I am thankful for the 8.5 months I was able to be an Area Manager for World Vision. With our upcoming adoption time frame uncertainty, I decided to step down to have some more family time. It was a delight serving with the Child Ambassadors in my region. And I am still a Child Ambassador – so I still want people to sponsor kids 🙂
Trying Out My New Camera
Last week I got a Canon 7D to replace my 10D, which in the digital SLR camera world is now almost equivalent to stone knives and bear skins (actually it’s not that bad…it is probably more like having a musket). It was the top-of-the-line “prosumer” camera when I got it about 6+ years ago, and I think it is still a great camera, but there are quite a few features that the 7D has that I wanted, and I figured is was finally time for an upgrade. I also got a new, more versatile zoom lens that’s pretty highly rated (an EF-S 15-85mm, just in case anyone actually cares). Although it’s not quite “pro” quality, because those lenses run about 3-5 times the price, I’m still pretty satisfied.
Several days ago I gave them a good test, setting up a white backdrop and some flashes, and did a mini-photo shoot of Nadia. I’ve never done this sort of shoot with her before. Seven months ago I did a little session for Christmas with the tree in the background, and well over a year ago I did a shoot of her at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, which was fantastic. But I was anxious to see how this setup with the white backdrop would turn out, because it is my favorite style and I think it’s what I do best. She was NOT cooperative at all, but I pushed through it and I think they turned out fabulous. I’m quite pleased. I ended up with 47 shots that I thought were worth saving, and I’ve posted what I think are the top 22. Below are several of my favorites. Click on the first picture to see the whole album on the Photos page.
This one sums up her attitude through much of the shoot. 🙂
Nadia would like to announce…
Well at least she WILL BE one day. We are very happy to announce that we are going to adopt from China again. Here are the basics:
- We hope to have the adoption completed by next summer.
- It will be a girl because we would like Nadia to have a sister.
- We will be applying for a waiting child/special need child.
- What does that mean? We will be accepting a child with a mild to moderate medical need.
- We are nearly finished fulfilling all the requirements and gathering all the documents that the Department of Homeland Security and China need to adopt from China.
- Everything now has to comply with the Hauge Treaty for adoption. So each step has been a little bit different than what we went through with Nadia, but not drastically different.
- We are hoping for a child between 1 and 2 years old.
- Her first name will be Amelie (pronounced AM-uh-lee) and we will keep her Chinese name as her middle name, like we did with Nadia.
- Nadia is very excited, but said that we should name her Vulture instead, so that she can say, “Vulture, where aaaaare you? Come heeere Vulture.”
Thankful Thursday
I am oh so thankful for the amount of scrapbooking I have accomplished in the last month. Between May 30th and June 30th I completed 136 pages.