Changing interests

I love this man. This man who throws himself into a wide variety of interests and encourages and teaches the kids about these interests.

(Notice the difference in color between this picture and the one below it. I changed the white balance to a custome white balance and that got rid of the gray. I love this little feature.)

Listening to beginning chess instructions.

The final match.

We have been gung ho on chess this winter. The kids have paid their dues to an awesome online chess site that allows John to give them assignments and analyses where their problem areas are. Everyday they take 20 to 30 minutes to work on chess or they play a game of chess against the computer or they read a chapter from a chess book. John gets worked up just as much as the kids. He devises ways to increase their competitiveness and tries to get them to slow down and think of their moves. he has bought numerous chess books and read many more articles about chess. He has increased his own rating and has stayed up at night because of a rousing game of chess. The kids can name different openings and they talk chess moves with names such as en passant, zugzwang, and rolling rooks. I just give them a blank stare. This has gone on all winter. All winter until now.

(I took all these soccer photos in TV or shutter speed. I am so excited because I allows me a little more control. I am trying to play around with implied motion by freezing it or showing movement. Lots of work to do still.)

Soccer sign ups started the first of February. We have signed the three kids up for spring soccer. Isaac's wonderful coach has decided on a break and John volunteered to coach the team instead. Now he did not give up coaching Job's team but added Isaac's team to the schedule. So the finally for chess is that all kids have qualified to go to state but the emphasis is now on soccer. In between chess matches this last Saturday John organized soccer games with any kid that wanted to play. And he has been organizing neighborhood soccer games at the church next door at least once or twice a week. Not only that but he has purchased books and watched numerous videos on coaching soccer and youth soccer theory. He has stayed awake at night planning practices, thinking how to implement what he has learned. He takes the kids outside to work on different skills such as defending, passing, give and go, and trapping. After the neighborhood soccer game the crew comes to our house to jump on the trampoline and eat hot dogs. I load him up with tortillas chips and water bottles.

What will the summer bring when soccer is over?

Friends

I wish I would have stepped back and included the whole tractor. That would have been a better composition instead there is a merger like it is missing something. It is so beautiful - a great red.

Today I had the unexpected opportunity to hang out with friends for a good portion of the day. My friends Judy and Shawn Marie try to have coffee on the last Friday of the month at Woods but this month we had to change to the 3rd Friday instead. Then Judy couldn't make it and Shawn Marie had to be at Tara's house so I decided to crash Tara's place. I showed up at 10:45 and stayed until 3:00! What a friend am I! It was so good to catch up and chat with no real time restraints.

OK, I am playing with altering my depth of field. In the first photo the first cup is in focus and in the 2nd the last cups are in focus. Also I like that the cups are all lined up ready to be made. Very fun.

Tara took our orders and made mocha's for all of us. If you look closely my cup says full fat, bigger hips breve. I love snobby drinks, but they do take a toll on body parts. It is a treat, not a everyday thing. Then Tara provided lunch for 9 children and 5 adults on the spur of the moment. What a treat that was. I wish I could be that spontaneous. Oh I have moments but they are few and far between. I love it when friends can teach us by modeling a character trait. I might have freaked out when thinking of feeding this many people on the spur of the moment but Tara takes it all in stride and it was great.

The kids had so much fun. It was a beautiful and the house wasn't that loud or wild with all of them there. Then we had the pleasure of having Ellie over for the evening. We are looking forward to having the rest of the gang over some evening.

Camera practice

I have very few pictures of myself and even fewer with my kids. Something I need to rectify, if I could overcome the critical aspect of myself. Aah the joys of being a woman.

I had a photo assignment looming over my head and today was the perfect day to take care of it. I am learning so much. I almost need to take another one just to ingrain it in my head. I am starting to look at my pictures with a new eye. I can pick out compositional mistakes like crazy right now. I'm hoping that I'll start decreasing the mistakes and start increase good compositional elements.

Isaac was more than happy to help me out today. I set up the chess board with a chess problem and while Isaac solved the problem I would take pictures. Here are a few of my favorites.

I like this picture. It tells the story of Isaac thinking through a chess move. Something he needs to work on. Head is a little blurry but compositionally a good photo.

Here there is implied motion with his hand. I used a small aperture and slow shutter speed to show the movement of his arm. But the sweep of his arm looks really strange. I kind of like that.

I like the look of Isaac's face in this picture but it looks like someone else's arm is moving the piece. I am eye level with him and at that angle you don't see how his arm is bent. That and the fact that cut off his elbow. If I hadn't done that it would have looked a ton better.

I like how Isaac's mouth is open like he just discovered something on the board. All of these pictures have a shallow depth of field meaning that usually the background will be blurred. Maybe a tighter crop or a lower camera angle.

Here is my favorite from this photo shoot. I haven't cut anything off that is important. I filled the frame with my subject and defined it with a shallow depth of field. There isn't anything growing out of his head, and distractions have been minimized or eliminated. the focus of this particular photo is on his face. It could have been on the chess piece with him blurred in the background which would be OK too.

Here is a favorite photo from this weekend. Pros: He is in the air, and the action is frozen. Cons: I cut off his cape instead of including it. Should have stepped back a bit and taken it from lower.

Right now we are into week 4 of our class. Let me tell you, the technical aspect of exposure and how to change it on my camera and how to meter is intense. My camera is so old that it won't do some of the stuff we are talking about. I think that it is only 5/6 years old. Amazing how fast things change. Just think in a few more years this little antique with be taking pictures with an antique.

Reading and motivation

My son Job is generally not a big reader. Oh, he'll read things like Calvin and Hobbes, Popular Science and National Geographic for Kids, but generally fiction books are not his forte. Isaac on the other hand loves to read. He picked up the book The Westing Game yesterday morning and finished it in the afternoon. That book was too easy. Lona is just on the verge of reading. She can read better than she thinks. It stresses her out when I ask her to read a paragraph because she doesn't want to do it, she looks at the length and decides it is too hard even though she knows most of the words. I think we are all like this to some degree with things. Back to Job though. Job received Prince Caspian the movie for Christmas. I told the kids that they couldn't watch the movie until they read the book. So almost every night for two weeks I read a chapter from the book. When we were done we watched the movie. Job asked for the movie The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. So I bought the movie and he grabbed the book and started reading it. In one day he read 7 chapters! I was impressed.

Yesterday he asked Lona if she wanted him to read to her, so he grabbed the book and started where he left off. She was greatly upset because she didn't have the benefit of the first seven chapters. I'll read it to her. For Job to watch the movie after reading the book is a great help. He is so sensitive to movies that knowing what is coming up helps him not to be scared and run out of the room to play legos. Not that it is a bad thing but he'll never be able to go a movie theatre this way. I can identify with him because I sometimes have to leave the room as well. But he leaves the room with G movies. I don't think that he was able to sit through Nemo because it was too scary. I love that kid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Watercolor

MP3 sends out these nice little emails that revolve around a theme. I take a look and think of how I can implement this with what I am currently doing. I try not to do something extra because I believe that they already do quite a bit. If I can't fit it into what we are doing, I send in some of their current work. I use my scanner for all of this. This month is based on Reading. Last week it was about learning to read and this week is comprehension. In history we are studying the beginning of the war for independence which leads us to Paul Revere and his midnight ride. One of the things we had to do was read the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Instead of the intended project of writing a dialog between the child and Paul Revere I decided to use the comprehension idea. I've been wanting also to use watercolors. We also study a lot of art history when we study history. Those two just go hand in hand. But instead of looking at art, I thought it would be fun to make our own. So we read out loud the poem and the boys and I picked a stanza we each wanted to illustrate. We drew an outline yesterday and today we worked through a watercolor tutorial shown in the Heywood meadow website. Then we got to work on our masterpieces.

My example for the boys.

Job's masterpiece. "If you look closely you can see Paul Revere's Hat," he says.

Isaac's illustration. There is a little resistance work with the green grass and the blue sky.

Lona didn't create an illustration of the story because she was busy with the Little Engine that Could, which is also illustrated in watercolor. She painted engine parts and glued then onto a block of wood. Very fun. She did however learn some watercolor techniques.

Lona sample. Moving from top to bottom clockwise. Painting a dark wet color over a lighter wet color, erasing color using water or a crumbled paper towel, water spots on a dried color, and crayon resists.

I really like how this turned out and it was a little more fun than writing a dialog. We will definitely do this again. We have a lot more to learn about the American Revolution.

Fragrance Lake Hike

A mud slide along the trail. See how high up the mud is on these trees. It must have been moving fast. I can't even begin to imagine it.

Saturday was a beautiful and we really had nothing pressing. So we called Job's friend and invited him on a hike with us. We left our house at 1 and returned around 5. We headed down to Chuckanut and turned in at Hi-line Road. We parked at the gate and headed out. We hiked into the lake taking breaks for granola bars. Once at the lake we climbed around a small rock enclave and then walked around the lake taking time to throw rocks onto the ice and listen to it bounce. It has a strange almost metallic vibrating noise and the rocks skid across the ice.

Then back to the trail to hike down to the car. We stopped at the water fall and I took tons of pictures for my photography class. I was having problems getting the shots required, not enough light for really fast shutter speeds.

Trying leading lines. I wanted to use the log to lead the eye.

Madison, she isn't running around on the trail anymore. She pretty much sticks right by us.

Isaac's ever present backpack.

I love this picture of Job peeking through a tunnel.

I am so much more comfortable shooting in Aperture mode rather than shutter speed.

We played, climbed to the top, dog-dared each other to do stupid stuff and snacked. Then down we continued. I am always last. I kind of make sure that kids aren't having problems. I encourage them on and give them water and treats, tie shoes, kiss hands, watch for hikers so they can go to the bathroom and all sorts of other stuff. Everyone was out of range and had been for a good ten minutes. I didn't get too worried, they were just up a head. Isaac was leading the way, followed by Job and his friend, then Lona and Madison and finally John. After a while I hear, "LESLIE, LESLIE." I shout back and can kind of hear them, something about wrong way. I start hustling down the trail and end up at the car. No family, no dog. Just our car, no keys. I start back up the trail, which of course was the steepest part and I almost get to the top when the kids come barreling over the crest of the hill. They are practically running down to the car. Apparently, Isaac went the wrong way at a fork and was clear down to a gate when John caught up with Lona, Job and Henry. He didn't' remember there being a gate across the path. He asked the kids where Isaac was and they said he was up ahead. He called Isaac back and they retraced their steps back to the main trail. I went right by the fork, and didn't' see it so I was still on the main trail. They would have reached the road probably in another five minutes and then would have had to hike back up the road to the car. We just have to make sure that the kids stop at forks and wait. If the younger boys wouldn't have seen Isaac and kept up on the main trail, I think that Isaac might have panicked a little bit.