Our GRAND Adventure.

What could be better than spending time at the lake with your church family. We spent our summer vacation at Grand Lake with four other families. We were quite a site pulling out of town with our train of 5 campers, 4 boats and two jetskis. We couldn't have picked a better time to go, the lake was beautiful and the weather was great. During the day we would cruise the lake, picking out our dream house or going through the marina's and deciding which party boat had the coolest name. My favorite was I.T.A.L.Y. (It Tis A Little Yacht). When they weren't skiing or tubing in the boat, the kids enjoyed catching perch off the shore behind the campers and swimming off the dock. All in all, it was great to get away and relax on the lake. Now back to the real world where sessions call, orders are placed, bills are paid, laundry is piled and cleaning needs to be done. And thank God that we have a phone that rings, people that order, bills that are paid, clothes to clean and a house that needs dusted. -Raynell

Do it yourself project turns into quality family time.

Have you ever had one of those projects that you just dread. Well you're looking at one. Our new natural light camera room, which was supposed to be finished 6 weeks ago, is now completed. Our whole family passed up a weekend at the lake to finish this project. Isaac was the official "saw man", cutting and measuring all the pieces that were up against the wall, Ivy was the "strip layer", laying the pieces to be fitted together, I was the "glue girl" and Jim was the "tapper", fitting the pieces together to perfection. It took us two days to finish but the transformation is amazing. The kids both worked so hard and didn't complain once that they gave up lake time for work. We were down to our last section and Ivy says, "Mom, my fingers are red." Gotta love her, mine were too.

Won't you be our friend.

The last couple of days have been a blur learning about facebook and myspace. I still don't understand it all but I get so excited when someone wants to be our friend. Aren't we special! Here is the first of many senior videos we hope to post to our facebook. Enjoy.

Future Photographer? Who knows!

By qualifying in the state finals, Isaac was able to go to the National TSA Convention in Denver, CO and compete in the Digital Photography competition. He made it to the top 10 out of the 100 plus albums submitted, which qualified him to compete in the on site project. He had to take new photographs, crop and prepare them, put them on page format with a description of the process he used to make the final print and then go in for a personal interview with three judges. He did not place in the top 3 but, once all the scores were posted, we found out he placed 4th in the competition. How awesome is that for his first year in TSA. -From a proud mom, Raynell