Each summer we visit Suzanne’s family in Oklahoma.  This year, we mixed it up a bit by attending a few days at a family camp at New Life Ranch in Colcord, OK.  Suz worked there one summer in college and signed us up for the first time as family campers.  Since the trip would take close to nine hours from our home in Illinois, we spent a night in Springfield, Missouri, where we swam at the hotel, ate at Lambert’s Cafe (where they throw food at diners), visited the Bass Pro Shops headquarters, and were nearly eaten alive by wild camels at a safari animal park.

We all had a great time at New Life Ranch.  I believe there were about 50 families there during our camp, and each family was assigned a staff member to help however the family needed assistance.  The first morning of our stay, for example, Suzanne and I took a trail ride on horseback into the hills for breakfast, so our staff assistant, Mr. Luke, took the kids to breakfast at the dining hall and had them ready to go for the rest of the day when we returned.  Sweet.

Each day began with a brief  group worship time after which the kids went off to age-appropriate Bible lessons and activities while the adults spent time learning about parenting.  Our speaker was Chip Jackson from Fellowship Northwest Arkansas church–he was terrific. Suz and I came away encouraged and with some good things to help us continue in our parenting journey.  After lunch, we had the afternoon free to explore the camp’s numerous activities and facilities: ropes course, climbing walls, swimming pool, waterfront with huge slides, mountain biking, horseback riding, rifle/shotgun ranges, and more.  Evenings involved more teaching time and group activities.  Although we spent only two and a half days there, we were all exhausted from late nights, early mornings, and full days.

From Colcord, we went on to visit Suzanne’s family. We’ve posted a few photos from our trip here, and there’s a video below of Suz and I going down the zip line at the ranch.  Although we signed up everybody to ride the zip line, only mom and dad were brave enough to climb to poles and go down.

Another weekend in April means another birthday.  This year Erin hit double digits: she’s now a decade old.  To celebrate, she invited her girlfriends (and their American Girls dolls) over for a tea party.  Suz prepared some delicious treats for the day: cream puffs with chocolate syrup, heart-shaped brownies with powdered sugar, and fruit kabobs.  The girls played American Girl trivia, did some weaving, and went home with a tea cup filled with nice little goodies.

Maura celebrated two significant events this weekend: her sixth birthday and her success at riding a “two-wheeler.”  She had several friends over on Saturday for a “Princess and the Frog” themed event.  Suzanne, as usual, made an excellent cake for the party.

The girls colored pictures, ate cake, blew bubbles, played with sidewalk chalk, had an Easter egg hunt (not often that you get to do that at a birthday party–Maura’s idea), and played on the swingset.  Quite a time.

After church on Sunday, Suz took Maura and her bike out to one of the local baseball fields.  We’ve found that a baseball field has been good training ground for learning to ride a two-wheeler: the infield is firm enough to ride on but much more forgiving than the street when the kids fall.  Not much later they came back home and Maura was eager to show off her new skills.

Six years old and all grown up.  (BTW, Maura picked out her own clothes today….. )

The kids have been in swim lessons the last two weeks, which has left us all a little more tired than usual (thanks to later bedtimes).  Worth it?  You bet.

It’s not often that I can surprise my wife.  In a good way, that is.

Suz has planned and pulled off two surprise parties for me in the last few years–I’m a little slow on the uptake when it comes to paying attention to birthdays.  For my 40th birthday last summer, she invited some friends over and, even after they’d arrived, I still wasn’t aware it had been planned.  Duh.

Suzanne celebrated her 40th birthday last week and, with this milestone occasion, I felt we needed to do something special.  With the help of some of her friends, I began laying the groundwork several weeks ago for a surprise party on Friday.  I checked with her girlfriends to make sure the date was clear–no problem.  Friday, Feb. 26, was good.  The main issue was getting everyone to the house without blowing the surprise.  Normally we have Family Movie Night each Friday, which means we’re all in our PJs and the kids stay up later than usual.  I didn’t want to have guests show up unexpectedly while we were all in “relax mode;” that wouldn’t have been the good kind of surprise.

As it turns out, though, Ryan, the husband of Suz’s friend Deanne, shares the same birthday as Suzanne.  Deanne and I reckoned that we could get Suz to invite them over on Friday for a mutual birthday celebration.  Perfect!  This was the last piece we needed to keep the surprise a surprise.  So Suz and Deanne made their plans and everything else fell in place.

Instead of our usual movie night, we played a game with the kids and put them to bed earlier.  Ryan and Deanne came over around 7:45 and the other guests were instructed to arrive at 8:00.  As friends began appearing on our porch, Suzanne had no clue what was happening.  Mission accomplished: she was surprised.  In a good way.  She even said it was the best 40th birthday party ever.

Many thanks to Deanne, Ryan, Shannon, Rob, Chantell, Eric, Rachel, Natalie, and Bethany for being available, bringing food, and being our friends.  Thanks for making Suz feel loved.  And happy birthday to you, wife.  You are loved indeed.

Liam made this picture today.  To many it will look like a snapshot.

It’s not.

This picture was made, not taken.  And for that reason, it’s not a snapshot; it’s a photograph.

Photographers distinguish between taking and making a picture.  If you see a scene, raise the camera to your eye (or, as is now the case with most small digital cameras, hold it at arm’s length in front of you) and fire away, you are taking a picture.  If, on the other hand, you see a scene or subject, visualize how you want the final image to look, consider the background, think about your composition, analyze and–if necessary–modify the light, and thus create the means to achieve your vision–then you are making a photograph.

Liam is always cooking up and working out some idea in his head.  He is great at visualizing and works hard to execute and achieve his vision.  For this reason, he loves building toys: Legos, Snap Circuits, K’Nex.  He also loves tape and paper and scissors because, to him, these are tools for creating things.  One of his favorite Christmas gifts was a bag of various kinds of tape–duct, masking, transparent–from his grandma.  Liam isn’t just building things; rather, he is creating with intent.

He’s often seen or helped me set up an environment for making portraits: set up a background, put up lights, measure, shoot, check, repeat.  This evening he was building with his K’Nex blocks and evidently decided he wanted to make a picture of the tractor he built.  As we were preparing for dinner, he was building a background for his photo session.  He used two sheets of paper, a ruler, the lid from a container, and, of course, tape.  All of this was unprompted: he didn’t ask me for advice or help; he just set himself to it.

After dinner I walked into the den and found him hard at work on the next phase of his project, making the pictures.  Here are some “behind the scenes” images:

While reviewing his pictures on the camera’s monitor, Liam noticed that the white background didn’t fill the frame completely on some of the images–he hadn’t achieved his vision.  We talked about how to correct this (move back physically from the subject and zoom in).  Some were blurry (hold the camera steady after you focus).  He wondered if maybe he should be using a tripod; I suggested that setting the camera on the floor would work for this session.  He asked if there was a way to use the computer to take out parts of the image you don’t want, like the carpet instead of the white paper.  Sometimes, I said, but it’s better to get it right “in camera” whenever you can.  He wasn’t pleased with the way the shadows appeared in his photos; I told him we’d work on off-camera lighting another time.

As a photographer, I love the way he came up with this idea and then pulled it all together.  Liam had a vision and worked with the tools he had at hand to execute that vision–brilliant.  Not too shabby for a seven-year-old.

As his daddy, I just love him.

Girls singing and dancing in their PJs.  Just another Saturday morning at our house.