Summer!

We have almost arrived at my favorite season of the year!

Those who know me well, know that summer is my favorite time of the year!

Long sunny warm days and nights make me so happy!

Last summer, I learned about this great group of ladies who have a purpose of having 'less chaos + more Jesus' in all things. Sacred Holidays have prepared some wonderful resources to help you have the best summer. 

I have already downloaded and printed off their summer bucket list for women. They have one for kids too!

The point of the bucket list for me is to be intentional about enjoying the summer and to complete a couple of projects. With big emphasis on 'enjoy!'

There are things you can only do during the summer time. Can you imagine paddle boarding when it is freezing cold outside? That is a big no!

I hope you take a peek at all that the Sacred Holiday group has put together, and be sure to let me know if you plan on joining in on some of their fun summer projects!

Come, behold the works of the Lord

"Come, behold the works of the Lord" - Psalm 46:8

Our Summer Bucket List

As much as I love the routine of our days during the school year, I love the unstructured time we have during the summer. But instead of spending endless days doing nothing, I like to have a bit of a plan as we enter summer. 

A few summers ago, when both of my kids were still home during the day, I took my kids on quite a few local day trips. Of course I took a lot of photos on those day trips! I even ended up making photo books of our adventures for them and gave the books to them for Christmas that year. As my kids have gotten older, I know that the time is precious and I am thankful that we have opportunities to do a lot of fun things together.

This summer will be the second summer that my daughter and I will be home together during the day. She is quite a homebody and would rather stay home all day. But I know I would go stir crazy! Last year, we made a list of some things we wanted to do through the summer. We even made plans to invite a friend or two along when we could. And we both tried some new things together.

Last night, we started writing down some ideas of things we want to do for this upcoming summer.

Our Summer 2014 Bucket List so far...

We found a couple of ideas on Pinterest, but we came up with a few of our own ideas too. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be adding a few more items to our list. I love that my teenage daughter still wants to do things like 'chalk the driveway' and 'crayon art'!

What are your plans for this upcoming summer?

Capture Your 365

I really meant to try to take more photos last week to match up with the daily Capture Your 365 prompts, but after taking over 200 pictures at our annual church beach trip, then working through all those photos in Lightroom, I didn’t get but a few photos for this week. Oh well, life moves on…

dolphins

ISO 100, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec

So this first photo doesn’t really fit any of the photo prompts for last week, but I just had to share it! We were watching these dolphins all afternoon at the beach, and at first, I wasn’t sure if my 200mm lens would be able to capture these guys out in the ocean. It wasn’t until I loaded the photos into Lightroom that I saw this image. I was so excited to have captured this! I did have 8x10 prints made of this photo to send to our Compassion kids along with some dolphin facts and printables I found on Pinterest.

on a board

ISO 800, 82mm, f/4.2, 1/4 sec

Day 260 – On A Board: Yes, I know we are officially in autumn, but summer is my favorite season! The nights and mornings are cooler here, but we are still seeing 80 degree temperatures during the day. Just warm enough to sit outside in the afternoon with bare feet. I am soaking it in while it lasts.

moon

ISO 800, 135mm, f/16, 1/4 sec

Day 261 – Sugar and Spice: I really should have done some baking on this day, but I didn’t. The moon was so incredibly full and bright on this night. I love to be reminded to take moments like this to just be still and be amazed by His creation.

morning sun

ISO 100, 50mm, f/16, 0.6 sec

Day 262 – Morning Sun: Unless I get up really early, throw on some clothes, and drive down the road, there is no way I am going to photograph the morning sun. So I thought I would experiment with a little bit of sun flare on this one with a small aperture. Probably not one I will print and hang on my wall, but fun to play with.

Have you been working on the Capture Your 365 challenge?

Capture Your 365

Five for you this week!

pink

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/80 sec

Day 229 – Pink: Pink is not my color, blue is. My home is decorated with lots of blue and I have a lot of clothes that are blue. It is hard for me to find pink things around my home. It was getting to the end of day and I remembered that I still needed to capture a photo from my day. A cloud filled evening sky usually has some shades of pink, so I stepped outside and saw this lovely summer evening sky with just a few shades of pink. Perfect!

measured

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/50 sec

Day 230 – Measured:Pinterest is a wonderful way for me to store recipes that I want to try (I even have a whole board devoted to recipes I would love to try!) No more piles of clippings from magazines collecting dust in my home. But every now and then, there is a recipe I find that sits on my counter just begging me to give it a try. And since I had just about all of the ingredients at home on this summer day, I decided to make it!

spin

ISO 100, 50mm, f/14, 1/80 sec

Day 233 – Spin: Kelsey and I were meeting a young mom from church at one of our local parks. Since I knew they had swings, I just had to bring my camera along! She wasn’t spinning too quickly, so I knew I didn’t need too fast of a shutter speed to freeze the motion. This was my favorite one out of the bunch. I love how her braid is ‘flying’ out away from her. And I love that my 13 year old daughter is not ‘too old’ to swing for me.

abundant

ISO 400, 50mm, f/16, 1/320 sec

Day 234 – Abundant: Kelsey and I were able to spend the whole day with friends up in the foothills today. My friend and I were able to talk all day long while the girls played, chatted, swam, and made fun videos. It was a wonderful day! On the way home, I knew I wanted to capture the sunset. We pulled over a couple of times to get just the right shot. I love the sun flares on this one.

local landscape

ISO 200, 50mm, f/6.3, 1/80 sec

Day 235 – Local Landscape: As I have mentioned before, there are some days when we just stay home all day long. I could have driven around town to find something away from our home to photograph for this prompt, but why not take a picture of my own backyard since it is part of my local landscape and a place I enjoy spending time. Especially reading over in those red chairs with my iced coffee.

Have you started to Capture Your 365 yet?