Summer Vacation

We are just 5 days away from summer vacation this year.  Last year, my summer was filled with camps, road trips and boating.  We didn't have 5 minutes to sit and rest.  This summer is going to be quite the opposite.  There will be lots of sitting and vegging.  My kids are all old enough to help me clean up the house and we have a lot of things to do that we never seem to have time for during school.  Here's my list of things I want to accomplish over summer break.

• Study the scriptures EVERY DAY with the kids.  Might seem like an odd thing to some of you, but it's been years since we've been able to have regular scripture study together as a family, due to crazy work/school schedules.  Usually summer is when we slack off, but I'm hoping this summer will be the opposite.  I really enjoy hearing the insights my kids have about the scriptures.  They are so much smarter than I was at their age.
•  Watch at least the first 3 seasons of Monk.  We've seen every Psych episode ever made at least 3 times, so we will have to get our money's worth from Netflix watching something else that's both family friendly and entertaining for adults.  I've heard Monk fills both of those requirements.  There's 125 episodes on Netflix, so we shouldn't run out of fresh material.  And the best part about Netflix is NO COMMERCIALS!
• Splurge on movie theater popcorn at least once a week.  The weekly kids movie at Harkins should take care of that.  :)  Other movies we might splurge on this summer:  Snow White and the Huntsman, Brave, The Dark Knight Rises (can't wait for this one!), and The Bourne Legacy.  Movies I will be avoiding, even though the kids may think they are must see's:  Madagascar 3 and G.I. Joe (the sequel).  
• De-clutter my house.  We have officially lived in this house longer than any other location since getting married... and it shows.  My plan is to break the house down into several "zones" and tackle one zone each week.  
• Exercise 4 times a week.  I've been sporadic in my routine since Ragnar in February, but I'm all healed up and it's time to get back into Triathlon training mode.  Hoping to do the Mesa Sprint Tri again in the fall.  That was a great race last year and I'm looking forward to doing it again!  Any local peeps want to sign up with me?
• Play catch up with the kids church stuff.  Taylor is behind on Duty to God, Megan is behind on Personal Progress, and Ian is just barely going to get his Faith in God done before he turns 12.  Definitely need to spend some time catching up on all this fun stuff!
• Read The Fountainhead.  It's our book club book for August and the audiobook is 30 hours long.  May be the longest book I've ever tried to read.  Definitely not one I should procrastinate starting!
• Do some fun projects with my kids... we might tie dye t-shirts, Megan wants to do some sewing projects, and I've got some half finished projects I really need to finish and clean up.  And if I'm ever bored I can scrapbook.  I can digital scrap or I can work on some half finished paper scrap pages.  There's never a shortage of projects to catch up on!  Maybe I'll scrapbook while we watch Monk.... I love multitasking!

So there you have it... one more week and we'll be officially into summer vacation.  Even though I'm not going to be leaving town too much, I plan on staying super busy!

Growing Up

Have you heard of garage lighting?  It's a new fad in the photography world... and yesterday I tried my hand at it.  I'm officially in LOVE with this technique.  All you need is a garage (minus the car) and a big sheet.  I used clamps to hang it from the back of the garage.  The idea behind it is that if you time it just right... you can used a shaded garage for a studio and get amazing light.  To get the amazing light, you have to open the garage door when the sun is shining on the driveway.  The light from the driveway will bounce into the garage and give your subject amazing, soft, balanced light.  All it took was the shade white balance setting to give these portraits a warm glow that I love!

After we did the garage experiment, we went outside and did these shots in the front yard just after the sun had gone behind the house across the street.  I can't believe my luck.  It's rare that I get a cooperative child, and even rarer that I get this many good photos to show off at school.  And yes, I did show them off today!

This last one isn't as focused as I would like, but it shows off his new toothless grin.  It makes me sad to see my baby growing up... and losing those baby teeth  is a painful reminder that it's happening all too fast!