Les enfants vont a AWANA chaque mercredi soir. Ca commence en autumne et fini au printemps. A AWANA, ils ont apprendre des vers de bible. Ils ont ecouter des histories, jouer des jeus et visiter avec des autres enfants. Un soir pres de la fin, touts les enfants prennent leurs velos, scooters, et lames de rouleau. Isaac est differente. Il prend son baton de pogo. Bien sur des autre persons veulent l'essayer. Les enfants montent leurs velos en cercle. Ni person est manquer cette nuit. Ils ont attendu tous l'annee pour cette nuit. Cest le dernier annee pour Isaac. Il a finir tous.
While living here in B'ham we have met some wonderful people. One of them happens to be Coach and his family. We met Coach about 4 or 5 years ago during soccer season. Slowly our families became friends. Lona and his daughter have hit it off. Lona just adores her even though she's 4 or 5 years older. She is patient, kind and gives Lona her attention. She is quick to praise and she is a very talented artist. Isaac and their son play on the same team. They both play the piano and have played chess together. The boys have even gone camping together, which we hope to do so again this summer. His wife is an amazing woman. She models patience with her children. She is a go-getter and is very insightful. Coach sometimes scares our neighbors when he brings his "big" truck around, although the kids are delighted. We get phone calls wondering if we are ok or need help. After a couple of times of that they no longer get worried when it stops infront of our house. Coach and John are co-coaching Isaac's team. He has a way of explaining things and dealing with the relationships on the team. He is good at motivating the boys and modeling behavior. He cares very much for each of the boys on the team and for them to develope not only soccer skills but life skills. John and Coach get a long and it's fun to listen to them talk and plan about soccer practices and games. They compliment each other very well as coaches. Family friends are good to have.
Nous avons un ami qui est aussi l'entraineur pour l'equip de Isaac. Nous aimons sa familee aussi. La fille est gentile avec Lona. Le fils joue le football avec Isaac et les echeque. La femme est gentile aussi. Nous somme content de savoir cette familee.
When we first moved out here this tree was little but eight years have gone by and the tree is much bigger. Isaac has always been one to climb trees. He desperately wanted a tree big enough to climb and build a tree house in. Unfortunately we don't have a tree big enough for a house but our tree in the front has been climbed in for years now. One day I came home and the neighbor kids were high in the tree. We have allowed our children to climb in the tree as far as they can. They just have to be able to get down by themselves. If they can't then they've climbed too high. We've had to curtail some climbing and tie up a branch. The kids were too heavy for it. I love the tree in the spring when it is blooming and then when the petals drop. I love the pink color against the brown of the house. I love the fullness of the bloosoms but I love most the enjoyment that the kids get from this tree.
Quand nous avons demenager a cette maison, l'arbre etait petite. Mais apres huit anness il grandit. Isaac tous le temps aime de montrer dans l'arbres. Il voulait un arbre de construire un maison et de montrer. Malheureusement on n'a pas un arbre pour ca. Mais il peut montrer dans un arbre dedans la maison. Les enfant peuvent montrer tout en haut s'ils peuvent descendre tout seul. Un jour j'ai retourne a la maison et les enfants de voisins sont dans l'arbre.
J'aime cette arbre. J'aime les coulour rose contre notre maison brune. J'aime les fleurs dans l'arbre du printempts et quand les petals tombre par l'arbre. Mais j'aime le plaisir des enfants au cause de l'arbre.
Day or night they are in the tree. La jour et la nuit les enfants et dans l'arbre.
Quand nous avons demenager a cette maison, l'arbre etait petite. Mais apres huit anness il grandit. Isaac tous le temps aime de montrer dans l'arbres. Il voulait un arbre de construire un maison et de montrer. Malheureusement on n'a pas un arbre pour ca. Mais il peut montrer dans un arbre dedans la maison. Les enfant peuvent montrer tout en haut s'ils peuvent descendre tout seul. Un jour j'ai retourne a la maison et les enfants de voisins sont dans l'arbre.
Day or night they are in the tree. La jour et la nuit les enfants et dans l'arbre.
Isaac came up with the idea of writing a newspaper and selling it to people for 10 cents, namely Job, Lona and myself. He had Job do the comics and Lona wrote something too but contributers don't get free papers they do however get 50 percent off. Lona thought that stunk so she came up with writing her own paper. So far she's had two papers. Her paper consists of an ad for comics, a news story about John being in Alaska and the weather report. She gets on the computer, changes fonts, looks up the weather and has a format that she follows. We've saved them to her little folder and emailed them to John. Last night she interviewed him. Unfortunately Job agreed to a non-compete clause and can't draw comics for Lona. I need to tell him about syndicated comics. Isaac has vowed to put Lona out of business, but his paper is 8 cents higher and he's put out one paper to her two. We'll see how far this goes. Don't tell them but I this is great schooling stuff. If I encouraged it or assigned it then they would whine and complain about it. Isn't that funny.
I'm still learning about framing in my photography.
This is Skagit kind of digging into our neighbor's yard to play with their puppy. Their puppy chews on his ears when he sticks his head under.
Isaac commence d'ecrire un journal. Job est des bandes dessinees de schema pour lui. Lona ecrit quelques choses aussi. Isaac demande 10 cent par journal, mais si quelqu'on ecrit pour lui, c'est celment 5 cent. Lona pense que ce n'est pas juste qu'elle faut paier. Alors, elle fait un journal aussi. Elle ecrit sur l'ordinateur un piece de nouveau, elle dit le temps et elle a un publicite pour quelqu'un qui peut faire des dessinees. Job convenu de faire les dessinees seulment pour Isaac. Isaac est fache avec Lona et veux mettre Lona hors des affaire. Lona demande seulment 2 cent pars journal et elle fait deux journal mais Isaac fait un journal. Si je dit c'est pour les etudes il commence de crier qu'ils n'aiment pas ecrire mais si c'est leurs ideas ils ont ecrire et penser et traviller. C'est amusent.
Les photos sont notre chien, Skagit regarde desous le barriere entre notre jardin et le jardin de notre voisin. Il aime de jouer avec leurs deux chien.
This is Skagit kind of digging into our neighbor's yard to play with their puppy. Their puppy chews on his ears when he sticks his head under.
Isaac commence d'ecrire un journal. Job est des bandes dessinees de schema pour lui. Lona ecrit quelques choses aussi. Isaac demande 10 cent par journal, mais si quelqu'on ecrit pour lui, c'est celment 5 cent. Lona pense que ce n'est pas juste qu'elle faut paier. Alors, elle fait un journal aussi. Elle ecrit sur l'ordinateur un piece de nouveau, elle dit le temps et elle a un publicite pour quelqu'un qui peut faire des dessinees. Job convenu de faire les dessinees seulment pour Isaac. Isaac est fache avec Lona et veux mettre Lona hors des affaire. Lona demande seulment 2 cent pars journal et elle fait deux journal mais Isaac fait un journal. Si je dit c'est pour les etudes il commence de crier qu'ils n'aiment pas ecrire mais si c'est leurs ideas ils ont ecrire et penser et traviller. C'est amusent.
Les photos sont notre chien, Skagit regarde desous le barriere entre notre jardin et le jardin de notre voisin. Il aime de jouer avec leurs deux chien.
We went to Tenant Lake and then spent 15 minutes over at Hovander. I made the kids get dressed into some nice clothes so that I could work on some photography issues. This week I'm working on framing my subjects. Posing people is so hard for me. I can't get the catchlights in their eyes, or they are in full sun or backlit. I even made the dog and stay so that I could try to frame him using a doorway. No one was safe from me and my camera. We stayed for 2 and 1/2 hours while I worked on things. One thing that I really wanted to be able to do is take a photo of some one with a sunburst and not silhouette the person or have the sun be a big white ball and lots of glare. I think that I managed it ok. When I first tried it the sun was too high and i could get the kids and the sun it at the same time. After two hours the sun was lower and I got a shot that I'm happy with. My goals this year are to be able to take silhouette and non silhouette backlit phots, how to take a portrait photo with catchlights consistently, learn to take color correct photos both day and night, learn how to photograph our dog (black dogs are hard), take photos that are meaningful to us, learn how to quickly post process a photo taken in raw. Some problems with my photos are color. They just seemed washed out like with Skagit but all my photos are straight from the camera, they aren't messed with at all. Something I have to learn how to do. I worked on Framing my subjects. In one of the photos, Skagit's nose is covered with a twig, but the rest of the photo I like - that twig is distracting though. I like the one with Lona running Skagit and the trees lining the road. I think that they frame her. The individual shots of the kids are just because it's been a while since I've taken photos of them like this. Some day I may have photos on our wall. The last two photos of the boys with Mount Baker in the background I like but Mount Baker looks a little fake. I do like the light though. It was getting toward 6pm and it was nice and mellow. I also like the photo of all three kids with attitude as I call it but I should have switched Isaac and Lona. Lona looks a little lost in Isaac's shadow. All in all, I think that I learned a lot. I want to try it again soon.
Dimanche nous avons alles au parc pour prendre des photos. J'apris quelques techniques de photographie et composition que je veux essayer. Pauvre Job, Isaac et Lona. Je le fait prendre des photos. Ils ont grandit vite et je voulais prendre des photos pour souvenir. Je fait des photos de notre chien aussi.
John a depart pour Alaska alors c'est juste moi et les enfants pour le semaine. J'espere que nous pouvons prendre un marche pendent le semaine et aller chez restaurant aussi. Isaac vas tourner 12 ans en mai. Ca passe vite pour moi. Lona est 8 en julliet et Job et 10 en septembre. Nous avons excite de finir les etudes. Je pense que nous avons 5 semaine peut etre 6 semaine. C'est presque temp de decider les etudes pour l'annee prochaine. Je pense que Isaac pris une classe pour ecrire ou un classe de francais a l'ecole.
Le semaine derniere nous avons beaucoup de travailler. Le pere de John viens de nous visite. Il reste just pour un jour. Il ecoute les enfants jouer le piano, vois le film de danse de Lona, et le matche de footballe de Isaac et Job. Job dit que c'est nessaire de gagner parce que Grandpa ne vien pas ici de voir le perdu. Ils ont gagne heureusement. Isaac joue un matche et apres un autre equip a besoins un autre joueur. Alors Isaac joue pour lui. Il fait tres bien. Dans le premiere matche il presque fait un but et aide un but. Ce jeu a fini dans un cravate. Dans le deuxieme matche, il a aide trois but et l'equipe a gagne le matche. Pendant l'apres midi il arbitre deux matche. Quand il retourne chez nous il etait tres fatigue. Lona n'avai pas assez des joueurs pour un matche samedi alors il a decommande le matche. Et mois, je continue d'etudier photographie. Je prend un photo par jour pour une annee. J'espere d'apprendre beaucoup dans une annee. Gros bisou de tous.
Mom do you recognize the Barbie house? Just brought it down from the attic for Lona.
This week was spring break for the public school kids. So we had a house full of kids this week. I took 5 kids to play racquetball. Then the next day everyone of the kids had a friend over. I had 7 kids in my house. The house was a disaster! They had so much fun though. Job and his friend jumped on the trampoline for 2 1/2 hours. Isaac and his friends played soccer and Lona played ponies with her little friend. Which left me to myself. That's one thing I love about friends. But because of Spring Break, public school kids don't seem to realize that we still do school and they think that they can call the kids whenever.
John's Dad came up on Friday and stayed until about noon on Saturday. I think that it had been about a year since we saw Jim and Pat. The kids played their piano songs for them and Lona showed them her dance recital movie. The kids love them. John was so looking forward to them coming up. John's Dad came to the boys' soccer game Saturday morning. Job's attitude was that they had to win, Grandpa didn't come up just to see them lose. It was so windy and cold at the soccer fields though. Job's team did win. Job played defense and forward. He almost scored in his game. "The first half was tied. We won, it was tiring." Since it was so windy I asked one of his team's parent if they could drop him off at home. Isaac had a game next and I figured that Job didn't have to stay out there. Pat and Lona were hanging out at home. Isaac's team tied
. He played left mid the whole time. He almost scored in both games. After his first game we were talking to one of John's co-workers and it turned out that his U12 team was down two players so Isaac jumped in and played left-mid. I have to say that I was impressed with how well he did. He had 3 assists in that game. For not playing with the kids, he did great. He told me that he was a little nervous. There were no subs so he played all game. He immediately checked his blood sugar after the game and was 36! Not good. A couple handfuls of jellybeans later he was better. Then in the afternoon, he went back and reffed a couple of games, came home and played more soccer at his friends house. We had to finish the day watching the Seattle Sounders play. Isaac's coach showed up at our house with his fire truck. The kids had to climb all over it. Love the impromptu learning opportunities.
. He played left mid the whole time. He almost scored in both games. After his first game we were talking to one of John's co-workers and it turned out that his U12 team was down two players so Isaac jumped in and played left-mid. I have to say that I was impressed with how well he did. He had 3 assists in that game. For not playing with the kids, he did great. He told me that he was a little nervous. There were no subs so he played all game. He immediately checked his blood sugar after the game and was 36! Not good. A couple handfuls of jellybeans later he was better. Then in the afternoon, he went back and reffed a couple of games, came home and played more soccer at his friends house. We had to finish the day watching the Seattle Sounders play. Isaac's coach showed up at our house with his fire truck. The kids had to climb all over it. Love the impromptu learning opportunities. 
Lona was the only child that didn't play soccer. There were a couple of kids missing from her team and the opposing team so they decided to cancel it. That frustrates me. They could have played four on four or three on three. 
This is what the goalie was doing during Isaac's 2nd game. Way to go Sam (it was his third game)
