A weekend of Milestones!

Clarise got her driver's license on Friday!


Josiah learned to army crawl on Saturday!


Mary said her books of the Bible today in Super Church!

Spontaneous Photoshoot cont.

More shots from the fun photoshoot with our friends!

Spontaneous Photoshoot

Some of our friends recently indulged me in a spontaneous photoshoot. They were awesome and we had a lot of fun!

Our Wedding Video after 7 years!

We watched our wedding video tonight and I thought I'd share some highlights and observations, but first a huge thanks to Nate Bethell, our videographer and friend for his job well done!

1. The shirt Aaron wore to the rehearsal is still one of his "nice" work shirts.
2. Ben's hair was groomed, Carmen's was long, and Aaron's was...
3. Katie looked the same age as as Mary is now.
4. I didn't steam my wedding gown...oops!
5. Patrick Largen, Emily (Marvine) Engle, and Lindsay (Walter) Hendricks did a fantastic job with the music! We are so grateful!
6. I wore the pearl necklace Carmen gave me at her wedding.
7. Chuckles broke out when I put my tissue in Aaron's jacket pocket during the ceremony.
8. More chuckles when I bashfully hid in a hug after Aaron's double dip kiss.
9. At the reception we were figuring out how to feed each other cake without getting tangled up and I exclaimed "I've never done this before!"
10. Ron said some great stuff on the reception video, then left us with a famous word from Ron "You have to eat big to get big."
11. After the reception, Ben so thoughtfully had a Marvin Gay hit ready in the SUV so that everyone was reminded of events to come.
12. The rehearsal was fun to watch to see how young we looked, and acted! The wedding was fun to be reminded of the sacred commitment we made despite our youth, and the reception was fun because of my dad's tear jerking speech and everyone's advice and well-wishes!

Zoo photos set 1

This week's assignment was to do landscapes and it didn't get done, however I did get a chance to take some photos at the zoo.


meerkat mischief


Something seems humbling about watching this guy lap water from a puddle.


All the beautiful and amazing creatures of the zoo can't compare with these children whom I love so dearly.

Zoo photos set 2

This one is for you, Nancy!


This hippo came right up to me and started smiling. :) This one is for Carey!


Moments earlier, she ran up to the glass between us with a growl up on her two hind feet with the front paws on the glass. She sent one little girl into tears and gave Mary a whole new set of "why" questions. I was bummed to miss the shot, but it was a cool moment.

Photography Class Week 3

Here are three photos from last Monday's class.


A quick breath of warm air on my lens made an easy filter on this shot.




These were taken with a shutter speed of 15 sec., f-stop of 8, ISO 400 in a completely dark room. My instructor walked behind the subject shining a flashlight around and toward him.

From Zacchaeus' perspective

This morning I found myself with a new perspective on Zacchaeus' tree climbing story. (See Luke 19: 1-10). I was sitting up in our pear tree in the front yard talking with Mary about how Zacchaeus climbed a tree so that he could see Jesus.

here's the gist of the story (emphasis mine):
There was a crowd and he was a short man so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree so that he could see Jesus.
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today."
So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. The people saw this and muttered about how Jesus would be the guest of a sinner.
He repented of his sins and was forgiven.
At the end of the story, Jesus said "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

Some things I had not appreciated about this story until I actually climbed a tree:

First, he climbed the tree so that he could see Jesus, not to be seen. Someone walking by today would not have seen me except for the gawking toddler that was seemingly alone in the front yard that gave me away. Jesus walked right to where he was, then looked up and talked to him. He was not hidden in the foliage from Christ. Jesus knew exactly where Zacchaeus was and he had a specific plan for their day together. Second, Jesus told him to come down immediately and he came down at once. I thought the urgent words were interesting for the nature of the feat. If he had to climb down even a few branches, how careful was he? I bet he was so excited, he just jumped. Finally, I was just struck by the humility of it all. An adult up in a tree in order to see because he was short. A wealthy chief tax collector to boot. I was encouraged that if we humble ourselves with a simple goal of directing our attention to Jesus, he will find us there and invite us to join him.