The other day Isaac had the opportunity to go to a friend's house and he opted to stay home.  He said that he promised to play with his brother when we finished our errands and so he told his friend no.  He is growing up.  Then last night, a friend called and when he hung up the phone, he gave me a kiss and said, "See you tomorrow morning.  I'm growing up, Mom." and then he left.  There would have been no way he would have left the house except that I knew what the boys were planning and it wasn't just a spur of the moment thing.  It had been planned for a few days but he's right.  He is growing up.  My time of influence upon him is diminishing.  I only have him for 6 more years that 1/3 of the time of influence left.  I have been blessed with him.  Oh sure there are times of frustration, anxiousness, fear but along with that is joy, happiness and contentment.  Where did the time go?  I know that God's grace is all over his growing up.  He is developing some pretty cool character traits despite me.  I am thankful for that.

Isaac vas grandi.  L'autre jour il y a l'opportunite d'aller chez son ami mais il decide de rester a la maison.  Il promis qu'il joue avec Job.  Alors il dit no a son ami.  Puis hier, il reponds le telephone et apres dit, "au revoir, mama, je te voir demain.  Je grandi."  Si je ne sais pas qu'est qu'il se passe il n'a pas le permit de quitter la maison.  Mais il est raison.  Il grandi.  Juste six annee plus et il quitter la maison.  J'ai juste un peu de temps avec lui.  Ou est-ce que le temps allez?  Je ne sais pas.  Merci, mon Dieux qu'il est responsible et il est un bon garcon.

I have been working through Brian Petersen's Understand Exposure book.  I am to the part where we needed to imply motion by using slow shutter speed.  The exercise is to make rain.  You need some kind of prop.  Brian suggested flowers or fruit of some sort and a sprinkler.  Set your shutter speed to slow like 1/60, zoom, make sure your settings are balanced and take the picture.  I got the oranges and apples out.  Made Isaac hook up the hose and spray the fruit.  I set my shutter speed and aperature and took multiple pictures but couldn't figure out why it wasn't working.  Reread the chapter and exercise, Oh, the subject needs to be backlit, meaning the light source is behind the subject.  OK, move my subject to the backyard, set everything up again and snap photos.  Yes, it worked.  About an hour later, it started pouring rain for real.  Could it do the same thing when it is raining?  Opened the sliding back door, set my camera up and started to take photos.  It was difficult.  I didn't want to take my camera out so choosing a subject that was backlit from the sliding door and photographing it was challenging but I did get it to work.  I love being able to apply what I've learned to actual situations.  It is easy when you control all the variables but when your not in control and can still produce well that is when you know you've learned something.

J'avais travaillé par le livre comprennent d'exposition a Brian Petersen. Je suis à la pièce où nous avons dû impliquer le mouvement en employant la vitesse d'obturateur lente. L'exercice est de faire la pluie. Vous avez besoin d'un certain genre d'appui vertical. Brian a proposé les fleurs ou le fruit d'une certaine sorte et d'une arroseuse. Placez votre vitesse d'obturateur pour ralentir comme 1/60, bourdonner, s'assurer vos arrangements sont équilibré et prendre la photo. J'ai obtenu les oranges et les pommes dehors. Incité Isaac à connecter le tuyau et à pulvériser le fruit. J'ai placé ma vitesse d'obturateur et aperature et ai pris les photos multiples maisca ne marche pas. Je relise le chapitre et exercez,  le sujet doit être éclairé à contre-jour, en signifiant que la source lumineuse est derrière le sujet. Je déplace mon sujet à l'arrière-cour, j'ai établi tout encore et prend des photos. Oui, cela a fonctionné. Environ une heure plus tard, il a commencé à verser la pluie pour vrai. Pourrait-il faire la même chose quand il pleut ? J'ai ouvert la porte arrière coulissante, place mon appareil-photo haut et a commencé à prendre des photos. C'était difficile. Je ne veulent pas  prendre mon appareil-photo dehors ainsi un sujet qui a été éclairé à contre-jour de la porte coulissante et la photographie de elle était provocante mais je l'ai obtenue pour fonctionner. J'aime pouvoir appliquer quel j'appris aux situations réelles. Il est facile quand vous commandez toutes les variables mais quand votre pas dedans commande et peut encore produire bien qui est quand vous savez  vous avez appris quelque chose.

It has been wonderfully sunny here. I feel like spring.  I want to wear pinks and greens, light airy colors.  I want to shed my sweaters and dark browns and blacks.  The sun pulls me outside and school is getting harder.  It is February but I've noticed Tulips being sold at the grocery stores and there are buds on our fruit trees.  Last week we decided to go to the BP park to meet John for lunch.  This is great in two ways. First, it is a great motivator to get our school done and second it is our private little park.  You see you need an access card to get into the park because it is for BP employees.  Not too many employees homeschool their children or use the park.  We roam all over.  I took this opportunity to take photos and learn about light.  The kids took the opportunity to use the playground equipment and climb trees.  Skagit just plain loved all the branches on the ground.  I'm looking to having the temperature actually match the sunniness. 

Le derniere semaine fais beau.  Nous voyons le soliel tousjours.  Je suis pret pour le primptemps.  Le feuilles sont arrivent sur les arbes mais c'est juste fevrier.  Ce n'est pas le temps mais pour mois c'est bon.  J'aime le soliel et maintent je voudrais habiller dans les couleurs rose et verte et blanc.  Je voudrais metre mes pullovers et habillier noir dans les tirriors.  Oui, je suis pret pour le printemps.  Jeudi, nous avons decider d'aller au parc d'avoir un repas avec John.  Les enfant aiment de jouer et je prends le temps de prendre des photos. Les enfants aiment de montrer les arbes.  Nous avons un petit arbe qu'ils ont montrer mais pas comme le parc.  Skagit aime de manger les branches.

I read on a photographer's blog that the sky will be bluer with a smaller aperture.  So I tried it out and guess what.  She was right.  I've been studying and taking photos and learning a lot lately.  Sometimes I have to learn things more than once in order for it to truely sink in.  I've been going through Brian Petersen's book Understanding Your Exposure in the Ilovephotography.com site.  I really like shooting at wide open apertures so that I get a shallow depth of field and so I can shoot in doors and poorly lit places but there is a time and place for a narrower aperture such as getting blue blue sky.
Another thing I learned was the depth of field preview button.  I really like this button.  You set your aperture and look through the view finder.  The view finder doesn't show the aperture you are shooting at until you press the button.  Then if you are shooting at  narrower  aperture, everything becomes darker because not as much light enters the camera, but things become more in focus.  So I used this shooting the sanhedrian lego court.  The first two are shallow depth of field then I used the depth of field button and choose a narrower aperture so to include the whole court.
As far as school is concerned.  We have been studying Paul's arrest and trial in Rome.  The activity was to take sugar cubes and recreate the Sanhedrian court.  I don't have sugar cubes laying around and didn't prepare so instead we used our lego people.  It was more fun for the kids to build chairs and use "people" than to  have plain sugar cubes glued to cardboard. Paul is in the middle being accused by the high court.

J'aprend beaucoup avec ma camera.  Je trouve une classe a ilovephotography.com.  J'achete un livre et je fais les exercises dans le livre.  J'ai li que le ciel et plus bleu quand l'ouverature est etroit.  J'aime des photos avec superfecial l'ouverature; quand l'arriere-plan est obscure mais il y a un temp quand c'est neccessaire que l'ouverature est etroit. Le ciel vraiment blue est un temp. 
Dans mon camera il y a un bouton qui montre l'ouverature que j'ai choisi.  C'est formidable quand je veux choisir un ouverature qui montre beaucoup.  Avec les Legos, je chois un ouverature plus superfecial qui montre les gens en avant, mais quand je veux voir tous les gens, je chois un ouverature plus etroit.

A notre ecole nous etudions Paul dans le Bible.  Les enfant creons une cour de Sanhedrien.  Paul est au millieu de la cour.  Il faut que nous utilisons des sucre en boit mais je decide que les enfants utilisons les Legos au lieu.

It is the second indoor soccer season for the year.  Job has been scoreless up to this point.  His team has not won a game this second season.  The moral is low.  They have had numerous shots on goal but there is no mark on the score board until tonight. 

Nous avons joue une autre huit semaine de football.  Nous n'avons pas gagne un match.  Job n'as pas un but jusqu'a ce nuit.  Job est dans le bon place a la bonne temp.  Il avait  le parfait but.  Je suis en fier de lui.  Tres bien Job!

I promised Job that I would take photos at his soccer game.  I am trying out a new way to focus, called back button focusing.  It's just not using the shutter button to focus but another one located on the back of the camera instead.  This allows me to focus on one spot recompose and then snap the photo.  It keeps the camera from constantly trying to find the focus spot.  I think that I'm liking it.  It's easier to take photos of kids on a swing but not sure about soccer where they are constantly moving around the field.  But I'll keep trying it out.

Last week at the game, Job and along with several other kids on the team were hit with the ball.  Job took a hard shot to the stomach while being goalie.  This week he was a little more tentative with getting to the ball.  Some of these kids are quite a bit taller and heavier than Job and that makes it intimidating as well.  He just needed a warm up game and next week he'll be his more aggressive self.  He had a wide open shot to goal and missed instead it hit above the goal.  This was incredible because our team kept rebounding and taking shots and just couldn't quite make it in the goal!  I thought some of the parents were going to pass out.  I love watching him play but really do need the camera so that I don't lose my voice.  I tend to not yell as much when I'm behind the camera.  This way I'm just a mom that is supporting her son instead of one of those fanatic parents that live vicariously through their children.  Ok, who am I kidding I do that too.

This puppy that we purchased in December has been growing like crazy.  He had two weeks between vet appointments.  After weighing in, we discovered t;hat he had averaged 3 pounds a week!  Wow.  I can attest to the amount of dog food that he has consumed.  Crazy.  Up to this point we had been borrowing a kennel from our neighbor.  John hadn't wanted to purchase a kennel until Skagit grew more and we'd know how big of a kennel to purchase.  One of our neighbor's dogs passed away a few weeks ago and they are in the process of aquiring another dog.  The news was that the puppy would be arriving towards to the end of February and so our time to purchase our own kennel was drawing near.  Yesterday I took Skagit to Petsmart, to practice his obedience (failed! - he couldn't stop wiggling when ever we approached someone) and to pick up a kennel, and a new food and water dish (he was having trouble reaching the food at the bottom - his head is too big) and of course more food.  I looked on the box, himmed and hawwed and finally bought a 42" kennel.  It is way larger than what we were borrowing but it did say it was for golden retrievers.  Job helped me set it up.  We took the other one back over to our neighbors and Skagit went right in his new kennel and so did Job and Lona.  They reached through the bars and locked themselves in with the dog.  It was hard to get out.  Now all three of them want to sleep one night with the dog.  He on the other hand would rather spend the night in their bed.  I remember when we lived in Montana, we had moved Isaac to a downstairs bedroom.  It had an enormous egress window that John had put in and if someone wanted, they could have broken in that way.  So we had Madison sleep downstairs in Isaac's room.  We'd go downstairs to check on Isaac.  There would Madison be on his bed and Isaac no where to be found.  Each night, Madison would crawl into his bed and Isaac would crawl under his bed onto  the dog mattress.  Dogs don't want to sleep on a thin piece of foam, they know where the good stuff is and Skagit is no dummy.
I may just have to have each child try it once.

I'm trying to pan again.  First, mount your camera onto a tripod.  Second, place your camera in TV or Manual (this is a must).  Third, set your ISO to an acceptable level.  100 for sunny, 200-640 for cloudy, 800+ for indoors - just a general rule of thumb.  Fourth, set your shutterspeed to a slow shutter speed.  If in TV then the camera will automatically adjust the aperature, otherwise set it to a correct exposure, (you're camera has a bar inside the view finder that will show a correct exposure when it is in the middle - this is the camera's correct exposure).  Now focus on an area that is the same distance as your subject when they cross infront of you.  Have your subject ride their bike in front, as they do this swivel the camera at the same speed while taking the photo.  The subject should be in focus and the background should be blurred.  That is the theory anyway.  This takes some practice.  I'm obviously still practicing.  It just looks so neat when it happens.  This year I would like to work on sharp focus with my camera, acheiving a sunburst, and panning.  Some days I just feel so frustrated because my photos don't turn out the way I have envisioned.  The sites that I've link show exactly what I'm trying to achieve.  Staci Bailey is an incredible photographer.  Take a look at the eyes of her little boy.  And ehow has explained better than me how to do these different things. Email any sunbursts, sharp focusing and panning photos.  I'd love to see them.
parksfamilee2@comcast.net