Friday Photo Dump

It's Friday, it's Friday! 

The weekend plans: District championships for russ's basketball team - woop, woop!

Spa outing with a friend who is treating me... TRIPLE woop!

Mexico missions trip meeting for Russ and Kendall who are going this summer - I'm so excited for them!

And here's what's been going on lately...

Hey, I think daddy is comfy too. 

We took the family bowling for the first time in eons and yep, I'm just as sucky as ever. Fun times. 

Kendall's face after seeing "Into the Woods", which she was NOT a fan of after everything took a turn for the worse 2/3 of the way into the film. Hehe. 

We finally got our new trampoline up (Christmas present for the kids) - yeah!

And then Windageddon happened... RUDE. 

The trampoline is fine but two of the poles holding up the enclosure bent horribly so we had to take it off. Again, RUDE.

The Valentine's treats I made for my kids' class parties. 

(And for myself, because who doesn't love a sweet chocolate hug mixed with a salty pretzel?!!)

The result of my "quick trip to the store" that I wrote a list for and then forgot to bring with me. 

Came home and checked off what I remembered... WINNING.

Kendall singing on stage with the youth praise team for the first time for a special Youth Sunday service... you bet I marched on up to the front and took pictures!

We have been having some glorious spring-like weather so Russ decided to start tackling our apple trees (we have 14) that have been sadly in need of a good pruning for the past couple of years. Nine down... five to go! 

So this is a funny story. 

Kendall drew this picture and showed it to me this week. I had no idea who it was but was super impressed... and when she said "It's Peeta from the Hunger Games" I was all, 

OF COURSE! 

Obviously it's not exactly right, but hey, she's thirteen!

So I posted it on facebook and instagram and asked for people to guess who it was. 

And the overwhelming response was, "Kendall's Grandma!" 

HAHAHAHA. (Sorry Mum ;)

Mirrorless

Russell pulled off a huge surprise for me this past Christmas by buying me my first ever dslr camera, something I've been wanting for years. Except he didn't quite get the dslr part right, which made for a very hilarious Christmas video (see Jodi's face go from shocked jubilee to confusion to, "oh honey... it was a good try!"). It's a family classic.

Anway, Russ told me to return my "almost a dslr" camera and pick the one I wanted, and me being the research nerd that I am, I immediately embarked on a very involved camera investigation with the help of my even-more-of-a-research-nerd little brother.

Jamin was the one who told me about the newest mirrorless cameras, a camera type I'd never heard of before. I was very sceptical at first but youtube and online reviews won me over (just like he promised they would), and a little over a week ago my new Sony a6000 finally arrived in the mail!

I am OBSESSED with it. Obbbsesssssed.

So, in case you are wondering, mirrorless cameras use new technology that removes the mirrors that make dslrs bulky, so they have the same (and even better) capabilities in a much more compact size. They still have interchangeable lenses, and with an adapter you can actually use your nikon or cannon ones. Sony is leading the pack right now in this technology and many professional photographers are switching over.

Not that I want to be a professional photographer. I just want to be able to take better pictures!

(my first picture... of course it had to be of my beloved vegemite ;)

(playing around outdoors)

I'm still in the very early stages of learning how to use it, but I'm just in love and can't stop talking about it... so in case you're curious, here are a couple of video links that helped me make my decision:

And my favorite... (it's kinda long but fun to watch  - I love weddings!)

Have you heard of mirrorless? Very few of my friends have... it's kind of fun to be on the front end of something new and pretty awesome! Merry Christmas to me! :)

Hello again, and Hey Valentine!

Hi, friends. I've decided to reenter the blogging world... as awkward as it feels. Awkward because blogging feels like real life and the last few weeks have not felt real at all. But my blog is important to me and I think therapeutic for me as well, and I've missed it.

I am not going to write about the accident. It's just too tender of a subject, and I don't have the distance of time to be able to see the full outcome, let alone reflect on it with any amount of proper perspective. More importantly, if the family of the man that lost his life were to by chance come across this little space of mine, I would never, ever want to cause them pain by discussing ours.

So I will write about the everyday, and the fun and the funny, and hope that people will not take me as flippant. Just protective.

I'm going to start with Valentine's Day because, well, I love Valentine's Day.

This year called for a low-key celebration and that's what we did, a casual date night out to dinner and the movies with Russ's brother and sister-in-law.

We gorged ourselves on Olive Garden pasta and breadsticks, group played Trivia Crack while waiting for our theater to be seated, and saw Taken 3, which was as predictable as can be expected of any film's third installment. What I'm saying is that we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

And in case you were wondering just how romantic Russ and I are these days... this is what I asked for instead of a card or flowers:

That's right. Mirror #4 is the one, guys. The one that's not going to fail me like all the rest that have fallen and shattered (my heart). Russ was like, "You realize how permanent this is, right?" And I was all, "I AM ALL IN."

Which, coincidentally, summarizes how I feel about that guy of mine.

Absent

Please excuse my blogging absence. My family was involved in a horrible car accident on Sunday, January 25th, and while we are all sore and bruised but okay, there was a fatality, and it has rocked our world. The aftermath has been both overwhelming and devastating and will take time to heal and recover from.

I will be back.

Family prayer - the tradition continues

Last Sunday afternoon marked the 15th year of a beloved annual tradition... Halverson Family Prayer Day. 

I've written about it before (I've actually mentioned it every year since I started blogging), and I've decided I like that... having it included here on my blog... to remember. 

We started family prayer with Russ's parents, aunt, and siblings back when the kids were babies, some not born yet, and us adults would try to get as far away from the noise and crying and chaos as we could and then make it real quick before someone got injured. And now we have seniors in high school and everyone is involved, and man, is that something special.

It always starts with gathering for a meal. 

(We really like to eat.)

We talk and visit and shake our heads at what happens every single time the cousins get together (mass ipod/ipad gameage).

And then we casually begin, reading the things that we prayed for at the start of the previous year (that we wrote down and stored in a jar to remember), and sharing how those things turned out... all the kids included. We have found that nothing is more encouraging than looking back and seeing how faithful God is in the big and in the little. Sometimes our prayers are answered quickly and incredibly. Sometimes they end up taking all year, or several years, or are still continuing. And sometimes it seems like they weren't answered at all but the looking back makes us realize God did or is doing something even better.

Next we share any other praise reports of cool things God did over the course of the year.

And then we share what (and often, who) we are lifting up in prayer for the new year, and write them down and put them in a jar.

Everyone shares. Everyone opens up their hearts. Everyone feels supported and unashamed and hopeful.

And then Gary, my father-in-law, prays.

And then we jump and shout and hug and dance when the Seahawks come back from behind and win to make it into the Superbowl because we totally waited till halftime to start prayer and then turned the game back on to watch the end the second we were done. 

It's a very solemn occasion.