text + photo

I'm taking Marc over at Take Out Photo up on his challenge for this month. Here are a couple of simple ones:

And this next one is a lot more complex and still needs some major tweaking. Think of it as a rough draft.


I used this as my inspiration:

party of six

We went up the canyon this evening so we could attempt some family pictures. I forgot a piece for my tripod so I couldn't use that. I was attempting to set my camera up on a rock when another family walked by. Slade yelled out, "Hey, will you take a picture of us?". Yes, well, that would be easier!

I had to crop these a lot because the man stood way back. Consequently the quality isn't great. Of course, I also see all the things I wish had been fixed and let's just say probably would have been if I had been taking the picture. :P I am trying to decide if these are good enough to save us the $100 we will have to spend getting them taken on Tuesday night with another photographer. So do tell me your opinion!

two for one

For the past few months Dave and I have both been helping Nathan and Slade try to learn how to ride a bike without training wheels. Slade has rarely wanted to actually try and gave up fairly quickly. Nathan on the other hand wanted to try all the time but it was really hard for me to bend over and hang on to the bike.

Tonight we were outside enjoying the beautiful evening. Nathan asked to try and on the first time just started riding by himself. I had been outside experimenting with something so I luckily had my camera.


Slade watched Nathan for awhile and then wanted to try himself. He got on and just started riding. Just like that. Apparently Dave had some sort of magic touch or something.

They were both so excited and I'm so glad I was there to see it.

ginormous

I figured out how to get my pictures to be larger on the blog. What do you think?

out with the old...



in with the new....

good reads

I saw this book list on a few blogs and the book lover in me just had to join in the fun. I love book lists!

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

The books I have read are in bold.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (okay, well maybe not ALL, but I've read most)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I consider myself an avid reader, so I was shocked to that I had only read 30 of these books! Why haven't I read more of these? I have been in a bit of a reading slump lately. This gives me a good list to get started on my reading obsession again.

How about you?

remembering

I was watching "102 Minutes That Changed America" on the History Channel last night. Emma came in and sat down. I explained briefly about what I was watching and asked her if she was sure she wanted to watch. Afterwards, she came and found me in Sawyer's room, and said, "I said I wanted to watch but part of me didn't. I just had such a sad feeling but I couldn't take my eyes of it." Exactly right, little girl. She then was able to ask me lots of questions about that day and how things happened. At first she was sure it was an accident until I told her that men bent on destroying life did it deliberately. She asked if there were little children killed. She asked how they were able to steer the planes into the buildings. She asked about what weapons they used. She asked if anyone was able to get out before they collapsed.

Though I certainly wish she didn't have to know about such things I am really grateful that we were able to have such a thoughtful discussion about such a sad, sad day. I think it is really important that we remember 9-11 and the thousands who died. For the hundreds of emergency workers who rushed in to help and never went home again. For the way it changed our country forever. I remember.

on to the next

Emma's violin teacher that we've been with for the last year decided to stop teaching for a variety of reasons. After lots of phone calls, I found a new teacher. She teaches at The Music School, which is a really great set-up. We met her on Wednesday and Emma had her first lesson today. I think she is going to be a fabulous teacher. She is positive, energetic, demanding yet not over-bearing. Hurray! I'm thrilled even though it will cost $20 more a month, although that is somewhat canceled out by the fact that we don't have to drive an hour round trip.

The Music School sent an email from her that said:
I really enjoyed meeting and working with Emma today. What a bright, careful and responsive student. Lucky me!

How nice is that!

this is the place

Our Friday fieldtrip this week was to This Is the Place Park up in Salt Lake. We joined several other homeschool families for a four-hour adventure in the park. Highlights include:

--doing chores

--getting a shave at the barber shop

--learning about spinning yarn
--petting the animals


--eating lunch at the Bowery
--taking a train ride twice

--visiting the oh so tiny Mary Goble Pay cabin where they raised 7 kids
--just hanging out in the absolutely gorgeous weather


Afterwards we went to Keri's house. Sawyer and Nathan took naps in the car while we sat outside on her front porch swing. Keri then loaded the kids up with popsicles and ice cream and filled our cooler with more to take home. And this is why we love Keri! It was a perfect ending to our outing.

bingham canyon mine

We took a break from school today and went to the Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine with my sister-in-law, Katie. A few interesting facts:
--Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine has produced more copper than any mine in history - about 17 million tons.
--The mine is so big, it can be seen by the space shuttle astronauts as they pass over the United States.
--Each tire on the big trucks costs from $18,000 to $26,000 and lasts just 9 months.
--To make all the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in 1999, the U.S. Mint used about 36,000 tons of copper. That's about as much refined copper as Kennecott produces every 41 days.

The kids were disappointed that they couldn't see deeper into the hole. I must admit that it is a bit of a let-down to see so little of the actual mining operations. We watched a 16 minute movie which only served to pique our interest even more. Oh well. I'd say it was worth the $5 entrance fee we paid but not more than that. And now we can cross it off our list.

We went to JCW's for lunch on the way home. I thought it was very ironic since I had started the day feeling inspired to make better choices by CJane's post about healthy eating only to end up with fast food for lunch.

going going gone

Sold for $180 to Karen Scoffield!

Congrats Karen. Send me an email at lindsaydanielphoto@yahoo.com and we will discuss the details.

Thanks to everyone that placed a bid. The auctions all over the internet for Nie Nie Day have been amazing. Many are still going on. You can see what's "live" over at Design Mom.