God’s Faithfulness

As the weather cools and the leaves begin to turn, the signs of fall are all around us.  Our sovereign God controls all things.  His faithfulness to us is displayed in the changing of the seasons as the heat of summer gives way to the cool  nights of early fall.  Soon, the snow will fly only to be followed by the daffodils of spring.  As sure as the seasons is God’s grace offered to us in the horror of the cross.  One day we will be with him.  Until then, we enjoy the beauty of his creation and dream of the day when all will be made perfect as it was intended to be before Adam allowed pride to enter his heart.

As we spent our first afternoon in a tree stand, we were filled with anticipation for the deer that might pass within range.  On this day, that was not to be.  As so often happens, each deer passed by safely beyond the range of my arrow.  There will be more days to dream about the big one that didn’t get away. Today was a day to spend some time with my boys and recognize that I am blessed by the God of All.

New Blog

Because none of us have enough blogs to follow... Karen and I have a new blog. We wanted to have something that our friends and Karen's family could see without sending all that traffic to the Thompson family blog. There's a link to it on the right, along with Tom's & Rob's blogs. For now, you can check this link: http://www.spenglerspot.blogspot.com

Photo project

Here's a photo I took of Lindsay along a trail off of the Kancamagus Highway. I shot it in RAW and .jpg format simultaneously. The picture was Karen's idea, using the amazingly blue sky and vibrant green leaves as a backdrop. Karen held Lindsay over her head while I got her attention and took the shot. Due to the bright light in the background, I shot with the pop-up flash on... not much control, but just enough to provide some fill-flash. Lots of smiles, but this one was my favorite!


Using Photoshop CS2, I made some edits. 1st, I cropped, to remove Karen's thumb from the picture. I also pushed Lindsay over to the right just a bit to make the off-center seem more intentional and take advantage of the 2/3s rule... although I wasn't able to get all the way there. Next, because I shot in RAW, I was able to adjust the white balance, warming up the picture a bit to make the lighting feel more natural for that time of day. I then bumped up the contrast and saturation just a bit, while toning down the midtones slightly trying to reduce the hot spot effect on her forehead. Most importantly, perhaps, I lightened and saturated her eyes. In the original, her eyes are very dark and unnatural, while in this new version you get a better sense of their true color.




Then, just to see what it would look like in B&W, I used the Channel mixer to turn the photo to monochrome, pulling down the red tones and boosting the blue and green. That enabled just enough detail and contrast in her face.

I hope you like the results as much as we do! What a cutie!

Toby’s first touchdown

Kindergarten!

Chase's 1st day of Kindergarten was a huge success! He even went back for Day 2 today!

http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1301873016/a=8166226_8166226/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=comcast/

The Maine Event

Becca and I recently returned from a week in Maine. We spent the first few days camping in Camden Hills State Park, in Camden, ME, "The Jewel of the Maine Coast." While there, we went on a few hikes. The second half of our trip we stayed at Island View Inn. We filled our days with shopping, sight-seeing, sailing, and eating eating eating!

Happy Birthday, Brian!

I just happened to have this older picture of Brian on my work laptop. Enjoy your day, Brian! 26?! Getting old!

Mattie’s Baptism

Some have said they can’t see the album.   Try this

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/Loomisphotography/August2009BaptismPoolPart#

 

After proclaiming their faith in Jesus and desire to obey him throughout their lives, Mattie and two of her friends were Baptized last night.

Christopher can see now!

Evidently Christopher was pretty blind. The doctor could not believe he never told us that he couldn't see until 2 weeks ago.

Before

After

Uncle Earl's Retirement

Earl's retirement ceremony this weekend was fun. Uncle Lee told childhood stories on Sat. and a BBQ. On Sunday they showed pics of his and Donna's life's ministries. During the service Lee and Earl spoke. After the service we enjoyed a luncheon that the church provided. Shari, TC and kids were down for the BBQ and Traci and Art came for Sunday.

IMG_5923

IMG_5923
Originally uploaded by spenglerchip

The Columbine. This is the state flower for Colorodo. An amazingly beautiful, delicate flower now stained with such an ugly association with it's name. These flowers were everywhere in Vail and came in at least a dozen different colors and shades... yellows, blues, purples, reds and pinks.

Fantastic time in Vail!

We spent a week with some friends in Vail, Co a couple weeks ago. We had an AMAZING time! Hiking, mountain biking, flowers, beautiful laces! It was fantastic!

Since we returned I've been swamped with work, and re-finishing a set of bunkbeds for Chase & Zach. We just got them finished up, assembled, and put up in their room... so tonight I had a minutes. None of these are touched up yet, but it's a start!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22098538@N02/sets/72157621808728622/

I did it!

No, I didn't eat the fruit roll-up.

I joined Twitter. Now what do I do?

Chip

Darlene's Sweet 16

I finally have a few minutes to upload the pictures from Darlene's Sweet 16 party. We had a combined party with her best friend, Jacquelyn. It was a "Red Carpet Affair" so all the girls could wear their dresses from their school semi formals again. We used some graphics from Church that Tom made for our summer series "Shore at the Movies". He made a couple Oscar props and also made posters from their baby pictures. They had father daughter dance to Cinderella. Watching them dance I had to think back to 16 years ago when Tom held her for the first time. It feels like we blinked and now she is 16. Where did the years go?

Sweet 16

Belated Happy Memorial Day!

Mom and Dad came up for Memorial Day weekend and the boys' birthday. We had a party for the boys, went for a walk/bike ride, did some shopping, watched a really short parade, and of course did a little photo shoot. I know I haven't been posting many pictures lately, so here's a few to hold you over...

Sam's Testimony

Off to the race

Darlene left on the band trip this morning at 5:30. 15 hour bus trip to Kinds Island, OH then off to Indy 500 on Saturday for opening parade and 100th anniversary opening for Indy. They will be televised on ESPN Saturday @ 5:00.

Bible Instruction Class Graduation

After 9 months of hard work, Sam graduated from our Bible class.  In the class we covered Bible Survey, Doctrine, Church, Missions and Service.  Sam and his friends all did a great job.  each of the students led the Sunday morning service and gave their testimony.  I will upload the video to the blog soon.

 

 

²⁴Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. ²⁵Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.   

1 Corinthians 9:24-25

Summer Vacation

We are planning to be in NJ sometime around July 4.  What is everybody's else's plans?  We had thought about June 23-July 7 or there about.  Comment and give us your dates so we can plan to optimal time.

Happy Birthday to the newest licensed driver!