Our Bucket List Date Night

Last weekend, my husband and I were able to go out for our monthly date night. Since I put the idea for each month in an envelope before Christmas, I am having a hard time remembering what is inside each envelope, which makes it a bit of surprise for me to!

13_Feb_February Date Night_001_edit

On my Facebook page, I asked my friends to chime in with the favorite local restaurant. I was looking for something new and different. My friends did not disappoint us! We received some wonderful suggestions and decided to try a small family-owned Italian restaurant. So off we went with our paper and my camera to give this place a try.

We were greeted with a hug at the door! They made us feel like family!

Once we placed our order, Kev opened the envelope to see what our date task would be…create bucket lists! Time to dream! With our red pieces of paper and sharpies, we started writing down some dreams:

• trip to Europe
• drive down Highway One in a convertible Porsche
• own a BMW M3
• take a class at the Culinary Institute

13_Feb_February Date Night_002_edit

As each course of our dinner came, we would eat and continue to write down some dream items on our lists.

• work for Disney
• go on a Compassion trip
• race a car in a vintage autocross race
• have all the camera equipment I would ever need

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Each course was so amazing and delicious. We continued to eat our dinner and write down our dreams.

• bobsledding
• own and fly my own airplane
• own Apple stock
• have a work from home job with Compassion

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We decided early on that we will be visiting this restaurant again soon!

• own original artwork from a Disney artist
• spend a couple of nights at the Ahwahnee in Yosemite

At one point during our dinner, our gracious hostess invited us back to the kitchen.

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We began to wonder if they thought we were food/restaurant critics since we had been taking notes and taking pictures :)

• visit the Louvre
• have a vacation home by the beach

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I know this is not the best picture of the two of us. The picture is a little out of focus and I only had the 50mm lens with me which is a manual focus lens. But we had a really nice time talking and dreaming and enjoying some amazing food that night.

What is on your bucket list?

Capture Your 365

Another week, and another week of photos!

13_Jan_faceless portrait_001_edit

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/4000 sec

Day 30 – Faceless Portrait: I asked Kelsey to be the subject for this photo. We get great light from the west facing windows in the afternoon.

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/9.0, 1/800 sec

Day 31 – On The Thirds: I am taking another photography class. Yay! Today, one of the students asked how to set up for a silhouette shot. Rather than photograph my instructor, I moved to another area and captured this shot of the sun through a leafless, winter tree.

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ISO 800, 50mm, f/1.8, 0.5 sec

Day 33 – Shadow: I set this shot up in my hallway with the afternoon light coming through the windows. This is a bouquet of flowers my husband brought home one day, just because :)

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ISO 800, 50mm, f/3.2, 1/400 sec

Day 34 – Pop of Red: my backyard beach retreat! I am so glad I picked the red chairs, can’t wait for summer…great place to read and have an iced coffee!

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ISO 400, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/15 sec

Day 35 – Beat: For this picture, I wanted to try to capture some motion of Matthew playing his guitar. Didn’t turn out exactly like I thought it would, but I loved listening to him play this song while I was taking pictures of him.

Are you trying to Capture Your 365? If so, I would love to follow your photo journey!

The Original Throwback Survey

The ORIGINAL Throwback Survey! I'm joining up with Priscilla over at The Blissful Wife for this fun survey! I thought this would be a great way for me to start off my new blogging adventure here on WordPress, so here goes!

Family at Bryce

The Basics:

What is your Name? Yvonne What is the Name of your blog? Our Little Corner of the World What is your blog’s web address? http://www.yvonnereynolds.com

The Survey:

1. What state do you currently reside? California 2. What color is your natural hair? Blonde 3. How tall are you? 5'6" 4. What is your favorite food? Cherry Pie 5. What color shirt are you wearing right now? Blue 6. What are three cosmetic items that you wear every single day? Mascara, blush, Burt's Bees lip balm 7. What is your denomination? Jesus is the only way 8. Describe your testimony? Didn't grow up in the church, thought I wanted to be a corporate ladder climbing working mom until my son was born, that kind of changed things for me, started searching after my son was born, was saved while pregnant with my daughter 9. How did you meet your husband? he was the best friend of my sister's new husband, we met right before they got married 10. What is your favorite beverage? cold - Dr. Pepper, hot - tea 11. How many kids do you have? two 12. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? yes 13. What is your favorite TV show? The Amazing Race 14. What was the last movie you saw? The Hobbit 15. Who is your favorite Bible character? Esther 16. What color are your eyes? Blue 17. Are you a working mother, stay at home wife, or stay at home mom? stay at home mom 18. Do you homeschool? yes 19. Did/do you attend University? If so, where. Cal State Hayward as a Statistics major 20. If you could change one thing in your life what would it be? my teenage years 21. Who is your favorite Christian singer or band? Casting Crowns 22. What is your absolute favorite color? blue 23. Think about something from the ocean and write it down: (yes, random…I know) I love the ocean, so vast and powerful, wonderful place to reflect on how big God is 24. Where is your favorite place to dine out? In 'n Out Burger 25. Did you attend church camp? no 26. Name a blog friend who’s name starts with the same letter as your name: um...'y' is one of those letters that is kind of hard to find a match to 27. Do you have a Facebook Account for your blog? no 28. Do you have a Twitter Account for your blog? no 29. Name someone you miss right now: my grandma 30. What is your happiest childhood memory? finding my purple banana seat bike one Christmas morning! 31. Name one thing you can cook better than your husband’s mother: (if you’re not married, then your own mother.) umm, I really shouldn't answer this one! 32. Would you consider yourself stubborn? yes 33. Do you feel like you are a good writer? no 34. Do you pin? If so, list your Pinterest screen name. um, yes! http://pinterest.com/yvonnereynolds/ 35. How many hours do you spend on Pinterest per day? too many! 36. Do you use WordPress, Blogger, Drupal, or Typepad? (or another?) just moved my blog from Blogger to WordPress 37. Where do you stand on wearing socks with sandals? only when I need to go out in the backyard in the middle of winter, because they are the closest shoes I have to the back door 38. Did you design your own blog, or hire a graphic designer? WordPress theme 39. What is your favorite widget/gadget? don't have one yet 40. If you had to choose only one, would you have a clean bathroom or a clean kitchen? clean kitchen 41. Where did you honeymoon? Oahu 42. Did you elope? no 43. Do you have a favorite sports team? no 44. What is your favorite praise & worship song? too many to list! 45. Were you raised in church? no 46. When did you start blogging? quite a few years ago 47. What are your favorite blogs? Compassion, Preschoolers and Peace, Copperswife, Compassion Family, Blogging from the Boonies 48. Have you ever lived in another country? no 49. Have you done missions? If so, where & when. no, but we are Compassion sponsors and advocates 50. What version of the Bible do you prefer? I really like amplified, but use NASB primarily 51. What’s the story behind your blog name? I want to remind myself daily that we can make a difference, even from our little corner of the world 52. Describe the ultimate hands down best date on a $20 budget. dinner at home and dessert out 53. Will you tell one blogger about this survey? If so, then who? (optional: include their web address)

54. What is your favorite scripture? Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God."

Will you join in the fun?

Year of Monthly Dates

When my daughter suggested that we all make our Christmas gifts for each other this past Christmas, I was really glad that Pinterest announced the

secret boards.

I had fun pinning items to the secret board I created with all my Christmas ideas for my family.

For my husband, I put together a

Year of Monthly Dates

.

On our

Cozi

calendar, I set up an 'appointment' for us to meet on the 1st day of each month to open the envelope for that month and set aside a time/date for our monthly date. Included in each envelope is a prayer prompt for each of us, as well as a prayer bookmark where we can record prayer requests we have for that month. There is another envelope inside the manila envelope with the details for the date for that month.

For our January date, we were to create a

hint box

for each other. After being married for a while, sometimes you need a little help from your spouse on what would be an encouragement to them. These can be simple things like, making sunny side up eggs for breakfast or picking up a 3 Musketeers bar on the way home. Our job now is to fill out the little slips of paper and decorate our boxes for each other.

The pictures are a little out of order on this post because we did go out for breakfast first at a nearby place that a lot of the locals just love and we had never been there! We just might have to go on a few more breakfast dates in the future... :o)

Since we were heading to Hobby Lobby anyway...I was wanting to look for some items to rearrange the

mantel

, especially since I have this new pallet art work that my husband made for me for Christmas! Isn't it beautiful! I found just about everything I was looking for, just need to figure out what will go in the shadow box (and I did trim the flowers so they fit in the vase better).

Want to know what we are doing for our date next month? Be sure to check back next month! :o)

The Walt Disney Family Museum

Today our family drove into the city (San Francisco) for a day trip to

The Walt Disney Family Museum

.

 The museum is located on the grounds of

The Presidio

which is a beautiful area in San Francisco.

 We started off in the hands on studio where Kev and Matthew worked on a stop motion video with Kelsey looking on.

 The subject of the movie short, very colorful!

 While they were creating, I took a walk around and found a couple of fun things to photograph. Wouldn't this look great on someone's bedroom wall?

 Kev's dream desk...animation desk at Disney!

 Matthew ended up working on his little short by himself

 One of the very few things I was able to photograph in the lobby area

 A replica of the apartment that sits above the fire station at Disneyland. While we were at the museum, we watched an hour long movie about Walt and his love for Christmas. This was included with the admission price. After the movie, we toured the museum. Like a lot of museums of this type, no photography was allowed.

We learned a lot about Walt's early life, saw a lot of pencil sketches that had been saved, and saw many old family photos. The museum had many different rooms filled with a lot of history and artwork. Toward the end of the museum, there was a large model of Disneyland with a few things that I remember from my first trip a long time ago.

 I was able to take this picture from inside the museum. It was a beautiful clear day!

 Once we were outside the museum, I took just a couple more photos...

Wish I could grow these at my house!

Again, I took these photos in RAW and did a quick edit in Lightroom. I was really hoping that a book that I had ordered would have arrived today to help me to establish a good workflow in Lightroom. Guess I will need to wait until next week.

This trip will be a great topic for my next letter to my Compassion kids! And I will be sure to get some of the photos printed to send to them. Which photos do you think I should send?