Headed to the Florida Qualifier, NCFCA

Tomorrow morning, Kali and I will be headed to the Florida Qualifier for the National Christian Forensics and Communication Association (NCFCA). Kali will be competing with about 185 other students in various categories of speech and debate. I will be judging rounds and helping wherever needed.

It takes a lot of parents and community judges to make a Qualifier work. Every student is obligated to provide one judge. We also seek scores of additional judges from the community. From this competition students will be referred on to regional competition. It is an extremely big deal.

A lot of friends will be there.

The cream of the crop actually.

This qualifier is open to students from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

On Saturday when the tournament closes, we will know which students will be moving onto regionals in debate.

We will also know which students will move on in various speech categories.

Many students will be able to continue from this qualifier.

There will be plenty of time to hang out with friends.

Some crazier than others. (Love you, guys!)

Did I mention it's a lot of fun?

And then every student gets their ballots. One ballot for every speech and every debate they gave at this qualifier. These ballots help them know what they are doing right, and what they need to improve.

So. Are we all packed? Are we ready to compete? Are we ready to do our best?

It's all good from here on out. On the road tomorrow morning. I'll try to post pictures along the way. If I can. You don't get much sleep at these things, but I'll give it a shot - lol!

Trying Something New

MCPActions just released a new action set today. You can use it to finish photos for your blog. You can make them look more complete with frames and borders, even change up the shape. Not the clearest or sharpest pictures I used here, but what do you think? These are some eagle shots I took at a neighbor's house recently. From the highway. And, yes, I still want that new lens for distance shots - lol!

i ♥ faces kisses

The challenge at i heart faces this week is kisses! I immediately thought of this picture I took of Sadie lightly kissing her new sister Adrianna. Looking at this picture always reminds me of a story my mom used to read to me when I was little. A story about the littlest Christmas angel. Sadie reminds me of the little angel in the book. Good memories! I thought this was the perfect shot for this week's challenge :). To check out all the other entries, head on over to iheartfaces.com.

A Dream Come True

What do you think?

A dream come true?

For sure.



A few extras thrown in just to be sure.


That's a happy face! Make that 2 happy faces :).

Can There Be Such a Thing as Too Much Rain?

Here you have Gus, Sawyer, and Rascal . . .

. . . all but standing in mud.

You ask why? Why are they 'all but standing in mud?'

This would be why.

And this.

And this.

And, yes, even this!

Too much rain.

Rain that flowed like a river down our street.

Rain that stood in massive puddles in our fields.

Rain that flooded our parking area and grooming area.

(I just thought the reflection of the trees in the rain puddles was cool!)

Rain that stands in the horses' main field and surrounds their hay bale.

Rain that is starting to dry up a little at a time, but rain that has turned the path in and out of the barn into a mucky, muddy, boot-eating mess!

Mud that makes it difficult to get to my babies.

That makes them have to poke their noses out through the railing to try to get my attention!

That makes Mark and me have to traipse in through the mud-sucking mess to get to them.

Boot-sucking muck!

Sawyer staying high and dry so he can be fed.

A mud-sucking hole that all but pulled Mark's boot off his foot. You know that sucking sound mud makes as it pulls? Yep! That one!

And then we get a little respite, long enough for the animals to get to the hay bale and enjoy a snack.

What's that you say? You heard it's going to rain again tomorrow? Are you serious!?!

Stay tuned for the next episode of The Rain Mucking, Boot-Sucking Mud Miasma. (hehehe)

Three Beautiful Ladies :)

My favorite shot of the week. Second photo is after editing with the Pioneer Woman's free action #1 set.

I am making this my You Capture entry on "faces" for this week.

To check out a whole bunch of other faces head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry and join the fun!

Great Falls Mill, Rockingham, North Carolina

Last week I posted this photo from Rockingham, North Carolina. I wasn't sure what the original structure was, I just really liked the ruins. Curiosity and questions between myself, a speech and debate friend originally from that area, and a blog reader in the United Kingdom garnered the information that this was probably some type of textile mill.

From there I did a Google search (thank you Daniel Gollahon) for textile mills in Rockingham, and ran down this next photo. I can't figure out how to make it any larger, sorry.

The photo appears to be taken from across the road - about in the same spot where I parked my truck. To the left forefront of the photo you can see the roof of the small room you can see in the ruins shot above. And I was right thinking there were five floors. In another one the photos I found, you could clearly see five stories.

My photo.

Archive photo.

And this is the story behind this building. It was originally built in 1838 and was simply called the Rockingham Mill. It was a cotton mill. They spun cotton into yarn at the cost of 2 cents a pound.

In 1865, the Rockingham Mill was burned to the ground by Sherman's troops.

In 1869, the mill was rebuilt and named the Great Falls Mill, due to a water supply that runs behind the building. (I noticed a small water fall in the bushes at one end of the ruins.) Yarn production was continued. They had a total of 2,000 spindles in place spinning cotton into yarn. This continued for many years, until the building eventually was used simply to store cotton. The facility again caught fire and burned in 1972, leaving behind the ruins you see in my photos.

And there you go. Mystery solved :).