25th Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday was our 25th wedding anniversary. (Yes, I know we don't look anything like the two people in the above picture, but I promise - it is Mark and me.) It doesn't seem like it's been that long since we got married in my parent's living room with just family members present. My best friend Marcia was my maid of honor and Mark's best friend John was the best man. My nephews lit the candles and my dad walked me down the hallway, into the living room. Very simple, and personal, just like I wanted. My sister made the wedding cake. It was beautiful. I remember the boys running around to all the grocery stores buying up the kind of frosting Judy wanted for the cake. She also made these little mint-type things with the frosting. Mark's dad tape recorded the ceremony. I think I still have the tape around here somewhere. Then we had a reception and a lot of friends from church showed up to wish us well. I remember we went skiing the day before and I was basically sunburnt to a crisp. In many of the photographs you can actually see burnt skin. Not good. And for some reason I bought these shoes I saw in a magazine and they had like 4" heels on them. My feet were killing me. I did the whole reception bare-footed :) Mark just went along with everything and was great about it.
Well, in those 25 years, we have moved once into the house we live in now. We have gone through 4 pregnancies and delivered two healthy babies, which are Jason and Kali. We have both retired from our law enforcement jobs and are enjoying our children while they still live with us. Family, church, homeschool and 4-H keeps our lives filled with lots of activities. Our love as a couple, and as a family, has continued to grow each year. As long as we remember to keep God at the center of our lives and the leader of our decisions, everything works well. Mark signed one of my anniversary cards "thanks for the first 25 years!" Here's praying God grants us at least 25 more.

Lincoln Brewster sings "Majestic"

Flittering Butterflies

Yesterday, I was on the deck in our backyard watching the new kitten when I noticed two butterflies flittering all around, chasing each other in a crazy looking mating-dance kind of thing. Do butterflies do that? I have no idea. I grabbed my camera and started taking shots. Most of them were too blurred due to the quickness of the butterflies - I've never seen them move that fast before. I was able to get these two decent shots. They were a lot of fun to watch. The neighbors probably think I'm nuts - standing at the edge of the yard taking shot after shot of something they can't even see from their house :)

The House That Time Forgot

Yesterday, I rode with my son to a neighborhood not far from our house to visit a kitten we had given away. Afterwards, I walked out behind their home and found this dilapidated old house, about to fall down. I saw the trees and bushes that had grown up all around it and, quite frankly, looked like they were actually holding up the structure. I started zooming in with my lens, taking shots, and I noticed a black cat sitting on part of the house. He wasn't in the first pictures I took, so I think he must have heard us and came out to see what was going on. He was a bit wary of us, but didn't leave so I took several shots of him. I was able to get one good closeup of him before he turned and slowly climbed back inside the house. Not far from the house we found a deserted old lamp post laying in the leaves and dirt. It must have been there for sometime, as there were vines already growing up over it. In a separate part of the yard, I found the pretty purple flowers. I have no idea what they are - but thought they were really pretty. The flower itself was about the size of a nickle. (Mrs. Marjena tells me these are called Moses in the Cradle - pretty fitting name, I think.) Then, near the driveway, I found the pink flower - again, no idea what it is. I took several pictures and got this one decent one. We had a good trip, good conversation, I got to visit the sweet little kitten, and got to take some awesome photos...what more could I ask for?

Arrrghhh!!! Avast, Mateys, it's the end of the year for the Bradford 4-H program ...

Well, it's the end of the year for the 4-H program here in our county. It's been a great year. Kali was president of the County Council. We were without an agent for a good portion of the year and Kali ran the program for the entire county during that time. She did an incredible, awesome job. She has grown so much this past year in her leadership skills. Our church sent her to Student Leadership University last summer where she underwent executive level training for a week. We both learned so much - it was the kind of training I received at the age of 37 in my previous employment.

Anyway, I digress. Last night was the long-awaited awards dinner where the members received awards for all their hard work during the year.

As you can assume from Kali's picture, the theme of the night was Pirates. We spent the afternoon decorating the Women's Club to look like a pirates' port. Many of the 4-H members dressed up in pirate attire.

A few of the brave adults dressed up as well. Here I am at our house before leaving. I added more to my costume when we arrived at the banquet. My favorite part was the hook :) I may have to change this to be my "about me" photo.

Kali worked very hard this year. She was able to complete 222.5 hours of community service, for which she received a certificate. Kali also earned her Emerald Award, the highest level of performance award that a member can achieve. She completed many additional duties to win this award - such as speaking in the community about 4-H, conducting community service projects at a club level, completing a number of project books, representing our county at a district level, attending district activities, various competitions, and many more things. I am just going off the top of my head here trying to remember. It took her literally all year to accomplish these things. I am sooooo proud of her!!! Kali was also given a beautiful plaque thanking her for all her hard work as County Council President this past year.

Here is my wonderful scrapbook club - Cloverscraps - or most of them anyway. This year I learned about an award a club could earn as a group. I completed the paperwork and we were able to complete 19 of the 20 requirements to earn our club the EMERALD AWARD. This is a huge accomplishment for a club. We had to be involved in various projects all year, and there were specific, detailed requirements we had to meet. Great job, Cloverscraps!!!! I love you!!!

Our banquet was held at the local Women's Club. The decorations were awesome! Here is the head table where all this past year's officers were seated. The meal was catered by a local steakhouse. What I got to eat was really good. They started the awards just as our table received our steak dinners, so I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked to, but the bits I got were tasty and good.

As outgoing President, Kali emceed the program. All the officer had roles in reading narrative and handing out awards, Kali kept the program flowing and did the welcome and closing. In this photo, she was doing the closing, thanking everyone for coming, congratulating the members on awards earned and won, and giving announcements of upcoming events. Someone had given her a hand-written note at the last minute - she tried to read the handwriting and did her best, but here you can see her looking up for help and saying, "I can't read it" with a smile on her face. It was great!

Congratulations to all the 4-H members and leaders and volunteers for a great year. Everyone worked hard and worked together as a team. It was an incredible year.

Things are going to be changing here at our home as we step down from most of our 4-H activities to concentrate on home school and high school. Kali is not happy with this decision, but she is understanding and willing to comply. For 8 years now, our life has been scheduled around church and 4-H, fitting our schooling in where we could. I decided something had to give and it wasn't going to be church or family. We have been so dedicated to 4-H, with Kali at times being in 4 clubs, plus on the County Council, and being a junior leader in another club, plus being an officer in every club and on the council. Our commitment to 4-H has been phenomenal. While our level of commitment is changing, our support will still remain. 4-H is an awesome program and it has taught Kali so much. Thanks for 8 great years!

A Couple More Things For Today ...

I wanted to add a couple more pictures today before I quit for the night. (I actually got a lot accomplished today.) Kali and I were out in the yard the other day - playing around with my camera. I am trying to get better. I know I don't understand about light and many other things, but I am starting to understand that outdoor shots look better if taken before 10 AM, after 4 PM, or during a rain :). I don't know if this is technically true, but it seems to work for me. Here are a couple I took of Kali.

There was another one of Kali that I really, really liked, but she didn't, so I can't post it :( I promised.

I know several of you have already seen this in a layout. This is probably one of my favorite pictures of my son, Jason. His favorite characters at Disney are Chip and Dale. We got this shot at the Polynesian Hotel, during O'Hana - a character breakfast.

And, this is the last photo for today. I took this two nights ago, as we were headed out to meet the boys for dinner. We pulled off the Brooklyn Bridge and shot this looking back over our shoulders, out the window of the car. I got several good shots as the sun sank below the trees, the others are probably better, but this is the one I liked best.

Trinity Luau - End of School Year

OK, Clover scrappers, this is the best picture I could get for you. We had an end of the year luau for the youth of our church this past week. Brother Jeff had us play a bunch of crazy games - which were all seriously fun and entertaining. The lighting in that building is awful for taking photographs. Do you recognize T? They had 5 students on stage. The first thing they had to do was remove their shoes and socks, then they had to peel a banana with their feet. What a hoot!!! T's like, "Mrs. Alice, get my picture!". Which I did, and here it is, to prove that T. can actually peel a banana with his feet. At least he won't starve to death ...

And this is B. He plays bass for our praise band. Kali and Anna are the girl singers. Anna is leaving for college in August, Kali is going to miss her, at least until Kali gets there for college herself :). Then we have 3 guys that sing - T., J., and R. Brother Jeff, B., and one other young man play guitars. Owen plays keyboard, and a different R. plays the drums. They sound really good. Kali loves the music. They lead worship during our youth sessions in the Epicenter. I think I am going to make a scrapbook page with this picture next :) I think B. looks awesome!

Emeli

This is Emeli. She is four years old and lives in Peru with her parents. She is our "adopted" daughter through Compassion International. Emeli is in kindergarten and enjoys activities at her church.

We have written Emeli twice and we just got our first letter from her. Her teacher helped her write the letter since she is only four. Emeli is well loved by everyone at her school and in her community. Her favorite color is yellow and she like to eat fish and rice. She likes playing with balloons with her cousins, she likes to roll a hoop, play hide and seek, and make art projects. We are allowed to send her paper gifts no bigger than 8 1/2" x 11". We sent her stickers, coloring pages, and watercolor paper. Do you have any ideas for any other paper gifts we could send?

Isn't she beautiful? Emeli has asked that we pray for her dad, mom, and grandparents to accept Jesus like she has. Would you please pray for her and her family?

Keep in mind that I am not a photographer. I am a scrapbooker, so maybe one day (in my spare time) these will get made into beautiful scrapbook pages I can post here for you to look at. I like to TRY to take photographs. My friend Pam is so good!!! You can see her shots at He Keeps Me Singing :). And Whitney is coming along right behind her! Check Whitney's stuff out at Proverbs 31:30. I look at their blogs everyday to see if they have posted new things for me to drool over :) I wasn't happy with the zoom on my old camera, so my husband got me a new one for Mother's Day with a 15x optical zoom, so I am in business now!!! Here are some of the first pictures I took with this new camera.

This picture and the one below are of a fern outside our dining room window. It had just sprinkled a bit of rain - which we desperately needed. I didn't know if I would be able to catch the drops on the leaves or not, so I was really glad they turned out as well as they did.

My daughter took this picture in our back yard.

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My husband, my daughter, and I went on a spur of the moment trip to St. Augustine for a couple days. These were taken at Crescent Beach and at Saltwater Cowboys - a restaurant on the marsh.

The next ones were taken with my old camera, which only had a 3x optical zoom. They cleaned up really nice and I had 10 megapixels, but I wanted to be able to get in really close and tight.

My friend Pam was doing a photo shoot of my daughter and three of our friends from church. So, I took pictures of Pam working, my daughter, and of the others playing - waiting for their turn :) Because of their ages, I am not posting their names here.

And this is my beautiful daughter :)

Sunday

It's been a rough past week. Some of you know that I get vertigo from time to time and usually when I get it, I get a bad case. Well, this past week hasn't been as bad as some, but it was bad enough that I ended up at the hospital - twice - and was admitted for a couple days. Demerol and lots of sleep have gotten me fairly stabilized. After blood work, a cat scan, and an MRI, it was determined that I would get to enjoy vertigo off and on for the rest of my life - probably - since there is no cure for it, what a thrill to hear that :( Thankfully Mark and Jason were off work and were able to get Kali to where she needed to be, and keep taking care of the zoo of animals we have here at home.

I stopped the demerol two days ago, and drove to church today. It was good to be there. My daughter sang a solo tonight and, as usual, it always touches my heart to hear her sing. She has such a beautiful, clear voice and she loves God so much. It really shows in her music. Her goal is to be a professional Christian singer. She wants to study vocal performance at Boyce College in Kentucky. In my mind I can already see her there. God has been so good to us. Even in my sickness this past week, I could feel God keeping me close and helping me through. Thanks for all the prayers you guys lifted up in behalf of me and my family. We love you!

I am going to try to attach a photograph of Kali at Boyce during our visit there recently.