Weekly Header Challenge - Steaming into the New Year

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Steaming into the New Year

Chosen by Mac.

I'm publishing this post as we are steaming toward midnight here in Chicagoland!!  Here's the full image representing my header:

A little odd, I admit.  But see that truck?  It has a satellite dish on the back of it, and Fernando drove it home the night before Thanksgiving, just in time to celebrate with us.  This truck--called a SAT truck in the industry--represents our future:  Fernando's employment, steady work, and the ability to continue to live in our beautiful little (by American standards) home.  This is what we'll be using to steam into the new year.

As we take down the ornaments on our tree...

...and reflect on how the Lord has blessed us this past year, we're looking forward to continuing to celebrate...

...every answered prayer (all prayers are answered, y'know), every blessing, every turn in the path, as we drive down the road the Lord has planned out for this new year.  God bless you and yours, as you steam into your own wonderful new year!!


Back to life,

Christine
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Weekly Header Challenge -- Food

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Food

Chosen by Craver.

Ahhh, food.  If I'm going to eat it, it has to be good food.  If I'm going to make it, it also should look beautiful.  And if I'm going to shoot it, it needs to look beautiful!  Here are my food photos--I made it, I presented it, I shot it.

My most recent new recipe--Flourless Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake.  Yeah, it was that good.  *drool*

Red Lentil Soup (amazing!).

Four-Cheese Ravioli with fried sage leaves and brown butter sauce.

(I bought the ravioli but made everything else.)

Stack of whole-wheat pancakes with strawberry sauce.  And syrup.

I make my own vanilla with vodka and Madagascar vanilla beans.

Strawberry shortcake.  When no whipping cream is available, use ice cream.

Homemade strawberry preserves, using agar instead of pectin as a thickener.

Fernando grilled it!  Red peppers are from my garden.

One of my one-pound heirloom tomatoes.

Canning my jalapenos (and my garlic).

Butternut squash growing in my garden.

Garden harvest.

Pico de gallo -- fresh salsa with everything from my garden.

I started this blog post with cake, so I'll end it with cake!

Chocolate Cake to the Max.

Merry Christmas!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - Right Place, Right Time

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Right Place, Right Time

Chosen by Tom.

I panicked this morning, because I totally forgot that it was Headbanger Day!!  Then I checked my Lightroom catalog, and realized--I had already designed a header for this week, and uploaded all my photos!  Everything was ready to go.  So here I am, barely on time once again.  Here is my header, full image style:

These football pictures are definitely a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Fortunately, I was the team photographer, and I was allowed on the sidelines.  Right place, check.  I have tons of great images, because of a little luck called the right time.  Many plays were way across the field, or my lens didn't zoom enough, or...  But I have a good number of images where the play happened close enough to me, at the right angle, to make the images great.

Many Right Place, Right Time images are a matter of finding your spot, anticipating what's going to happen, then waiting.  With a little luck, you'll get that shot at just the right time.  Here are the rest of my images; some have been featured as header images in the past, simply because they were taken in the right place and at the right time.  Enjoy!

The below shot was pure luck--we were at Andy's (frozen custard shop) with another family, good friends of ours who were moving.  We were there for one last ice cream together (we had introduced them to Andy's frozen custard after we met them).  I had brought my camera to snap some pictures when we heard the whomp-whomp-whomp of military helicopters landing at our local airstrip a mere three blocks away.  Shot between the trees, right after dusk, silhouetted against the sky--sweet.

Cubs win!

Sneaking the camera out for a restaurant shot.

Butterfly landing on purple coneflower.

Boat tour going under the Thousand Islands Bridge.

Girl water-skiing on Lake Bonaparte.

Now I kinda want it to be summer again.  Hope you have a super day!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - It's Cold Out There!

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ It's Cold Out There!

Chosen by Kathy.

It hasn't been that cold this week here, but winter is definitely making inroads in the Chicagoland area, and we all know what's coming in another month...brr!  I decided to go back in time to the first year I owned Ellie, my Canon 40D and my first digital camera. 

I brought Ellie to Mount Trashmore, a nearby "mountain" which was, as you can guess, made with the help of trash.  In the winter, it's the perfect hill--well, the only hill around here, really--for tubing!  My brother Matt and his wife Char asked the family to come out and go tubing with them.  My favorite picture of the day is this one, my header:

Matt giving Char a huge push off the top of the hill.

If you're not familiar with wintertime tubing, it's really easy--get an inner tube and find a hill.  Ride the tube down.  Scream and laugh and hang out with friends.  Mount Trashmore is great because they have a concession stand with hot chocolate.

On this particular January day (1/9/2010), it was about 18 degrees, as I recall.  When it's that cold, you may as well bundle up and have some fun.  So we did!

Fernando.

Not sure who took this, but I rode on Fernando's back.

The only hard part about tubing is that you have to climb all the way back up the hill.

Ellie came with me for this ride; I ended up riding it down backwards--that's the view toward the top.

At the end of the day, we walked around the frozen park for a while and ended up at a pavilion before trudging through the snow back to the car.  I happened to be standing in the right place at the right time (hey, that's an upcoming theme!) and caught the below picture.  For a beginning digital photographer, I think I did a good job.  :)

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - Christmas Is Coming

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Click on the other participants' blogs to see

what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Christmas is Coming

Chosen by Lew.

Christmas is coming...  And it's coming up quick!  Here is the full image from my header, of carolers at our door.  These carolers started at our house (in our house--we hosted!) and sang all through our neighborhood, sharing the love of Christ through Christmas song with everyone who opened their door.  They even had a neighbor pull her car over to the curb, and ask them to sing!

We know Christmas is coming when...

...our home starts to look a little more festive:

...gifts for needy children are wrapped:

...homemade gifts for family are assembled:

...peppermint candy appears in abundance!

...the kitchen starts to smell like cookies:

...greetings from friends appear on our walls:

Most importantly, our hearts and minds turn to the most precious gift of all, God become Man, our Savior!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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