LDS Seminary Olympics

I teach early morning seminary for my ward in The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints. It is one of my favorite things to do! As we are witnessing the world wide Olympics we have been celebrating our own Seminary (or Zarahemla) Olympics. I have used this as an opportunity to encourage them to accomplish some of those daily goals that we made at the beginning of the year. I divided my class of 29 into four teams and gave them a bit of time at the beginning of one lesson to select the country they would represent, this year we are studying The Book of Mormon, so they selected from one of the regions we are studying. They also got to make their own flag to represent their country...I will post photos of these soon ... they are very creative!

Each day they compete in the following "individual: events...

Moguls - Attendance ... specifically arriving on time
Cross Country Skiing - Daily Reading
Free Style Skating - Answering a Daily Challenge Question

The team gets points for each teammate's accomplishments

Because my students are not huge participators and because I want them to start discussing I have also been giving them points for asking and answering questions (Skeleton Event). This has been really successful! They have begun to get involved in class because of the Olympic competition but I really think they will keep it up even after our "closing ceremonies" because through this exercise I think/hope they have really loosened up and are actually ENJOYING the discussions we are having! Who knew?

Because of all the snow days we have had we have not had the opportunity to do all of the Scripture Mastery Games/ Olympic Games I had planned but we did one today that the youth loved. Today it was Snow Bucket Ball.

Snow Bucket Ball  - We set up four tables with a trash bucket in front of each (a few feet away). The night before I made up a set of pages and made four copies, one for each team ... each page had a phrase from each of the 25 Scripture Mastery Passages (I could have used the "key phrases" they learn to help them find the SM but I wanted them to have a bit more of a challenge) I numbered each page in the upper left hand corner (1-25) and then wrote up a master list as an answer key ... for example 1 - 1 Nephi 3:7,   2 - 2 Nephi 3:21 etc ...

After the tables were set up I placed one set of clues, face down, on each table and spread them out.

Before the game began the team selected one of their own to be a "judge" ... this person was given the master list I made up with the answers.

The game went as follows... The teams stood behind their table. One person started the game by moving to the opposite side of the table facing their team across the table (Playing order should be decided before they begin) that person then flipped over one of the pages, they then called out the number found in the left hand corner (for the judge) , then they read the clue to their team. The team was allowed to help them by using their scriptures or their SM Flash Cards. The goal was to find the correct Scripture Mastery scripture from the clue.  When they thought they knew the SM Reference they informed the "Judge" ... if they were correct they then balled up the paper, turned around facing the basket, and threw the "snowball" ... when they made the basket they could then turned around and choose another one.

They continued in this way until I yelled "SWITCH" at which time a new player would come in the front and select, guess, and throw.

I kept this going for about 8 minutes after which one team had gotten all of the clues and made all the baskets. I had the judges count up their snowballs and awarded Gold, Silver, Bronze and Adomantium (NO idea how to spell that but its from wolverine :) The team that came in last thought that was super cool!

It was a GREAT activity! They had so much fun and they got to review all their Scripture Mastery Scriptures. One of the best parts was that even those two student I have that virtually NEVER participate had something to do (One kept time and one was a judge) and felt like part of the team ... I even saw them laugh!

All in all a pretty Olympic day!!

Amaryllis mia bella

Love love love flowers! Amaryllis finally bloomed bright and happy!

I am a daughter of God

I am so grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints. Let me tell you some of the things we believe...today...in 2014. We believe in God the eternal father and in His son Jesus Christ. We believe that men will be judged for what they do on this earth and not for Adams transgressions.  We believe in being good to each other. We believe in doing service. We believe in loving our neighbor. We believe in modern day revelation and modern day prophets.We believe that we can each have a personal relationship with Heavenly Father, that He will listen to our prayers and answer them, we believe that our job is to follow our Saviors example as best we can. We believe that families can be together forever. We believe that all men and women are equal in the sight of God. Do we live these precepts 100%? Do I? No, sadly we are human and we make mistakes )I make mistakes) and make bad choices. For this reason I am grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ which allows me to repent and then start anew. I am also grateful that though we/I do make bad choices sometimes we make a lot of really great choices too and we are always trying to be the best we can be, blessing as many lives as we can. I am grateful to be a member of this church and most especially to have the knowledge that I am a daughter of God.

Just Let em Run!

Oh my GOSH! what cutie pies!!! These boys where quite the handful but I loved every minute of it! I think when you have active kiddies the best thing to do is just go with it. I think allowing them a little freedom, to run and jump and play you can capture those "real" moments and  then take mini opportunities to get the calmer family shots. I think this makes the shoot much more fun for the parents too ... who needs to be stressing about your kids behavior at a photo shoot? It should be fun and real, and stress free...

at least for the family :)

Greatest Job in the world!

 

  This was another wonderful photo shoot ... I like meeting and getting to know these families whose pictures I take almost as much as I like taking the photographs.

 

 

 

 
 

I like taking pictures that do not necessarily speak "Portrait". I love this one here to the left ... just hands held and a hint of the youngster and her Nana. I don't think that you always have to have a perfect full face picture to create an incredible moment. But then below is a full face photo that I think is pretty special! What a great family!!! I have to admit that I have the greatest "job" in the world!

My job and my joy...

 
Was there ever a cuter little lady? What a fun afternoon we had taking photos of this little gal. It was a COLD afternoon and this family of three could only do the photo shoot at noon so conditions weren't perfect but we worked fast, made do, and I think the results were pretty darn good!

 

  I tried to work around the shadows, they seemed to be everywhere ... But we found pockets of consistent light throughout the park and of course my subjects were super photogenic so that was a plus!

 I experimented a bit with black and white for the primary subject *see photo to the right) and used the lovely pink flower for a POP of color. I think it is one of my favorites and while it is not a super original idea it is new to me.

Now this might not be particularly politically correct but I have to say it... I do not have a lot of experience photographing black people.There I said it ...  My boys, who are mostly white, play with friends of all different colors and I do photograph them and they all come out great BUT this was my first "professional" shoot and I wanted it to be perfect! I struggled a bit at first to make sure the lighting worked for both skin tones but as you can see I managed to balance it just fine. I did have to do a  few test shots with each new setting but I would do that regardless of skin tone... I am fairly new to this after all and require a bit more time than the well seasoned photographer.
I have lots of clients of all different colors so I am glad I had this experience and so grateful for really cool people who allowed me a few extra practice shots.

 

  All in all the shoot went well. What I didn't mention above was that when the family arrived they informed me that their sweet babe was getting over RSV, a respiratory infection, and so she was somewhat cranky after only the first few shots. So it was cold, high noon, AND the babe was sick! However one of my jobs (and joys) as a photographer is being able to work well in all situations and create memories and preserve moments in time ... I am grateful that despite a few things working against us on this chilly afternoon many things worked FOR us and we were able to compile some really beautiful shots of a really wonderful family!

Families are Forever

This family is just amazing and the kids are so darn cute! I would have loved to try a few different locations but we were trying to fit the shoot in between the bouts of pouring rain! But despite the deluges it was a fun fun fun evening!