Capture Your 365

Ring the bell, I actually have photos for all 7 photo prompts from this last week! Ding, ding, ding!!

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.2, 1/25 sec

Day 72 – Messy: My freezer was getting a little low on homemade pasta sauce. I usually like to clean up along the way while I am cooking, but who can resist a good photo prompt and an excuse to leave it all a little messy?

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.0, 1/4000 sec

Day 73 – Branches: Many of the nut and fruit trees are in full bloom around here right now. Makes me wish I could drag by camera around with me all the time!

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.2, 0.6 sec

Day 74 – In A Field of Green: Most pool tables have green felt, but my husband and I had a chance to play pool on this pool table with red felt which dates back to the very late 1800’s. By the way, my husband won the game (re-match for next time!)

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/1000 sec

Day 75 – Green: Starbucks stop on our way home from a couple of days in Monterey with my husband! Caramel Frappuccino is one of my favorites, what is your favorite Starbucks drink?

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/20 sec

Day 76 – Wearing of the Green: We had a really good reason for not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day! My daughter did our Compassion Sunday presentation so we all wore our Compassion Sunday t-shirts, which just happen to be one of my favorite colors. You can watch the video of her presentation here. I love that our pastor gave her a big hug when she finished!

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ISO 400, 36mm, f/5.0, 1/20 sec

Day 77 – Spots: or marks. This is how I keep track of our homeschool days. I just write in a ‘P’ for days that we did any kind of school work, field trip, or life skills lessons. Daily attendance is one of the very few requirements we have here in California for our homeschools. You can print out a calendar like this one here.

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/20 sec

Day 78 – Play a Game: Today was one very busy day! My morning started off at a MOPS meeting to listen to my friend, Kendra, share with the moms there about the hope we have in Jesus. Then after a quick lunch, Kelsey and I headed on over to our ladies Bible study. We have been going through John MacArthur’s Fundamentals of the Faith book with our pastor leading the teaching and discussion. After the study we were back home again to get a couple of loads of laundry done and throw together a quick dinner. Then my family all went off in different directions for the evening. There was definitely no time to sit down and play a game today! But seeing how many of my bulbs in the backyard are blooming, I cut a few and brought them inside. Great reminder that in spite of the busyness of some of our days, we can still stop and see the beauty that God provides all around us.

Do you love these photo prompts as much as I do? Be sure to visit Katrina’s blog, Capture Your 365, and join in the fun!

Capture Your 365

Time for another week of photos!

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/6 sec

Day 52 – Performance: Kelsey working on her least favorite subject, math. At least she likes the program we use: Teaching Textbooks! I love that all, and I do mean all, of the problems have a solution that is explained in easy to understand terms. The curriculum has made my life easier as a homeschool mom!

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

Day 53 – Sweet Treats: I have to say I am loving these excuses to bake! Made up a batch of my favorite sugar cookies for this photo prompt. Kelsey helped me with the icing and the sprinkles. Even though the icing turned out a little too pink for my liking, it was the perfect color for the photo.

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.5, 1/13 sec

Day 54 – Framed: I am not one to usually take pictures tilted, but given the suggestion for this prompt, I thought I would give it a try on this photo. That wicked cough came back over the weekend, so hot tea with honey was my way to try to beat it, with one of my favorite mugs of course.

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.5, 1/13 sec

Day 55 – For the Love Of Music: Kelsey has been diligently practicing a song with the hopes of playing it at church soon.

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/60 sec

Day 56 – A Cup Of ____ : For me in the morning, it is always orange juice! My favorite go-to breakfast most often is a bowl of cheerios and a cup of orange juice. Yum!

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/13 sec

Day 57 – From The Side: This Bible sits on a table in the entry way of our home. It belonged to a set of great grandparents who I don’t believe I ever met. But it was special to my grandmother, and she gave it to me to keep, which makes it a special heirloom for me to cherish.

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ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/2000 sec

Bonus photo!: On my way home from photography class last week, I just had to pull over to take this picture. The sun was starting to set and I had noticed on the way to class that some of the almond trees were starting to blossom. Sure is nice having that big girl camera with me at times like this one!

What did you photograph this past week?

Want to join in the fun? Visit Capture Your 365 and sign up for her mailing list. You get a daily e-mail with the photo prompt for the day. As you may have noticed, there are days that I have missed, but it sure is fun adding a little creativity to what I am able to capture each day. Hope you join me on this photo adventure!

You started blogging when?

So I took a peek back at my old blog to remember when I posted my first blog post…April 2006!! Almost 7 years ago! Yikes!

My kids were this little once!

One of my very first posts was about our cookie making activity from using the Mystery of History curriculum. I find this very interesting because Kelsey and I are going through Volume One again this year, although I don’t believe we made the Joseph coat cookies this time.

A lot has happened since that first set of blog posts: my kids are 7 years older (and so am I!), Matthew has graduated from our homeschool and is working full time now, and Kelsey is my only student. Over a year ago, I moved my blog to Blogger and just a couple of months ago, to WordPress.com. And over the last 2 years, not only do I blog about my family and some of our daily happenings in our little corner of the world, but our experiences with Compassion have taken a front seat on my blog.

My blogging goals are posted for this year on my About page. On that page, you can also find links to some of the posts that were popular on my Blogger blog before I moved it over to WordPress.com. There is also a link to the Compassion website and a link to a Pinterest board with letter writing ideas for your Compassion sponsored kids. If you haven’t taken a peek at my About page yet, you might just learn a little more about me with the random facts I have listed.

My friend, Kendra, over at Preschoolers and Peace has been helping me with some great tips and encouragement as I begin to be more intentional about my blogging. She has a lot of great information to share, so be sure to visit her blog today.

So, if you are a blogger, how long have you been blogging?

Field Trip! – Monterey Bay Aquarium

Want to know a secret?

I have never paid admission to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

How do you do that you ask?

We have always gone on a Home School Day!

Now I know the Home School Days are full for this year, they usually open up reservations for their Home School Days in October. Be sure to just check back on their web site in the fall and plan your day out my the ocean!

For a while, we had been so many times that I think my kids could give a guided tour of the aquarium to just about anyone. But how can you blame me? Admission for our family of four would have cost almost $140, just for one day!

Anyway, we took a break from the aquarium for a couple of years, but I wanted to make sure that we included a trip this year since Kelsey is studying swimming creatures from the fifth day of creation.

I ended up taking over 100 pictures, but narrowed it down to just over 20 that I really liked. Here are a few of my favorites to share with you:

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Where do you like to go for field trips with your family?

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?