Monday, October 27, 2008

A reminder to myself....


So, I have been having some trouble with my Pentax K-10 D. All of my low light pictures have had ALOT of noise (for those of you who are not photographers that means you can see a lot of pixelation in them). I have been really upset because I loved all the pictures I have been getting until a few months ago when we went to my brothers wedding, and some of my shots, like the one up above didn't turn out so well. Well, I've been reading online what some of the problems are with my camera and started taking some test shots here in my office. Then I decided to take off what I *THOUGHT* was my UV ray filter that I usually leave on all the time. Only to find out that I had my polorize filter on! And for those of you who think I'm speaking greek a UV filter is clear, a polarize filter darkens things a bit so that when you are shooting at a place like the beach or lake it cuts down on the glare! So, yeah when we went on vacation in June I put the polarize filter on because we were at both the beach and lake and then forgot to take it off. So, YEAH! problem solved and this is a note to myself to remember to check the filters next time my camera is doing something I'm not so happy with, because chances are that it is the users fault and not the camera!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Things that are going on in UT.

Well, we are here and I'm finally updating! We have so much going on.

Kaitlyn had her sleepover with 7 other girls. They had a great time, ate a ton of junk, played games and stayed up until 5am. 5 is when I told them it was finally time to sleep because they came up to Kaitlyn's room and turned on the light, which is right across from our room.
Other news on Kaitlyn, she had a performance on Saturday night with Up with people. Up with People is a neat group of young adults from all over the world. They come to different cities and do volunteer work and then have a performance before they leave. They asked the theater group Up with Kids to come perform a song with them. Since Kaitlyn is in Up with kids she went and had a great time! She is loving being in theater and is quite good at it. She is also involved in our dance/flag team at church and is doing fantastic at AWANAS! She is doing very well in school this year too. We are really proud of how she is growing up. She has picked some fantastic, sweet girls to be her friends and really cares about the new kids that come into her life.

Aidan is doing well in Kindergarten. He loves it! I tried so hard last year to get him interested in learning and it seems like just having him in a school environment has made all the difference this year! He is also involved in our dance ministry at church, one of 2 boys, I was surprised he wanted to do it again but he is our little ham and loves anything that involves singing, dancing and acting. He wants to be in Up with Kids but we decided to wait a year so as not to overwhelm him while he is adjusting to being in school everyday. He will play soccer again next spring which he is really looking forward to. He is a spark in AWANA's and has a fantastic memory! He is getting so big and is losing all of his babiness! I had a little moment in church a couple of weeks ago and everytime I think on it I tear up. Aidan was all snuggled up against me and the pastor was praying and thanked God for sending His Son to die for us. With Aidan leaning up against me I had the thought, "God sent HIS SON, like my little Aidan. Would I be able to send my little guy if I knew he could bridge a gap between God and man?" It has totally changed my way of thinking lately. It is such a beautiful thing God has done for me!

Aaron is busy with work and church ministries. He has taught a class every week for 31/2
months, they usually have a break between classes to get caught up on scheduling and developing other training projects. He has been building a new class from the ground up as well. Which means a lot of late nights for him. He will be traveling to Houston next month for a few weeks and then in December he has 2 weeks of vacation that we are looking forward to! Aaron also has been busy working with our Deacon team at church getting projects done and various other tasks as well as teaching our Sunday school class. I am so proud of him, he never has a complaint about all he is doing and does everything with a loving heart.

Well, I guess that just leaves me. I have been working on various volunteer projects. I am very involved in our Children's dance ministry teaching flags. So far I only have 3 girls, but for the start I think that is a good amount. They are doing fantastic in learning the routine! I am also still on the Hands of Praise team and seem to have taken on a bit more responsibility with that as I have been asked to help choreograph a piece! It is exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. I am also on the Deacon team at our church (as a Deacon's wife) and that has led to quite a bit more responsibility, I have pretty much become Aaron's secretary and send out any and all information that the rest of the team needs...this is a much bigger job that I had anticipated, but I really enjoy doing it. We are working closely with our pastor on growing the service ministries at the church. I am also busy trying to get kinks worked out of the Evanjafrica sponsorship program that we started in the summer (Mom and Linda I am so sorry I still haven't sent those things to you!). Other than those things I am busy with the kids taking them to their various activites and keeping household things done as well. I have found a few moments to scrapbook here and their and have started my Africa album. I'm hoping to keep motivated and get it finished as it is a huge project! So, if you are wondering where my posts have been lately it is just that I have had very little time to do so. My life is so full right now! God has really been blessing us here in UT. I will try to update more, but sometimes I think it is just always the same old thing and people will be tired of reading about our various activities.