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Well Done Good and Faithful Suburban

Today Rudolph the Red Hood Suburban (aka Momma truck) delivered Graham to the bus stop for the last time.

Kenny and I purchased Rudolph in August of 1998, three months before  the arrival of twins. It is sort of hard to find a vehicle that will accommodate three car seats with  two rear facing, if you don't want a mini van. The redneck girl in me was happy with this purchase!

Rudolph is best know for his

• GR Loomis (bonefish) sticker
• cheese light-dome light
• whale and top hat under the dash
• 10 disc CD player-with a  bazooka speaker hidden in the back cargo area
• "homeschool bus" bumper sticker.

Rudolph has over 200,000 miles on him now, he has been to the beach, to the mountains, camping, to Tennessee to meet a new niece, pulled the camper, countless trips to 4 different schools, homeschool adventures (one in the snow up and down a mountain), he has seen two teenage drivers. And only once did he ever have to come home on a wrecker.

New Camera Lens

Dove in the pine tress behind the house.

I finally decided what lens I wanted for my Nikon Camera. I had been wanting one for sometime, and in fact was the whole reason for purchasing the Nikon. If I had been able to buy a lens for my Samsung NX100 at a reasonable price, I would have continued to use it.

These are some of the first photos that I made with the new 55-300mm lens. I am still working on holding the camera still, because the longer lens makes it harder to hold. 

As always to see the photos larger, you can just click on the photo you want to enlarge.
Hope you enjoy!

"Waco" plan from South Carolina, always something flying over head at our house.

Birds on the feeder.

New York Band Trip Day 2

Group Photo made at Liberty State Park while waiting on the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty.

Jacob sent this photo of the statue.

Graham's photo of the statue.

Today they also toured the lower east side and visited 1 World Trade Center, Empire State building and a play at the Lyric Theatre.

They were hoping to visit the Today Show in the morning if time allows, my DVR is set to record. 

Jacob sent this photo of a Masarati to Ben last night, said it was like they were lining up. My little red neck boy in the big city!

New York Band Trip

On 77th Street. Mr Sigler and Mr. Schaub (from Mt Tabor HS) in the for ground.

Jacob and Mitch

Times Square

The bus left North Forsyth HS last night at 10:30, they arrived in New York City about 10:30 AM.

They saw some snow sometime before arriving in the city.
[6:02 am and just outside of Mechanicsburg, PA, on I-81...its snowing.]

[Breakfast stop in snowy Shartlesville, PA. #NFMTNYC15 @ Shartlesville Exit I-78 https://instagram.com/p/0xUO7WN6ma/ ]


Jacob told me that they have already had people trying to get them to buy things from them on the street. Someone was handing out CD'S. Because of a story that Heather Stevenson had told me, I warned them not to take things from people who tried to hand them. Thanks Heather for making me look a little smarter to my now "well traveled teens".

They are going to see Les Miserables at the Imperial Theater this afternoon. 

Probably will not hear from Jacob again til tonight when the get to the hotel to charge their phones.

The next three photos, I found on the NFHSBand Twitter feed:

The play for Saturday afternoon.

Tiffany Smith, Mitch Hampton and Jacob are in this one.

And last one from the Mt Tabor group a picture of Graham! I knew he was there somewhere!

Wealth of Knowledge

While cleaning out some drawers this morning I found what once was a "wealth of knowledge" for my boys. 
Flash cards: some in my handwriting, some in Jacob and Graham's handwriting. Made from propaganda sheets sent home from the school. Wednesday packets were always an exciting time, to see most of all grades from the past week but also to see all the announcements concerning what was going on in the school: fundraisers, PTA happenings etc.  I would read the information, record dates on calendars and then we cut up the very colorful sheets and made flash cards for spelling words.  Some times I miss those days, the problems of my children were more simple then.

Thursday January 16, 2014

My day on Thursday started off with the realization of how lucky I am to be friends  on Facebook with many Godly women. My news-feed consisted of a shared message from Dr. David Jeremiah by Kathy Joyce, comments on selected Bible scripture by Michelle Smith, a chart  with suggested scripture to read when you are experiencing different feelings and troubles by Judy Hardwick. There were also posts from Liz Curtis Higgs a Christian speaker and author and many Moravian Churches that I have befriended because of work. God just really blessed me that morning with all his goodness right there on Facebook! Sort of made me wonder what I would be facing that day. 

I arrived at work looking forward to getting some things completed and then off to a new photography class at Surry Community College, something that I had long  wanted to do. Right about noon my world came crashing down. No really! I heard something that sounded like glass falling. I covered my head and dove  for the opposite corner of the room, because I could imagine something big coming through the window. When all the noise stopped I was on the floor, I turned too see the ceiling tile on my desk, plus plaster off the wall above the dropped in ceiling. 

My nerves were shot to say the least.  I had always wondered if I would have the presence of mind to protect myself if I were ever faced with with to. I was pretty impressed that I knew enough to get out of the way. Only injury was a small carpet burn on my knee and some congestion from all the dust. 

                                                                                                                                                         

And here we have Graham Morgan. Practicing with his bow for the NoFo Hunters Safety Shooting Team. This was late in the afternoon and I did not use a flash which was my aim: to control the lightness in the photo with the ISO setting. So I did learn a little something in the class on Thursday night! Next I need to address the balance of ISO and aperture settings. Go ME!
So those are the events that Thursday brought to me. How blessed I am to not be hurt  and was able to calm my nerves from the days events well enough to move on to my evening schedule and to have a mostly normal day with all the blessings in my life.