticed this wasp who seemed to be having quite a picnic on a piece of fallen fruit. My picture taking did not bother him in the least.

Of course, I had to get a picture of Warren and I.

Rainy days and Fall

Yesterday was the first day of fall which I love for several reasons:

1. Warren was born in the fall and I would not be complete without him. He is my gift from

God and I am very thankful for him.

2. I love the rich warm colors of the leaves turning; the orange, shiny pumpkins; the cool

crispness of the air, and apples.

3. The cool nights and bright stars.

On our first night of fall, it rained and it is still drizzling this morning. It is like the Lord has chosen this time to wash the earth and usher in the fall of the year with a new cleanliness. It is in the fall that the Jews celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah occurs on the first and second days of Tishri. In Hebrew, Rosh Hashanah means, literally, "head of the year" or "first of the year." Rosh Hashanah is commonly known as the Jewish New Year. It is also called the "day of remembrance" or "the day of sounding the shofar." (A shofar is a kind of trumpet made from a ram's horn). A popular observance during this holiday is eating apples dipped in honey, a symbol of our wish for a sweet new year. I like this custom since I like eating apples. Another popular practice of the holiday is Tashlikh ("casting off"). We walk to flowing water, such as a creek or river, on the afternoon of the first day and empty our pockets into the river, symbolically casting off our sins. Small pieces of bread are commonly put in the pocket to cast off. I think both of these acts of symbolism are fun and if I still had my children at home, I am sure we would be observing both of these customs. I think God has provided so many good object lessons for us.

Yesterday, I was impressed by Beth Moore's posting on her blog and turned it into a prayer for the Jewish New Year. Just as God used the Shofar to call His people, God uses us as His trumpet to call others to Him. Here is my prayer based on Beth's blog:

God has called me--to use my mouth for His great glory. I don't want to add just noise, but to become a woman of God who opens her mouth with wisdom and with the law of kindness on my tongue. I want the love of Christ to rule and reign in my heart. May I never forget, kindness is not a weakness! Help me to seek the Lord and to head for Him when I am weary and worn down. May I seek the comfort and encouragement from other believers and let them build me back up. I must remember that Jesus' yoke is kind and to make sure it is the only yoke I wear. God led me with your cords of kindness and let me build a welcoming fire in this cold world. Let me live out the law of kindness. Amen.

Be washed clean by the word of God, and be renewing in your mind. Enjoy the fall in all of its glory and richness. God made it for us to enjoy!

Rain on a leaf

Our crab-apples. Not worth eating, but gorgeous colors

A Caster bean plant. I love the rich reds and huge leaves

Our Maxi million Daisies are in glorious bloom

Mark gets married

"For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." Genesis 2:24

"An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain." Proverbs 31: 10-11


Mark and Amber arrive at the Inn

The last of the McKelvy boy's, Mark, got married Saturday, Sept. 18 at the Westlake Village Inn Resort. By Friday, the whole McKelvy clan had arrived in anticipation of the events that were to take place for the next two nights. Mark and Amber couldn't have picked a nicer place to have the wedding. The rooms were fantastic with wonderful beds--a necessity for us up in years. Each room had a little outside sitting area which was really nice. (The sitting area is behind the doors with the white blinds.)

The rooms

The grounds were filled with all kinds of greenery, flowers, ponds with ducks, waterfalls, and a vineyard. It had a golf course and a nice pool area, so there was a lot to do while we were waiting for the wedding to take place. This is definitely a favorite spot to have a wedding ceremony, because there were venues all over the place. It was fun to see all the brides in their beautiful gowns. Our rehearsal dinner was held in the wine cellar which over looked a pond. Our food and service was wonderful.


The sign so you can find your wedding

The table for the rehearsal dinner

Amber's grandma and mother (see the wine barrels in the background)


The bride and groom

Mark told me he would shave for the wedding.

Drew and the beautiful scenery

I have so many great pictures of everybody, but I decided I would be formatting pictures for the web all day if I tried to post them all. No wedding can take place without a ton of posing for pictures and interestingly enough no one complained about having to pose. Why can't they be as cooperative when I want to take pictures?

All the McKelvys

Top: Laurie, Ian, Zach, Meghan, Warren, Drew, Mark, Rob, Luke, Jordan

Lower: Reid, Erynn, Adi

Then came the wedding. Ian performed the ceremony for Mark and Amber, Zach did a reading, Luke was a groomsman, and Warren had the money to get us all there, lodged, and a lot of other things.

Ian, Zach, Warren, Mark, Luke



Here comes the bride, Amber. Her brother, Nick gave her away.

Mark waits for Amber

It was an emotional time for both of them.

They are married. Yeah!

They dared taking a picture with all the kids. Amazingly, it is pretty good.

Mark, Aubrey, Amber, Drew

Reid, Adi, Erynn

No wedding would be complete without some sort of mishap and ours was very minor. Adi decided to put the top part of her dress over her head. She looks like a burglar who wears the stocking panty hose over their face.

Adi being bored, but entertaining the crowd.

On the fun side, Mark wanted to make sure all the kids got to see the ocean, so we went; and everyone had a grand time. At first the kids were intimidated by it all, soon found it to be quite fun.

Mark is pretty entertaining as well

Not so sure about this.

Kristina Schomer, the best man's wife, and Erynn

Now everyone is having fun! Good idea, Mark!

I shall end this as I ended each night when I tucked the boys into bed--with a prayer.

"Now may the bless and keep Mark and Amber. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace. Now and forevermore." Numbers 6:24

Grandkids

It has been awhile since I have posted. I decided I would add a little something so I would not be so very far behind. Erynn lost her first tooth August 29th. She called me first thing that morning to tell me it fell out in the night. Doesn't she look so cute with one missing tooth. Oh she has so many more to go. Hopefully, they will all be that painless.



Erynn and Reid came over one Sunday afternoon. They wanted to run through the sprinklers which I think would be rather cold, but kids don't care. With the end of summer just around the corner, I guess taking advantage of the warm weather was just the thing. They wanted me to take a picture of them jumping high in the air through the water. Here they are.

Warren's new toy

Today a package came in the mail addressed to Warren which is nothing new because he orders a lot of bike stuff. I have gotten accustomed to unknown packages showing up at our door step. I did not open it since it was not addressed to me. I asked him if this was Ian's present. (he took care of the gifts for Luke and Ian this year). He said it was not. We had lunch, then he opened the package--it was an iPad. He said we could use it on our trip to watch movies instead of watching them on our little iPod nanos. I am looking forward to seeing all the iPad does. Hopefully we will have time to sync it tonight. He did tell me it was a gift for the both of us and he did get an adaptor so we could use it for photos as well.

And I got my new glasses today. They have a little different prescription so they will take some getting use to.

Another one bites the dust

Recently we had quite a thunderstorm and I did not realize it had done any damage until I went out to put new juice in our hummingbird feeders. It was then that I noticed our Russian Olive tree was crushing the plant stand underneath it. Looking further, I gasped as I saw the tree had fallen on our porch roof. Thankfully, the plant stand kept the tree from falling too hard, and our damage to the porch was only minor. We will have to replace some shingles, but structurally there seems to be no damage.


Thank goodness for the plant stand

The tree on our porch roof

Warren called our yard man who sent over his uncle to cut down the tree. It took two days to take out the tree. I am so thankful Warren did not have to do this, because it would have taken twice as long, and I would be the one having to help him haul away those heavy branches and logs. Besides we do not have a pick up to haul them off to the dump since there was too much to stack in our alley.

First set of logs from one trunk

We now have no more Russian Olive trees and I have mixed emotions about it. I loved the look of the Russian Olive because the trunks were not upright. I liked the way they slanted. It was a pleasing artistic look. What I will not miss is all the pollen and berries the tree dumped on our yard. I swept up loads of its debris. Another good thing is that I will no longer have to try to save the tree from our bark eating squirrels. So our trash tree is now trash. Warren wanted to plant another tree where the Russian Olive stood, but with all the roots, I do not think we will be able to do so. I will use one stump for a plant stand, and the other (since it is at an angle) I will paint something fun on it. Erynn wanted to know if she could paint it; and I just might let her and Reid add their artistic skills to the stump.

The tree was not the only thing that bit the dust. My cell phone which is very old-- I got it when the boys were in high school--started beeping constantly and would not keep a charge. I could have gotten a new battery for it, but a new phone was not much more. So I now have a new cell phone with a keypad for texting and it only cost $20.00. The Sprint people told me they could transfer the information from my old phone to the new one, but it would not transfer. My phone was too old. So I spent a long time entering in all the phone numbers. It has a lot of nice features which I hope to learn how to do someday. Since I have gotten my phone, I have only had one call, and that has been from Warren. My new phone announces who is calling and then it rings. I thought that was interesting. I haven't decided if that is a good or bad thing yet.

This past Thursday, Warren joined the grandkids and I in the swimming pool. Well, Warren is pretty hairy and his chest hair has turned gray. He had on a pair of goggles and was catching Erynn as she jumped from the side of the pool. Reid was studying his Pawpaw, and then said, "Pawpaw, you look like a wolf." I thought that was a pretty good observation and description.

Well, Warren, aka the wolf, was drafted by me to be another photo experiment. I saw this great window display at one of the stores on Main Street. I would like to get a photo with the person and their reflection in the window, plus the window display. I was trying to figure out if it would work, hence Warren became my subject. So far all my shots have been failures. I have yet to get the effect I want, but I did get a pretty nice photo of Warren and Marilyn Monroe. He looks real thrilled about the adventure.

Warren and Marilyn

Busy, busy, busy

Busy, busy, busy. That is how my life has been. I seem to go from one activity to another and there is never enough hours in the day to get all the things done I would like to do. I am reading some great books. One is called the "19th Wife" which is a book about the Mormons (historical fiction) and of course, I have several photography books I am trying to work through. I finally found me a subject who is willing to endure all my photographic sessions and experiments. I must say I have had an equal number of amazingly good and bad photos. I am taking some online photo editing classes as well, so this gives me a great opportunity to try out my new skills. Here are a couple of photos from some of my experiments. I will not post my disasters.

Isn't she beautiful

Gigi is my wonderful subject

The last couple of times the grandkids have come over, we have been busy...painting and picking. Erynn painted a birdhouse, and Reid wanted to paint a plate. What can I say, I tried to get him to paint something a little more exciting, but he had his heart set on the plate.

Reid in his sunglasses. And not very clean ones.

Reid and his artwork

Erynn and her birdhouse

This year our apple tree was loaded with apples. We spent one afternoon picking the apples. The next week Erynn and Reid each made an apple pie. They took one home and Warren and I enjoyed the other one. It was delicious both households agreed.


Pawpaw helps Erynn pick the apples. They are having fun.

Now it is Reid's turn. Such concentration.

Tasting the bounty. A little sour at first bite.

My grass I so carefully planted and staked to protect is now a nice patch of dirt and dead grass. What is so bad is that it seems to be spreading. I thought maybe it had a fungus, so I sprayed for that. It did no good. Then I decided it maybe grubs, so I dug up a spot and no grubs. The skunks seem to be digging for them as well. I see divets where they have been digging. I have trapped one more skunk and two dove. Smiggley was parked right beside the cage waiting for the birds to escape. (I trapped the birds on separate occasions). I let the birds go, but the skunk was toast. Animal control took care of him, but I think I still have another one I need to trap.

My times are in Your hands

Psalm 31: 15 reads, " My times are in your hands." These six words are the affirmation I need to stand on in our current time. Despite disasters, difficulties, and democrats, I am under the care of Almighty God. America is in trouble, big trouble. I remember people being amazed at how quickly the Berlin Wall fell after Ronald Reagan said, "Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Well, I am amazed at how quickly Obama and his cronies have proceeded in destroying our nation. In the past several weeks there have been three separate rulings by Federal judges on different matters. Two have taken their own view and ruled against the will of the people. On July 28th, judge Susan Bolton, a Clinton appointee, ruled against the illegal immigration law passed in Arizona which essentially enforces our present Federal immigration laws. Illegals now have more rights than American citizens. It is beyond comprehension and belief.

On August 4th, judge Vaughn Walker, who by the way is homosexual, overturned proposition 8 (prohibiting gay marriage) passed by California voters in November of 2008. One judge voids 7,000,000 voters.

The good news happened on August 2nd when U.S. District judge Henry Hudson rejected the Federal government's motion to dismiss Virginia's suit challenging the constitutionality of Obama's healthcare reform law. Yeah for him! Boo for the other two judges. Thank goodness we have a God who sees and is just. He has the best judgment of all. It is this that brings equilibrium to us in the span of events that would crush our souls. Indeed, my times are in His hands.